You have been granted 30 seconds of undivided attention from everyone in a group of your choosing to tell them something about the Alexander Technique that will make them want to get to know it better…maybe even intimately.
The group you choose can be as big or as small as you want – the whole world, everyone in your country, everyone in your city, whatever – the choice is yours.
The group can be as general or as specific as you want – everyone, adults, children, musicians, auto mechanics – again whatever you choose.
You can use whatever medium you want – a few lines of text, a short audio message, a short video, an image (or images) – whatever you want.
You can provide factual information about the Alexander Technique.
You can provide a personal account.
You can write a poem.
You can sing or play a song.
Anything you want that will take 30 seconds, or less, for your audience to absorb.
How would you use this opportunity?
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If it’s going to be something written or a visual, please feel free to post it in a comment below and if I’ll do what I can to publicize it.
If it’s a audio clip, I’ll be glad to assist you in making it a micro-podcast for the Alexander Technique Podcast.
If it’s a video which requires some production skills, describe what you have in mind and maybe we can find a way to crowdsource it.
Please pass this page on to anyone you know who might want to take part in the project. If you want to get hold of me, you can use this contact page.
According to a New York Times article a few years ago, “For Elderly, Fear of Falling Is a Risk in Itself,” an estimated 10,000 people 65 and over die each year from injuries related to falls. Studies show that 30 to 50 percent of elderly people fear falling.
This fear can itself actually increase the risk of falls. As Patricia A. Miller, an occupational therapist and professor of occupational therapy at Columbia University points out, when people are afraid of falling, they often impose immobility on themselves. As they do less, their physical condition deteriorates, making them more susceptible to falls. What they fear becomes more likely.
Worse yet, this self-imposed inactivity often leads to depression which requires medication and the medications usually prescribed make falls more likely. Sometimes, the depression leads to drinking which also makes falls more likely. The combination of medication and drinking is particularly dangerous in this regard.
Some things have been shown to lessen the risks – better lighting, modified furniture and the like. Strengthening exercises and activities like yoga and tai chi may also be useful. But the teaching method pioneered by the late of F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the Alexander Technique, can be especially helpful in helping older people improve their balance, thereby lessening the likelihood of a fall.
The Alexander Technique can be described as a way to learning how to release harmful tensions from your body – tensions that get in the way of efficient functioning. Excess tension – particularly in the neck – has an immediate effect of balance. The neck is the connecting link between your body – which does the moving about – and your head, where those two important balance organs, your eyes and ears (more precisely, your inner ear canals) are located. Anything which interferes with the fluidity of that connection is bound to create balance problems.
You can easily test this for yourself by first standing on one foot for a few seconds, noticing your ability to remain upright. Once you have a sense of what it’s like to stand on one foot, tighten your neck and see what happens to your balance. (I’d advice having a chair or table or another person next to you while you perform this experiment so you can quickly get support if needed.)
It’s not uncommon for older adults to carry quite a bit of tension in their necks, and elsewhere in their bodies, without being aware of it. A major problem with this kind of chronic tension is that over time the “I am tense” signals from the affected muscles get cut off. Often older people with severe neck tension actually feel little or nothing in their necks. What they do notice, of course, are the results of that tension – restricted breathing, stiffness in their joints and, of course, increased risk of falling.
Although harmful tension habits are often become more deeply entrenched as we age, a hundred years experience of teaching the Alexander Technique has shown that these habits can be changed if there is a willingness and commitment to do so. In fact, many students of the Technique begin taking lessons in their 70s, and 80s. George Bernard Shaw is a famous example. He was in his late 80s when he started taking lessons with Alexander.
After a couple of months’ of lessons, one of my own students, a 79 year old woman, told me me, “It was getting so I had to severely limit my activities because I was worried about falling. I’ve had several friends who fell and had broken bones or, worse yet, had to have hip replacement operations. With what I’ve learned from the Alexander Technique I am able to walk pretty much anywhere I want to now. In some ways, I think I’m more active than I was 5 years ago!”
Over the past few months I’ve been filming Alexander lessons with a student of mine. I then edit the recordings down to 7 minutes to share them on YouTube.
