The Dark Side of Fitness

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crutchesA New York Times article, “Doctors See a Big Rise in Injuries As Young Athletes Train Nonstop” highlights a serious and growing health concern for teenagers and their parents. Typical injuries include stress fractures, cracked kneecaps and frayed heel tendons and damage to the alignment of the spinal column brought on by excessive flexing. As the article states, “…doctors in pediatric sports medicine say it is as if they have happened upon a new childhood disease, and the cause is the overaggressive culture of organized youth sports.”

The consequences of this new “disease” can be very serious, often requiring many months of expensive rehabilitation or even surgery. Some young athletes are left facing a lifetime of pain and physical restrictions.

The article emphasized the role played by pressure from coaches and parents and by a culture in many sports that places so much emphasis on performance, and on winning, that players often ignore the pain signals coming from their bodies.

I was struck by the parallels between this teenage phenomenon and the wave of injuries reported during the early stages of the fitness boom of the 1980s. At that time, there were a great many newspaper and magazine reports of everything from severe shin splints caused by prolonged running on concrete to serious back and neck pain due to improper methods of weight lifting.

I can well remember the sudden influx of students during that period who came for Alexander Technique lessons after giving up on demanding exercise regimes because of pain or injury. They just wanted to learn how they could get back to where they were before. Sadly that was not always possible. It seems that when a new fitness or sports trend begins, there is a heavy price to be paid by some participants.

What strikes me about both the current spate of injuries and the one that took place three decades ago is that in both cases, a huge emphasis on quantity of exercise almost completely obliterated any concern with the quality with which the exercise was performed. All too often fitness programs tend to be about things like how many miles you run, how many pitches you pitch, or how many hours you swim rather that how well you’re using your body as you run, pitch or swim.

It’s a bit like driving a car as fast as you can, for a long distance, without bothering to learn how to drive it well!

I am convinced that the current over-emphasis on quantity is one of the main reasons there are still so many sports and fitness related injuries. Sometimes it comes from the athlete him or herself – perhaps reflecting a common cultural idea that more is better. Sometimes it comes from outside. That certainly seems to be a large part of what’s going on with some young athletes today.

Anyone who studies the basic ideas of the Alexander Technique will very quickly see just how important the quality of one’s posture and movement is to the effectiveness and safety of any activity. This is true whether it’s a vigorous activity or something as mundane as using a computer or even watching TV. And if they decide to take up a new sport or fitness program, they have the knowledge and ability to approach it with skill, and with an appropriate level of body awareness and care.

Here’s a podcast interview about sports, fitness and the Alexander Technique:

You can get more information about how the Alexander Technique can make fitness activities safer and more effective here: alextechexpress.com/fitness

(The article, “Doctors See a Big Rise in Injuries As Young Athletes Train Nonstop” can be found on page 1 of the February 22, 2005 issue of the New York Times.)

Image courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

“Make it So”

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Make it so – Jean Luc Picard, Captain, USS Enterprise

$(KGrHqRHJBQFEfucYOjzBRIp,bB(P!~~60_1The phrase has entered our language thanks to the popularity of Star Trek.  But have you ever wondered just how it (whatever it was) was “made so?”

Obviously a lot of crew members, machinery and computers had to be mobilized to fulfill the Captain’s order.  The command structure of the Enterprise was such that more often than not, it was quickly and efficiently “made so.”  Jean Luc was then free to continue focusing on the big picture – be it the attack of a Klingon war ship, trouble with the Borg or Q, or an unexpected and messed up situation on one of the planets they were exploring.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a way for us to make a decision about how to improve the way our body functions – perhaps  improving our posture, or releasing harmful tension – that we could then  just “make so” as we went about our lives?

Well there is, thanks to a man named F. Matthias Alexander.  Alexander was not the kind of guy you’d see on the Enterprise.  He was short of stature, seemed to always be wearing dark suits, and personality-wise not one to fit in with any kind of command system.

