In this connection G. showed us an exercise that was quite new for us, without which, according to him, it was impossible to master moving nature. This was, as he called it, the "stop" exercise. "Every race," he said, "every nation, every epoch, every country, every class, every profession, has its own definite number of postures and movements. These movements and postures, as things which are the most permanent and unchangeable in man, control his form of thought and his form of feeling. But a man never makes use of even all the postures and movements possible for him. In accordance with his individuality a man takes only a certain number of the postures and movements possible for him. So that each individual man's repertory of postures
and movements is very limited.
"The character of the movements and postures in every epoch, in every race, and in every class is indissolubly connected with definite forms of thinking and feeling. A man is unable to change the form of his thinking or his feeling until he has changed his repertory of postures and movements. The forms of thinking and feeling can be called the postures and movements of thinking and feeling. Every man has a definite number of thinking and feeling postures and movements. Moreover moving, thinking, and feeling postures are connected with one another in man and he can never move out of his repertory of thinking and feeling postures unless he changes his moving postures. An analysis of man's thoughts and feelings and a study of his moving functions, arranged in a certain way, show that every one of our movements, voluntary or involuntary, is an unconscious transition from one posture to another, both equally mechanical.
"It is illusion to say our movements are voluntary. All our movements are automatic. Our thoughts and feelings are just as automatic. The automatism of thought and feeling is definitely connected with the automatism of movement. One cannot be changed without the other. So that if a man's attention is concentrated, let us say, on changing automatic thoughts, then habitual movements and habitual postures will interfere with this new course of thought by attaching to it old habitual associations.
"In ordinary conditions we have no conception how much our thinking, feeling, and moving functions depend upon one another, although we know, at the same time, how much our moods and our emotional states can depend upon our movements and postures. If a man takes a posture which with him corresponds to a feeling of sadness or despondency, then within a short time he is sure to feel sad or despondent. Fear, disgust, nervous agitation, or, on the other hand, calm, can be created by an intentional change of posture. But as each of man's functions, thinking, emotional, and moving, has its own definite repertory all of which are in constant interaction, a man can never get out of the charmed circle of his postures.
"Even if a man recognizes this and begins to struggle with it, his will is not sufficient. You must understand that a man's will can be sufficient to govern one center for a short time. But the other two centers prevent this. And a man's will can never be sufficient to govern three centers.
"In order to oppose this automatism and gradually to acquire control over postures and movements in different centers there is one special exercise. It consists in this—that at a word or sign, previously agreed upon, from the teacher, all the pupils who hear or see him have to arrest their movements at once, no matter what they are doing, and remain stock-still in the posture in which the signal has caught them. Moreover not only must they cease to move, but they must keep their eyes on the same spot at which they were looking at the moment of the signal, retain the smile on their faces, if there was one, keep the mouth open if a man was speaking, maintain the facial expression and the tension of all the muscles of the body exactly in the same position in which they were caught by the signal. In this 'stopped' state a man must also stop the flow of his thoughts and concentrate the whole of his attention on
preserving the tension of the muscles in the various parts of the body exactly as it was, watching this tension all the time and leading so to speak his attention from one part of the body to another. And he must remain in this state and in this position until
another agreed-upon signal allows him to adopt a customary posture or until he drops from fatigue through being unable to preserve the original posture any longer. But he has no right to change anything in it, neither his glance, points of support, nothing. If he cannot stand he must fall—but, again, he should fall like a sack without attempting to protect himself from a blow. In exactly the same way, if he was holding something in his hands he must hold it as long as he can and if his hands refuse to obey him and
the object falls it is not his fault.
"It is the duty of the teacher to see that no personal injury occurs from falling or from unaccustomed postures, and in this connection the pupils must trust the teacher fully and not think of any danger.
"The idea of this exercise and its results differ very much. Let us take it first of all from the point of view of the study of movements and postures. This exercise affords a man the possibility of getting out of the circle of automatism and it cannot be dispensed with, especially at the beginning of work on oneself.
"A non-mechanical study of oneself is only possible with the help of the 'stop' exercise under the direction of a man who understands it.
"Let us try to follow what occurs. A man is walking, or sitting, or working. At that moment he hears a signal. A movement that has begun is interrupted by this sudden signal or command to stop. His body becomes immovable and arrested in the midst of a transition from one posture to another, in a position in which he never stays in ordinary life. Feeling himself in this state, that is, in an unaccustomed posture, a man involuntarily looks at himself from new points of view, sees and observes himself in a new way. In this unaccustomed posture he is able to think in a new way, feel in a new way, know himself in a new way. In this way the circle of old automatism is broken. The body tries in vain to adopt an ordinary comfortable posture. But the man's will, brought into action by the will of the teacher, prevents it. The struggle goes on not for life but till the death. But in this case will can conquer. This exercise taken together with all that has been said is an exercise for self-remembering. A man must remember himself so as not to miss the signal; he must remember himself so as not to take the most comfortable posture at the first moment; he must remember himself in order to watch the tension of the muscles in different parts of the body, the direction in which he is looking, the facial expression, and so on; he must remember himself in order to overcome very considerable pain sometimes from unaccustomed positions of the legs, arms, and back, so as not to be afraid of falling or dropping something heavy on his foot. It is enough to forget oneself for a single moment and the body will adopt, by itself and almost un-noticeably, a more comfortable position, it will transfer the weight from one foot to another, will slacken certain muscles, and so on. This exercise is a simultaneous exercise for the will, the attention, the thoughts, the feelings, and for moving center.