Eric is a professional musician finishing his master’s degree at the Conservatoire Nationale Supérieur de Paris. For the first two lessons we worked on playing his two instruments: the baroque cello and the viola da gamba.
For the third lesson, we went outdoors and worked on something completely different: skateboarding!
For each lesson, he’d play a little music or skate, we’d do some classic Alexander work at the chair, and then we’d go back to his instrument or skateboard. Each time, he noticed after the chairwork that his practice had suddenly become “easier” to do.
Playing an instrument and skateboarding are completely different skills. So how can it be that work on “getting in and out of a chair” can lead to immediate improvement in both skills? This always seems mysterious, even miraculous, to people coming to the Alexander Technique for the first time.
The first part of the answer is that there is a common element in all the different skills you practice: you!
How you conceive your movements, and how you organize your body to carry them out, will be immediately reflected in the quality of the sound or the movement you produce.
Beginners, in their enthusiasm to get it right, or in their fear of getting it wrong, usually end up using too much effort. Playing with effortful arms will produce a screechy sound, while skateboarding with effortful legs will lead to postural brittleness and more falls.
When you play the cello your fingers, wrists, elbows and shoulders need to be free and available to conform to the demands of the ever-changing notes in the score.
Similarly, when you skateboard, your ankles, knees and hips have to be free and available to adapt to the ever-shifting gradient of the path.
And this leads to the second part of the answer: It might not appear so to the outside observer, but what we are working on at the chair is precisely this quality of being free and available.
Your habitual patterns of strain are so ingrained that they’ve become simply invisible to you, but with the help of an Alexander teacher, you will be able to perceive them, and then to stop doing them. Your habitual patterns are so ingrained that you bring them to everything you do, including sitting and standing. So the simple setting of the chair can become a rich laboratory for coming to know, and eventually to transform, yourself. (It’s kind of like how genius directors can stage epic sagas with just a table, two chairs and pair of actors!).
The progression from beginner to proficiency, and finally mastery, largely involves involves paring away excess effort. We associate busy, broad, ineffective movements (also known as “flailing”) with beginners, while masters in any domain have a zen-like calm and an economy of effort.
Perceiving your habitual patterns of strain, and then learning how to stop doing them, will allow you to become fully present. It will feel like there’s suddenly more “you” there to attend to the task at hand. Naturally, organically, your performance will then improve, whether it be at a sport, an art or any skill.
If you have seven minutes, check out one of the videos:
Here’s the lesson on viola da gamba:
Here’s the lesson on skateboarding:
Here’s the lesson on cello:
Ulysses Chuang a musician and Alexander Teacher based in Paris, France. He has taken up my Parade of “P”s – Take Your Pick challenge. Thank you Ulysses – and I hope there will be many more! You can contact me through this Contact Page if you wish to contribute.
image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Peter… “so I get the Alexander Technique now… I can do this, don’t you worry!! You want me to think your neck freedirectyourheadforwardandupsoyourbackcanlengthenandwiden… hey presto… how was that?
Kay… “it’s not a mantra Peter!It is more than words.. The direction needs to be thoughtful otherwise there will be no energy released for anything to happen.”
Peter… Uhhhh?….
Kay“It’s simple, but I didn’t say it’s easy Peter… The trouble isthe way you know, is faulty, I’m afraid… it feels ok to you, but this doesn’t mean it’s right.That’s becauseI have allowed you to work this way for so long it has become habitual.Hence your nameMr Peter Habit….As I haveexplained you before you need to STOP interfering and listen until you get the idea… and even then you will need to keep the directions in mind at all times.”
Peter “Whoa… you don’t expect much then?”
Kay “Don’t fret, Peter, it just needs discipline…we will both be much better off as we will begin to feel as one and gradually cease to antagonise each other”
Peter ( with a groan) “when will that happen?”
Kay “It will take time and patience, but believe me it willbe worthwhile… it will take years off us.We will have more vitality and find joy in living.”
Peter “It’s beginning to be interesting…. tell me again …what do I have to do?”
Kay“That’s the beauty of it Peter, you don’t have to DOanything …
Peter “Uhhh?”
Kay… “you just have to think to release some energy to free our neck so that our head can go forward and up and our back can lengthen and widen.”