Nor did he have the kind of specialized training that Jean Luc and the other Enterprise crew members went through.  He was largely self-taught and his early career path involved acting and reciting.

He was born of humble origins in a distant outpost of the 19th Century British Empire, long before anyone was thinking about exploring the “new frontier” of space. The frontier territory  in which he grew up, Tasmania, was a penal colony for British cast-offs and the site of systematic slaughter of the island’s aboriginals.

A serious vocal problem caused him to take a close look at what he was actually doing with his body while reciting and acting.  His investigation enabled him to solve his problem and, in the process, make some fascinating discoveries about how our thinking affects our actions – discoveries that formed the basis of what is today called the Alexander Technique.

Alexander came up with two very specific mental processes – “directing” and “inhibiting”  in Alexander Technique jargon – that allow us to identify habits of thought and movement that are getting in our way, and to systematically release them.  (Alexander’s inhibiting has nothing to do with Freud’s use of that word – there is no repressing thoughts and feelings in Alexander Technique teaching.)

By using these mental processes we can make a decision about how we want to change the way we function, and then “make it so.”

Of course Captain Picard’s commands had to do with what he wanted to be done, knowing that the people and equipment on his ship were organized in a way that it would indeed be done.  Alexander, on the other hand, was concerned with how we human beings function in whatever activity we choose to do.

Picard’s commands usually took effect almost instantly.  The processes for change that Alexander developed can take longer to be fully implemented – our brains and bodies are far more complex and intertwined than than any bio-mechanical system, even one as complex as the Enterprise.  But, as Alexander said, “We can throw away the habits of a lifetime in a few minutes if we use our brains.”

We can, in other words, we can take the steps needed to “make it so.”

***

Here’s a podcast interview about Alexander Technique “negative directions” – which combine directing and inhibiting, the two key mental processes that Alexander developed:

Other podcasts about negative directions can be found here: bodylearningcast.com/teachers/negativedirections

 

 

Mind your Manners

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http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-hungry-dog-image23266694In my last blog, When will I finally get it?, I wrote about the impatience that students sometimes feel about their progress with the Alexander Technique.

F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the Technique,  famously said: “We can throw away the habits of a lifetime if we use our brains.” Why then, after weeks, months – even years! – of Alexander lessons and working on our own, during which time we have experienced many obvious changes for the better, haven’t we completely “got it”?

I gave a short answer saying basically that while our habits can be dispatched quite quickly with effective Alexander Technique directing, there is no guarantee they won’t come back to bite us.  Nor does it mean that our body will change at the same speed as our habits of thinking.

A helpful way of thinking about this a little more deeply is to examine Alexander’s concept of “Use” –  a term he borrowed from horse trainers.

What did Alexander mean by “use”?

Use refers to the habitual and characteristic manner in which a person moves and uses their body, all the time, whatever they are doing. Our use is influenced by our thinking and by our emotions and to bring about changes in our use, we need to allow changes to take place in our thinking and in our reactions to things. – From Alexander teacher Hilary King’s excellent Glossary of Alexander Technique terms.

Alexander further distinguished two kinds of use: “Conditions of Use” and “Manner of Use”.

“Conditions of use” refers to the state of our coordination and physical structure that exists – whether we are directing ourselves or not.

“Manner of use” refers to the effectiveness of our self-directing. Over time, improved manner of use will improve the conditions of use. Improved conditions of use make it easier to improve manner of use.

Although it’s a bit simplistic, I’ve found an automotive analogy useful in thinking about and explaining the interplay between these two “uses.” A badly-designed and maintained car – one having, in a sense, poor conditions of use – might be driven by a skilled driver and thus have a good manner of use. Over time, this driver might well make some necessary repairs and useful adjustments, thereby improving the car’s conditions of use. And that, in turn, will make it easier to drive the car well.

