Why do we need the Alexander Technique?
The human form is an elegant result of millions of years of evolution, perfectly adapted to Earth's gravity and capable of carrying out an astounding array of different activities with ease, power and finesse. Our highly evolved brains allow us to overcome instinctive behaviors and make conscious choices about what to do and how to do it. However, there is a downside to this vast behavioral flexibility: many of the patterns we impose patterns on our bodies are harmful and inefficient.
The road to pain is paved with good intentions! Poor movement and posture have many origins. We may imitate the postures of people we admire. We may find ways of walking that downplay some feature of our bodies that we don’t want to draw attention to. We may develop bodily attitudes designed to communicate a message to people around us that we are laid-back, or tough, or charming, or cool, or non-threatening, or a go-getter. In order to live up to these ideals, we shut ourselves off from physical sensation, so that we don't notice the subtle hints our body is giving us, and we don’t realize that we are doing something unhealthy to ourselves.
As these externally-imposed movement patterns become habitual, we forget how to be easy, graceful and light, and we may even forget that we ever knew. Performance suffers, as does our ability to find delight in being embodied. We struggle with aches and pains, and we injure ourselves too often.
Trying is only emphasizing the thing we know.
- F.M. Alexander
What is a lesson like?
A teacher of the Alexander Technique, with gentle verbal and hands-on assistance, can show you the way home. Over a course of weekly 45-minute lessons, you can learn what unnatural patterns you have been imposing on your form, and you can learn to undo them. The process is active, engaging, often surprising, and fun.
Dressed in comfortable clothing, you will explore simple everyday movements. With verbal and hands-on assistance from the teacher, you will learn to observe and change habits that interfere with optimum functioning.
Part of the lesson usually takes place on a table, where you can begin to change some of these habits without the interference that often comes with being upright.
After you learn to inhibit destructive habits in simple activities, your teacher can show you how to apply the principles to more complex mind-body problems, such as how to sit a trot, play a challenging passage of music, weed your garden, or pay your bills with a minimum of strain and tension. With continued practice, your kinesthetic feedback system will become more accurate, and you will be able to apply the principles to new activities on your own.
As you incorporate the technique into your life, you will find that you are more poised and confident, and readier to meet the unknown.
People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.
- F.M. Alexander
How is the Alexander Technique different from . . .
Chiropractic and Osteopathy
The Alexander Technique shares with these methods an interest in the bones being in right relationship to each other, so that they can effectively transfer the weight of the body and meet the earth's force. However, lessons in the Alexander Technique do not include "adjustments". Instead, students learn how to prevent the wrong ways of thinking, holding themselves, and moving that led them to want or need adjustments in the first place. When the wrong thing is prevented, the right
thing often does itself.
Yoga, Pilates and Tai Chi
Although the Alexander Technique shares with these practices a goal of reaching a balanced, centered state with fluid movement and easy breath, the method is very different. Instead of focusing on a particular set of movements to do every day, the Alexander Technique gives the student the skill to analyze any movement - from simple walking to a challenging yoga
pose - and figure out how to execute it with greater ease.
Massage and Bodywork
Although students usually find the brief "table-work" segment of an Alexander Technique lesson pleasant and relaxing, it is quite different from massage. It is done fully clothed, and it does not include any of the stroking, kneading or tapping that generally characterize massage. Rather,
it is another way to practice being aware of movements and tensions and making conscious choices about them.
Prevent the things you have been doing and you are half-way home.
- F.M. Alexander
Who was F.M. Alexander?
F.M. Alexander (1869-1955) was a young Shakespearean actor touring in Australia and Tasmania, when a recurring hoarse voice threatened to put an end to his burgeoning career. After unfruitful consultations with several doctors and voice teachers, he began to consider his approach to speaking and reciting. Through years of rigorous self-observation and experimentation, he solved his problem, developed a full, rich voice, and developed the Alexander Technique.