Peter “where can I release energy from?”
Kay “Trust me, you don’t need to know that at the moment, you just need to know that your thoughts can provide that release”
Peter “Right on!!!Let’s get started, sounds better all the time”
Kay “Pleased to see you are at last by my side with this, But Peter , don’t rush in…. STOP AND THINK for a while first…..”
*** Kay Cady lives in Denbury, in Devon, England She has taken up my Parade of “P”s – Take Your Pick challenge. Thank you Kay – and I hope there will be many more! You can contact me through this Contact Page if you wish to contribute.
Energy rightly applied and directed will accomplish anything – Nellie Bly
In the present state of the world, it is evident that the control we have gained of physical energies, heat, light, electricity, etc., without having first secured control of our use of ourselves is a perilous affair. Without the control of our use of ourselves, our use of other things is blind; it may lead to anything.
“If there can be developed a technique which will enable individuals really to secure the right use of themselves, then the factor upon which depends the final use of all other forms of energy will be brought under control. Mr. Alexander has evolved this technique. – Professor John Dewey
Nellie Bly, pioneer in journalism
Nellie Bly was a remarkable woman. “The best reporter in America,” wrote the New York Evening Standard when she died in 1922. She was a pioneer in investigative journalism. She feigned insanity and got herself committed to a lunatic asylum to expose its horrors in print. She circled the globe faster than any live or fictional character. She designed, manufactured and marketed the first successful steel barrel produced in the United States. And the was the first woman to report from the eastern front during World War I.
With no help from anyone, and with only a few months’ previous experience working for a newspaper in Pittsburgh, she managed to break into journalism in New York in 1887, at a time when there were very few women reporters and a strong belief among newspaper people that women should only be assigned stories about cooking, society and the like. Within a year of arriving in New York, she became one of the best-known journalists in the city.
How did she accomplish this?
She did it by “applying and directing” her energies skillfully. She knew that she wanted a career in journalism and she proceeded in a skillful and systematic way to accomplish this.
She began by tricking an editor into granting her an initial job interview – quite an achievement in itself. She then made a career of creative self-invention, in the best sense of the phrase. She had a strong instinct for a scoop and knew exactly how to handle herself in tricky situations where, at times, her life was in danger. She also had a keen sense of what would sell, and so made a speciality of jailhouse confessions of accused murderers.
F. Matthias Alexander, pioneer in mind/body studies
At around the same time that Bly was achieving success in the world of journalism, half way around the globe another talented individual was learning how to “rightly apply and direct” energy within himself in order to overcome a serious obstacle he was facing.
F. Matthias Alexander, a talented Australian actor and reciter, was having problems with his voice during performances. Doctors and vocal coaches were unable to help. Desperate to continue his career, he embarked on a systematic program of self-examination that not only produced a solution to his vocal difficulties, but eventually became the basis of what today is called the Alexander Technique.
Like Bly, Alexander had a passion for his chosen career. And like Bly, he had the ability to remain focused on exactly what was needed to achieve success. Neither one let obstacles, disappointments or temporary failures to get in the way of what they wanted.
Neither Bly nor Alexander had much formal education. Bly relied on her energy, wits and instinct to achieve success. So did Alexander. The Technique which he developed is a systematic, well thought out approach to improving human functioning. But it is no way complex or mysterious – sometimes it’s been characterized as “applied common sense”. And no prior training is required for those who want to learn the Technique for themselves.
Bly’s legacy lives on in the successful careers of today’s many women reporters, news analysts and TV anchor-persons and in the investigative reporting techniques she helped pioneer.
Alexander’s legacy can be found in a Technique that is today taught by thousands of teachers around the world. It has been widely used for over a century by people from all backgrounds to improve their performance skills and to free themselves from stress-related aches and pains by learning how to rightly apply and direct their thoughts and energies to improve their physical functioning.
The careers of Bly and Alexander demonstrate how, with the systematic application of disciplined intention and practice, a single individual can have a huge impact on the lives of many others.
Once again* a catchy country music title helps illuminate a fundamental Alexander Technique idea.
And, yes, I’ve embedded a video of the song – a nice example, by singer Lorrie Morgan, of the growing feminist influence in country – at the bottom of the page.