"But it must be understood that in order to bring into action a sufficient strength of will to keep a man in an unaccustomed position an order or command from the outside: 'stop,' is indispensable. A man cannot give himself the command stop. His will will not obey this command. The reason for this, as I have said before, is that the combination of habitual thinking, feeling, and moving postures is stronger than a man's will. The command stop which, in relation to moving postures, comes from outside, takes the place of thinking and feeling postures. These postures and their influence are so to speak removed by the command stop—and in this case moving postures obey the will."
Soon after that G. began to put "stop," as we called this exercise, into practice in the most varied circumstances. G. first of all showed us how to "stand stock-still" immediately at the command "stop," and to try not to move, not to look aside no matter what was happening, not to reply if anyone spoke, for instance if one were asked something or even unjustly accused of something.
"The 'stop' exercise is considered sacred in schools," he said. "Nobody except the principal teacher or the person he commissions has the right to command a 'stop.' 'Stop' cannot be the subject of play or exercise among the pupils. You never know the position a man can find himself in. If you cannot feel for him, you do not know what muscles are tensed or how much. Meanwhile if a difficult tension is continued it can cause the rupture of some important vessel and in some cases it can even cause immediate death. Therefore only he who is quite certain in himself that he knows what he is doing can allow himself to command a 'stop.'
"At the same time 'stop' demands unconditional obedience, without any hesitations or doubts. And this makes it the invariable method for studying school discipline. School discipline is something quite different from military discipline, for instance. In that discipline everything is mechanical and the more mechanical it is the better. In this everything should be conscious because the aim
consists in awakening consciousness. And for many people school discipline is much more difficult than military discipline. There it is always one and the same, here it is always different.
"But very difficult cases occur. I will tell you of one case in my own life. It was many years ago in Central Asia. We had put up a tent by the side of an arik, that is, an irrigation canal. And three of us were carrying things from one side of the arik to the other where our tent was. The water in the arik came up to our waists. I and another man had just come out on the bank with some things and were preparing to dress; the third man was still in the water. He dropped something in the water, we afterwards found out that it was an ax, and he was feeling about on the bottom with a stick. At this moment we heard from the tent a voice which called 'Stop!' We both stood stockstill on the bank as we were. Our comrade in the water was just within our field of vision. He was standing bending down towards the water and when he heard 'stop' he remained in that posture. One or two minutes passed by and suddenly we saw that the water in the arik was rising. Someone perhaps a mile away had opened a sluice to let water into the small arik. The water rose very rapidly and soon reached the chin of the man in the water. We did not know if the man in the tent knew that the water was rising. We could not call out to him, we could not even turn our heads to see where he was, we could not look at each other. I could only hear my friend breathing. The water began to rise very rapidly and soon the head of the man in the water was completely covered. Only one hand was raised supported by a long staff. Only this hand was to be seen. It seemed to me that a very long time passed by. At length we heard: 'Enough!' We both sprang into the water and dragged our friend out of it. He had been almost suffocated."
We also very soon became convinced that the "stop" exercise was not at all a joke. In the first place it required us to be constantly on the alert, constantly ready to interrupt what we were saying or doing; and secondly it sometimes required endurance and determination of quite a special kind.
"Stop" occurred at any moment of the day. Once during tea P., who was sitting opposite me, had raised to his lips a glass of hot tea, just poured out, and he was blowing on it. At this moment we heard "Stop" from the next room. P.'s face, and his hand holding the glass, were just in front of my eyes. I saw him grow purple and I saw a little muscle near his eye quiver. But he held onto the glass. He said afterwards that his fingers only pained him during the first minute, the chief difficulty afterwards was with his arm which was bent awkwardly at the elbow, that is, stopped halfway through a movement. But he had large blisters on his fingers and they were painful for a long time.
Another time a stop caught Z. when he had just inhaled smoke from his cigarette. He said afterwards that never in his life had he experienced anything so unpleasant. He could not exhale the smoke and he sat with eyes full of tears and smoke slowly coming out of his mouth.
"Stop" had an immense, influence on the whole of our life, on the understanding of our work and our attitude towards it. First of all, attitude towards "stop" showed with undoubted accuracy what anyone's attitude was to the work. People who had tried to evade work evaded "stop." That is, either they did not hear the command to "stop" or they said that it did not directly refer .to them. Or, on the other hand, they were always prepared for a "stop," they made no careless movements, they took no glasses of hot tea in their hands, they sat down and got up very quickly and so on. To a certain extent it was even possible to cheat with the "stop." But of course this would be seen and would at once show who was sparing himself and who was able not to spare himself, able to take the work seriously, and who was trying to apply ordinary methods to it, to avoid difficulties, "to adapt themselves." In exactly the same way "stop" showed the people who were incapable and undesirous of submitting to school discipline and the people who were not taking it seriously. We saw quite clearly that without "stop" and other exercises which accompanied it, nothing whatever could be attained in a purely psychological way.