In the same way, if you learn how to work on yourself effectively (improving your manner of use),  you will improve your conditions of use over time.  And that will make it easier for you to continue improving your manner of use.

It’s a very powerful positive feedback loop but there can be periods when one of those two “uses” (usually conditions of use) seems to get behind the other.  And that can lead to frustration and impatience.

When my conditions of use seem to be lagging behind for an extended period of time, I’ve sometimes found it useful to explore other methods of self-improvement. For example, I’ve used, and benefited from, chiropractic, a specialized form of physical therapy, and cranial sacral work.  Other possibilities could be exercise, nutritional coaching, psychotherapy – the list goes on and on.

These methods have in common the possibility of addressing harmful patterns for which Alexander Technique self-directing may not be very effective – at least within a reasonable time frame. For instance just one lifetime!

But I’ve learned over the years that in the moment – right this second! – it’s Alexander Technique directing that is probably going to be most useful for me to make a positive change in the my physical functioning.

In other words I would do well to mind my manner of use.

Here’s a very short interview I did about conditions of use and manner of use with Eileen Troberman for Alexander Talk

And here’s an article I wrote on this topic some time ago: What’s the Use?

***

I’d love to hear your experiences with conditions and manner of use.  Have you ever been impatient with your progress?  How did things resolve themselves for you?  What is your advice for new students of the Technique?

 

 

When will you finally get it?

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ID-10056403Picture this Alexander Technique workshop scene:

About 30 people of widely varying ages and experience with the Technique are seated in a circle in a basement classroom of a university music department.

Standing in the center of the group is the teacher, a small frail looking woman in her 80s.

The workshop lasts for 14 days, 6 hours a day, and it’s about halfway finished.  It’s now the start of a new day.

One of the participants is a very tall and athletic young man, probably a student at the university, who has come to the workshop for a the past couple of days.

The woman running the workshop starts by asking if there any questions.

The young man stands up: “This is my third day here!  Why haven’t I mastered this Technique you’re teaching? Why haven’t I got it yet?

The rest of the group perks up – very curious to hear how the teacher will respond.  Many have been coming to her workshops for years and have a finely-tuned sense of when something really interesting is about to happen.

There is a long, long pause. Maybe 30 seconds or more. You can almost see wheels turning in the teacher’s head as she considers her response.

Finally, she looks up at him, directly into his eyes, and very slowly says: “I don’t think your body could take it.”

The whole class, including the questioner, erupts into laughter.

The teacher was Marjorie Barstow and this is a wonderful example of her teaching brilliance.  When she was asked a question in class, she was always aware that the whole class was listening.  Her answer had to be helpful to the person asking it, and to everyone else.

It’s also a reminder that although the Alexander Technique is simple (“too simple” as Marj used to say), it’s not always easy to learn at first.  And when you do start to really understand it, and get good at applying it, it takes awhile for your body to adjust – even if you’re young and any harmful habits you’ve developed haven’t been around for a long time.

It’s true, as F. Matthias Alexander the developer of the Technique said: “We can throw away the habit of a lifetime in just a few minutes if we use or brains.”  But he didn’t say they wouldn’t sneak up on us again – and again!

Nor that changing our habits would fully work it’s way through to the way we function on a physical level “in just a few minutes.”

As Marj said, our bodies just couldn’t take that.

If you’ve been an Alexander student, does this resonate with you?  Were you ever impatient to “get it?”  What advice would you give to new Alexander Technique students, based on your experiences with the work?

***

Here’s a short video clip of Marjorie answering a related question – also about impatience – this one from an experienced Alexander Technique student:

And here’s an interview I did with Michael Frederick, another Alexander Technique teacher who studied extensively with Marj, about her teaching:

Image courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

 

Taking Mr. Alexander for a Drive

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http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-carefull-driver-image2943208The late Alexander Technique teacher Marjorie Barstow had a special interest in the way automobile drivers carried their heads on top of their spines.  She would frequently suggest we take time to look at other drivers while we were stopped at a traffic light. “You’ll be amazed at what people do to themselves in a car” she would say. And whenever I’d drive her somewhere – often to her favorite steakhouse – she would comment on the bizarre postures she observed in the cars we passed.

It’s actually a pretty interesting exercise.  And a useful one particularly if you ask yourself: “Could I be doing that too?”

Some of us spend a lot of time driving and there are all sorts of opportunities to tighten our necks, restrict our beathing and clench the steering wheel in response to traffic conditions, other drivers’ bad behavior, the weather, the news on the radio…the list goes on and on.  And of course as texting and talking on cellphones while driving becomes more common, the opportunities for distorting ourselves have expanded significantly.

A few years ago, I’ve started to notice that I was clenching my jaw and tightening my face and neck while behind the wheel, even when there was no obvious source of stress.  I realized that just the act of sitting in the driver’s seat was enough of a stimulus to cause me to create some unnecessary tension in my head and neck – tension that rapidly spread to the rest of my body.

Even here in serene Lincoln, Nebraska, recently voted the happiest city in the whole USA!

I decided that driving was the perfect opportunity to give myself some useful Alexander Technique preventative directions.

I found that negative directions worked best for me because in addition to being highly effective, they require very little mental energy and were less likely to take my attention away from my surroundings, whether I was driving on city streets or on the Interstate.

In addition to the classic, “I’m not tensing my neck” I often use, “I’m not compressing myself” and, “I’m not tightening my face.” Sometimes, “I’m not frowning.” After a few weeks of this kind of self-directing I found that I was generally less tense while driving and that I could usually let go of any in-the-moment irritation when, say, another driver cut me off.

Of course the same sort of thing holds for other forms of transportation like bicycles, buses, trains, planes and feet. Not to mention horseback riding, which F. M. Alexander, the developer of the Alexander Technique, was so fond of. They all provide wonderful opportunities to explore his discoveries.

As one Alexander Technique student recently mentioned on Face Book, even while commuting on the New York City subway – “sardine city” as she nicely put it – a little self-directing can go a long way.

Here’s a podcast interview I did with Mark Josefsberg about external stress. and internal tension, and how the Alexander Technique can make it more likely that the first of these won’t cause the second:

***

Have you experimented with Alexander Technique directing while traveling?  What did you notice? Did you encounter any unique or unexpected challenges?

 

Alexander Technique – After the Appetizer

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ID-100147916I’ve recently had the chance to do a little informal research on the following question:  What are the specific topics people explore once they’ve gone to an Alexander Technique website and had a little taste of what the Technique has to offer?

A few weeks ago, I created a new site, Alexander Technique Express, to provide a quick and mobile friendly version of my main page, The Complete Guide to the Alexander Technique.  Most of the visitors to this new site get there because they used their smartphone to go to the Complete Guide and were automatically re-directed to the new site.

As you can see below, on this new site, I present a relatively small number of categories to choose from.  Before reading any further, take a look at the choices and write down what you think are the relative number of visits for each one.

Screen shot 2013-03-29 at 2.22.20 PM

Now compare your numbers to these statistics:

For every 100 people who got past the home page and clicked on General Info, 89 clicked on Posture, 63 on Pain, 23 on Breathing, 20 on Music, 18 on Performers, 18 on Fitness/Sports and 5 on Links.

And…42 people clicked on Find a Teacher!

Bear in mind as well that some visitors clicked on more than one category.

(60 people clicked on Support/Contact – but this number is misleading because visitors from all my websites are now directed to this page.)

These results are biased towards people on the go – people who surf the web with smartphones.  This is an important, and rapidly growing demographic. At present they account for about a third of all visitors who initially go to the Complete Guide – up from about 20 percent a year ago.

And they about to become the mainstream. Most internet observers predict that smartphone searches will account for more than half of all searches in another year or so and before long most web searches will be done from smartphones.

Did their choices surprise you?  They did me a little.

I knew Posture was a hot topic but I was surprised that it out performed Pain. I had greater hopes for Musicians but was happy that Breathing performed as well as it did.  I was heartened by the high proportion of visitors who actually wanted to find an Alexander Technique teacher.

How did these numbers compare to your estimates?  Can you see some ways to use this information in the positioning of your website and other promotional materials? What other categories do you think would be good to add to the site?*

***

* One category I considered, and eventually dropped for the time being was “Stress” – mainly because it’s everywhere in the Alexander world.  I also considered “Self Improvement” but couldn’t find the right material to flesh it out.  I also suspect that it would not be a popular one.

Image courtesy of rakratchada torsap / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

 

The Alexander Technique: A New Approach to Mind-Body Unity

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Albert Einstein

No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it. – Albert Einstein

No one would deny that we ourselves enter as an agency into whatever is attempted and done by us. This is a truism. But the hardest thing to attend to is that which is closest to ourselves, that which is most constant and familiar. And this closest ‘something’ is, precisely, ourselves, our own habits and ways of doing things…

It is, however, one thing to to teach the need of a return to the individual man as the ultimate agency in whatever mankind and society collectively can accomplish…it is another thing to discover the concrete procedure by which this greatest of all tasks can be executed. And this indispensable thing is exactly what Mr. Alexander has accomplished. – John Dewey

Albert Einstein is well known to all of us. John Dewey was America’s most famous philosopher. He founded the school of philosophy know as “pragmatism” and he was also very influential in the development of American education during the first half of the twentieth century. Indeed, he is often referred to as the “father of American education.”

F. Matthias Alexander teaching John Dewey

But just who was the “Mr. Alexander” that Dewey apparently held in such high esteem? And what did he do to merit Dewey’s praise?

“Mr. Alexander” was F. Matthias Alexander (1869-1855), an Australian by birth, who lived most of his life in London. He was the developer of a method of teaching people how to change harmful habits of posture and movement – habits that prevented them for operating at their full potential. His method continues to be taught today and is commonly called the Alexander Technique.

It might seem strange that a philosopher would be so taken by a process that seems mainly to do with the operation of the physical body. After all we don’t usually attach great philosophical importance to the activities of our chiropractor, massage therapist or physical trainer.

When Dewey and Alexander first met in New York during World War I and had a series of lessons with Alexander, the most immediate results were dramatic improvements in his breathing, eyesight and in the flexibility of his ribcage. Before then, Dewey had always been a very cerebral person and considered his body to be just something needed to keep his mind functioning.

But before long Dewey come to realize that there was a great deal more to the Alexander Technique than improved physical functioning, as important as that was. In his book Freedom to Change – The Development and Science of the Alexander Technique, Frank Pierce Jones relates an interview he had with John Dewey in 1947:

“(Dewey) said that he had been taken by (the Alexander Technique) first because it provided a demonstration of the unity of mind and body. He thought that the demonstration had struck him more forcibly than it might have struck someone who got the sensory experience easily and quickly, because he was such a slow learner. He had always been physically awkward, he said, and performed all actions too quickly and impulsively and without thought. ‘Thought’ in his case was saved for ‘mental’ activity, which had always been easy for him. It was a revelation to discover that thought could be applied with equal advantage to everyday movements.

“The greatest benefit he got from lessons, Dewey said, was the ability to stop and think before acting. Physically, he noted an improvement first in his vision and then in breathing. Before he had lessons, his ribs had been very rigid. Now they had a marked elasticity which doctors still commented on, though he was close to eighty-eight.

“Intellectually, Dewey said, he found it much easier, after had had studied the technique, to hold a philosophical position calmly once he had taken it or to change it if new evidence came up warranting a change. He contrasted his own attitude with the rigidity of other academic thinkers who adopt a position early in their careers and then use their intellects to defend it indefinitely.”

In my own work as an Alexander Technique teacher, I find that physical and mental rigidity often go hand in hand. You can verify this for yourself by taking a close look at people you know and comparing the ease of their physical bearing with their openness to new ideas.

There are exceptions of course – often very dramatic ones, too. But this kind of observation provides evidence of the mind-body unity Dewey spoke about, and which was emphasized by Alexander.

Today, Alexander Technique teachers continue to stress the connections between the way we think about how we sit, stand and move, and the manner in which we actually perform these activities. When we learn how to be precise in our thinking about what we want to happen, the physical results follow automatically.

What you think is what you get.

As with John Dewey, the immediate benefits are often primarily physical in nature. Indeed many people initially take Alexander lessons because of back pain, stiff necks and shoulders and the like. But over time they sometimes discover other, more subtle, benefits of the sort Dewey found.

And for some, these unexpected benefits turn out to be the most valuable.

Misconceptions about the Alexander Technique

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When the subject of the Alexander Technique comes up in conversation, I’ve found that people who have heard about it often have a very distorted idea of what it’s all about. This is not surprising because the Technique is concerned with the quality of how our bodies function as we go through life. And for the most part, our culture tends to emphasize what we do rather than how we do it.

Here are some of the most common misconceptions about the Alexander Technique I’ve run across:

1. The Alexander Technique is a type of physical therapy designed to take care of conditions like back pain, stiff necks and shoulders etc.

It’s certainly true that many people take Alexander lessons because they are in pain and have been told the Technique can help them. And a great many are helped. But Alexander Technique teachers are very careful to present our work as being educational in nature; we teach people how they can become more sensitive to messages their body is sending them, and how they can respond in a useful and constructive manner.

Put another way, we show our students precisely what they are inadvertently doing to themselves that gets in the way of their natural functioning – and then how they can sit, stand, move and perform their daily activities without unnecessary and harmful tension in their bodies.

Relief from pain often comes about when this excess tension is released, but an Alexander Technique teacher has no way of predicting just how and when this will occur – or, for that matter, offer an absolute guarantee that it will happen.

Sometimes, in fact, a pupil has “therapeutic” benefits they never anticipated. They may have come for lessons because of back pain and discover that their asthma symptoms have abated.

2. The Alexander Technique is really only for performers.

Again, it’s true that musicians, actors and dancers constitute a sizable proportion of Alexander Technique students – perhaps as many as half for some teachers. And Alexander teachers often teach in schools of music, drama and dance.

But the Technique has always been used by people from all sorts of occupations. Among my current students is a carpenter, a dentist, a massage therapist, a university professor and an accountant.

Performers are attracted to the Alexander Technique because the quality of how their body functions directly influences the quality of their performance. Also many performers, especially musicians and dancers, are in pain because of the demanding nature of their work.

But we are all have to “perform” activities as we go through life, and while we may not be judged as immediately and as closely as a dancer or singer, the manner in which we do things still has a great influence, for better or for worse, on our overall health and well-being.

3. The Alexander Technique is not something to consider if you’re an older person – habits of posture and movement are too deeply entrenched to change after a certain age.

It’s true that it’s easier to change harmful habits when you’re young. In fact, F. M. Alexander, the developer of the Alexander Technique, felt that the best place to teach his method was in the early grades of school.

On the other hand, most children are not particularly interested their posture and co-ordination. In part this is because the harmful habits they may have acquired have not yet caused them pain or discomfort. Also they have so many other things going on in their lives that posture or movement patterns usually seem pretty far down on the scale of things to be concerned about.

In fact, many Alexander Technique students are not particularly young. Professor John Dewey (the philosopher and “Father of American Education”) was almost 60 when he had his first lesson. George Bernard Shaw, the great playwright, was 88! I presently have a student who is in her late 70’s who has, for the past few months, been rediscovering what it means to play the cello with ease and joy.

4. Learning the Alexander Technique takes a long time and is expensive and difficult.

It is true that some people – like myself – become so interested in the Alexander process that they take lessons for years and even go through the intense three-year training process to become a teacher.

It is also true that the Technique asks you to think about yourself in ways you are probably not used to. But the basic principles underlying the Technique are very, very simple. Indeed, the Alexander Technique has sometimes been called “applied common sense” applied to the body.

Most people get the help they need to make significant changes in a few weeks or months – it’s not something most students study for years and years.

The cost of an Alexander Technique lesson is usually on a par with the cost of a massage. In addition, some teachers offer group classes which brings the cost down significantly.

So if any of these misconceptions has deterred you from exploring the Alexander Technique, take a lesson or two and see for yourself what this century-old method can offer you.

***

If you’re an Alexander Technique student or teacher, I’d love to hear how your concept of the Technique changed once you started having lessons.

Flexibility in Five Minutes a Day

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In her book, Life and Death in Shanghai, Nien Cheng describes her life in China during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Because she and her late husband had worked for a foreign firm, her home and all her possessions were confiscated by the Red Guard, her daughter was tortured and then killed, and she was imprisoned and held in solitary confinement for six years. Ms Cheng was in her fifties when all this happened.

Conditions in prison were terrible and several times she came close to death. Describing one on her lowest points, when she barely had the strength to stand, she writes:

“…I thought that if I was going to survive the Cultural Revolution, I must discipline myself with physical and mental exercise. Inspired by my own resolution, I stood up rather abruptly. Dark shadows almost blinded me, and I had to sit down again. But from that day onward, I devised a series of exercises that moved every part of my body from my head to my toes, and did them twice a day. At first the exercise exhausted me, and I had to interrupt it with frequent periods of rest. Also I had to avoid the prying eyes of the guards, as exercise other than a few minutes of walking in the cell after meals was forbidden. Nevertheless, I managed to exercise each day and after a few months recovered my physical strength somewhat, as well as my feeling of well-being.”

Several years later, the political situation in China shifted and Ms. Cheng was released from prison. Despite all the hardships she had been through, her health quickly improved. Her friends commented that she looked much younger than her actual age. Eventually she moved to the United States.

It was fascinating for me to read about Ms Cheng’s system of movement exercises because it closely parallels a procedure described in the book How to Learn the Alexander Technique – A Manual for Students by Barbara and William Conable. This book emphasizes a procedure the Conables have named “body-mapping” – essentially a systematic process of exploring on your own body precisely how the major joints and muscle groups work.

This is not the sort of study one usually associates with anatomy – what I think of as “anatomy at a distance”, that is learning about the human body without relating it to the body of the student who is doing the learning. Nor is it at all like the detailed study of cadavers done in medical schools.

Body-mapping is all about the practical application of basic anatomical knowledge to yourself as a living organism, learning about how you function at rest and in movement.

In their book, the Conables write:

“In recent years some (Alexander Technique) students have expressed a longing to do flexibility work but have assumed they couldn’t devote enough time to it. To one of these students I said one day, ‘Well, you could do worse than simply put your joints through their range of movement each day.’ He came back a week later and said, ‘I did what you suggested and it was amazing.’ “What was that?’ I asked. ‘Put my joints through their range of motion each day.’ He showed me how much flexibility he had gained in a week doing that, and we began to systematically play with the idea. Sure enough, it works like magic and takes only about five minutes a day, with no necessity that the five minutes be consecutive. The student simply begins with the joint of the head and the spine…rotating the head and tilting, then moves on the the jaw…then on to the ribs, moving them at their joints with the vertebrae by taking a good breath. Then the student moves all four joints of the arm structure and the hand joints. Then the spine, bending forward, backward, to each side, spiraling, and twisting. Then the hip joint, knee, and ankle and the foot joints. That’s it. Done correctly this routine increases flexibility faster than anything I know, and I have wondered and wondered why. I now think two factors contribute, first the quality of attention brought to the movement, which is the kind of attention that makes it possible for the body to learn from each movement. Second, some of the movements are ones that many people rarely make, like rotation at the upper arm joint with the shoulder blade and rotation at the hip joint. The body seems to delight in these movements and the availability seems to free the joint.”

If you’d like to become more flexible, the experiences of Ms Cheng and of Barbara Conable’s students point to a simple, efficient and effective way to achieve that goal.

Image courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Nirvana in your Neck

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I was chatting with some friends over dinner, attempting to explain the basic principles of the Alexander Technique. I spoke a little about the importance Alexander teachers attach to having a free neck so that the head can easily balance on top of the spine. If a person’s neck is tense, it tends to upset that head balance, causing harmful repercussions throughout the entire body. Releasing that tension is basic to releasing those harmful effects.

“Nirvana in your neck!” said Nancy, one of my friends.

I’d never heard it put that way before, but it nicely captures an important aspect of the Alexander Technique.

F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of what today is called the Alexander Technique, was certainly not the first person to talk about the importance of the neck. The Bible is full of references to stiff-necks:

Exodus 32, verses 9, 10: The Lord said to Moses, “I see this is a stiff necked people. Now let Me be, that my anger may blaze forth against them and that I may destroy them…”

Deuteronomy 9: verses 13 and 14 “I see that this is a stiff necked people. Let me alone and I will destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven…”

Jeremiah 7, verse 26: “They stiffened their necks, they acted worse than their fathers.”

There is even an explicit reference to the postural effect of being stiff-necked In Micah 2, verse 3: The Lord says, “I am planning such a misfortune against this clan that you will not be able to free your necks from it. You will not be able to walk erect.”

A stiff neck does indeed make it impossible to have a natural upright posture. It also creates a situation in which the work of supporting the whole body is wrongly distributed. Important functions such as breathing, blood circulation and digestion are placed under enormous strain, reducing their efficiency.

In some translations, “stiff-necked” is translated as “stubborn” which is accurate as far as it goes, but unfortunately takes us away from the physical quality inherent in the original Hebrew: kashe-oref – kashe: hard; oref: scruff of the neck.

There are also many examples in our everyday language that suggest an intimate connection between bodily attitudes and inner states of mind. We speak of a “spineless creature”, “having no backbone”, “losing our heads” and being “level-headed”. The word “attitude” itself can refer to both our outlook on life and to the physical orientation of our body.

Alexander discovered the importance of the state of his neck quite independently of all this. Working entirely on his own in late 19th century Australia, he set out to solve a voice problem he was experiencing.

He set up several mirrors that allowed him to view himself from various angles as he spoke. It didn’t take him long to notice a tendency to tighten his neck when speaking – indeed, to tighten his neck when he just thought about speaking. He also noticed some other patterns that came into play – pulling his head back and down on his neck, restricting his breathing, gripping the floor with his feet – but it turned out that the neck pattern was primary. He discovered that if he could prevent his neck from tightening. the other dysfunctional patterns dissolved.

This proved to be an extremely important discovery on his part, and not just for it’s beneficial effects on his voice. Any activity he performed – standing up from a chair, walking, whatever – was done more efficiently when he remembered to free his neck. It was useful to let his attention go to other parts of his body too, but the condition of his neck turned out to be the most important single factor in bringing about a change for the better.

Teachers of the Alexander Technique today continue to emphasize the head-neck-upper torso relationship and students often are amazed at what a difference it makes when they learn how to prevent harmful tension from forming in their neck. Students often report feeling much lighter and freer and are able to move through life with fewer physical restrictions.

Getting in touch with this “nirvana in your neck” can change your life for the better in all sorts of unexpected ways.

Here’s an audio interview about “stiff-necked” people in the Bible from Body Learning Cast, the Alexander Technique Podcast:

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