Saying “no” to harmful habits is key to the Alexander Technique process.
It’s pretty easy to say, for example, “I am not compressing myself” – a fairly typical example of a negative Alexander direction.**
And if that message is delivered effectively – lightly, forgiving of forgetting, with no attempt to implement it – it can have immediate and profound effects throughout your body.
You’re asking for excess tensions, wherever they are, to stop. And to the extent they are capable of doing that in the moment, they will.
“In the moment” is the key phrase here. Habits are sneaky and they return, usually a bit weakened, as soon as your mind goes somewhere else.
Gently and clearly bring back your “no” statement and they go into hiding once again, ready to pop out as soon as you turn your attention elsewhere.
And so it goes.
It’s easy to see how an Alexander Technique student might become frustrated and think, “Hey harmful habits, I’ve said “no” once, twice, even three times and you keep doing what I don’t want. Just what part of no don’t you understand!”
But in truth, unlike the persistent jerk at the bar Lorrie is singing about, the complex web of tension patterns in our body does get a bit weaker with each reminder so that your repeated “no’s” have a significant effect over time.
We have to be patient – perhaps as we might with a baby, or small child, or a pet who persists in doing something we don’t want – and just keep on gently, clearly, saying “No, I don’t want that.”
There’s no point in getting angry – and when it comes to ourselves, and our habits of posture and movement, no point in calling the bouncer to kick them out.
**A newer Freedom Direction version of this might be “I am free.” You can learn more about Negative Directions, Freedom Directions and other new developments in Alexander Technique directing here.
image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
In life we generally rely on our subconscious to direct our movement.Westand, sit, walk,and bend automatically with no thought tohow we move.Our subconscioushabitually does it for us, and it dominates us so that we don’t consider the best way to go about our everyday activities.
The practice of Alexander Technique encourages us to become more consciously aware, and tolearn the most efficient and energy saving way to move.It actually brings us back to the movement patterns that were implicit as a child.
The Alexander Technique is simple and commonsense, but it is not easy because somehow we have to break thehabits of a lifetime that are deep in our subconscious, to allow the childlike movement to re-emerge.How can we do this?
I will call my subconscious Peter!
Peter sits on my shoulder and is my friend.But he is a misguided friend. MIsguided because I haveunwittingly taught Peter howto lead me through my life in ways that have caused me pain andill health.Unfortunately, on occasions Peter is not very helpful because he overrides what I know is the best way to carry out any activity,and takes over before I have time to think.
I need to retrain Peter.. he has been part of me for a long time, and he should be my friend and help me through life.He knows me better than anyone else… even better than my mother, and he has been with me every single moment of my life,enjoying my happiness, indulging in my sadness, he knows my every move……and he is not going to go away.
How can I change him?We all have the ability to change, even though we think not and Peter can change like the rest of us.I just need to be strong and tell Peter to STOP interfering and give me time to rethink the best way to carry out my life. But this is a very general statement… because I need to stop Peter interfering not only eachtime Imake a move, but also when I react to a stimulus…Wow… I can remember when I started to learn the technique how impossible that seemed.It means that I have to consciously aware of my every thought and my every movement and that requires discipline.
If you learn the Alexander Technique you will learna series of primary directions.FM Alexander’s directions enable us to engage the conscious mind and override Peter’s decisions.Ask Peter to listen and take note of these directions, so that his decisions become less misguided in future andhe is once again willing and able to help rather than hinder.
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Kay Cady lives in Denbury, in Devon, England She is the second person to take up my Parade of “P”s – Take Your Pick challenge. Thank you Kay – and I hope there will be many more! You can contact me through this Contact Page if you wish to contribute.
We could define health as “The body’s ability to constructively deal with all the stresses to which it is subjected”. As I discovered, the Alexander Technique can be a powerful tool for tackling depression by giving concrete help on a day to day level. There is no sensation or emotion that is not translated into a muscular response of some kind; these feeling states are the primary bases of our habitual postures and our individual patterns of behaviour. In terms of alleviating the ubiquitous stresses and tensions of everyday life it simply does not matter whether we start to allow our minds to calm down and allow that to spread out into our muscles, or whether on the other hand, we can begin to allow the release of tension that we experience with the Technique to allow that same mental quietness.
Problems may appear to be confined or to be operating solely on the mental level but a large part of the problem is that because we give so much precedence to the intellect these mental routes and paths are all exhausted or over familiar. The patterns are laid down and it can appear that there are no more avenues to explore. We suffer from ennui and the feeling of being trapped at the same time. Because words are not the language of the body all the well-known stories and limitations that we tell ourselves can be sidestepped as we can learn to see and experience ourselves in a new way. In my own case I noticed that when I was able to release my physical holding patterns so my mental and emotional constrictions were correspondingly freer. I was able to gain a new Perspective on my situation, life became a richer experience when I was feeling and Perceiving on more than one level at once.
We don’t claim that the Alexander Technique is a universal panacea for every kind of ailment, simply that our feelings and emotions are so intimately connected with our behavioural and psychological habits that working in this way through the body can be part of the healing process, it may not be the whole part, but it IS a part. For me, at any rate it added a new dimension, a new Possibility; I discovered that learning how I could use my body with lightness and efficiency opened up new realms of Potentials that I had not previously known had existed.
Listen to a podcast with Daska, “How the Alexander Technique can help with Depression”:
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Daska Hatton is an Alexander Technique teacher in London, England. She is the first person to take up my Parade of “P”s – Take Your Pick challenge. Thank you Daska – and I hope there will be many more! You can contact me through this Contact Page.
Men go forth to marvel at the heights of mountains and the huge waves of the sea, the broad flow of the rivers, the vastness of the ocean, the orbits of the stars, and yet they neglect to marvel at themselves. – Saint Augustine: Confessions, Book 10
Saint Augustine saw a lot of the ancient world. As a young man, his obvious talents insured that he wouldn’t remain for long in his North African birthplace, Thagaste. In his teens, he was sent to school in Carthage, a far more cosmopolitan center where there were a great many fascinating things for him to see and experience.
It was there that he read Hortensius by Cicero – a book that awakened in him a desire to find the “proper path” for his inner life.
Eventually he rose spectacularly in the ranks of the Church and came to see a lot more of the world. But despite the wonders of nature and civilization that he witnessed, he never let them pull him away from serious reflection on the state of his own being.
Today, the seductive tugs of external phenomena are far greater than anything Saint Augustine encountered. We receive instant news reports from around the world, multiple email, text, and phone demands on our time from friends and colleagues, an unending supply of entertainment delivered to us wherever we go – the list goes on and on.
Just keeping up with cute You Tube cat videos could easily fill all our waking hours!
But what about paying attention to ourselves?
We may not be interested in the kind of spiritual self-reflection Saint Augustine engaged in, but if we want to avoid the harmful effects of external stresses – back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, repetitive strain injury and the like – we need to pay some attention to how we react to them.
The Alexander Technique, developed by the late F. Matthias Alexander is a method of paying this kind of attention to ourselves, and of directing ourselves in a way that minimizes the dangers of navigating today’s over-connected world.
It’s simple, practical, and, as its century-plus history has repeatedly shown, extraordinarily effective.
You may be primarily an outie, but the rewards of this inward turn of your attention and intention from time to time are huge – not least of which is developing a true Augustinian “marvel of yourself”!
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Special thanks to Margaret Smith for sharing her extensive knowledge of Augustine’s life and times.
These are all “P” aspects, or applications, of the Alexander Technique. No doubt you can think of many others.
Here’s your “P” challenge: Write a Guest Blog with the title: Parade of “P”s – (your P word) – or a title of your choosing – send it to me at this contact page. If it meets the high standards 🙂 of the Body Learning Blog, I’ll find an appropriate image to go with it and publish it here.
The “P” challenge is open to anybody.
It could be a great way to take a first dip into the world of blogging. Or a chance to promote your book or video or teaching practice.
Or just achieve worldwide fame.
I’m also hoping it will be a chance for me to outsource some the work of blogging…
Please, pretty please, promise to pick me for the parade!
Hey, we want to participate in the parade too! We have a great peanut joke to share. Just ask.
Imagine this:
