Class Struggle

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For many years, swimming has been my favorite sport and I usually manage to get to the pool 4 or 5 times a week.

As an Alexander Technique teacher I particularly love to explore being in a different medium, and in a different relationship with gravity.  There’s something about swimming that, for me at least, encourages a smooth flowing movement that I can carry over into the rest of my day.

Years ago I shared a pool with a water aerobics class held in the portion of the pool not set aside for lap swimming.  There were 2 women who led the class on different days and as I emerged from the changing room headed towards the pool area, I could tell right away which one was teaching.

One woman had a very calm demeanor and even when she got the class participants moving quite vigorously, never raised her voice to do so. When she introduced a new movement, she was  careful to describe and demonstrate it a few times.  She alternated between standing on the edge of the pool and being in the water with everyone else.

The other woman always stood on the edge of the pool and shouted out her directions.  As she did this, she demonstrated the exercise moves using with a rapid, jerky motion, typically tensing her body by pulling her head back onto her neck and arching her lower back.

The most interesting difference is how the class members reacted to these very different teaching styles.

During the first instructor’s classes, participants moved pretty gracefully and seemed to be enjoying themselves.  When the class is over, many stayed to gossip a bit before leaving the pool.

With the second instructor, it was quite a different story.  Every time she tensed herself, you could see a little ripple of tension spreading across the class. Participants retracted their heads down onto their spines, unconsciously mimicking what they see the instructor doing.

Their exercise movements were generally less fluid and they often seemed to be struggling to keep up.  Some left early.  When the class was over, everybody remaining left the pool right away, with very little conversation.

I doubt of most of the class members were consciously aware of these differences.  Certainly I never heard anybody make a comment.

Still, the differences were quite striking and I think it illustrates an important point for teachers, speakers and performers: the quality of how you organize you own body – which is what the Alexander Technique is all about – has an immediate and direct effect on your class or audience.

It may be a subtle effect, people may not be consciously aware of it, but it is almost certainly affecting their ability to take in what you have to offer.

F. M. Alexander, developer of the Alexander Technique, fashionably attired for a tension-free dip in the ocean.

We’ve all been to talks or performances where we’ve felt a bit uncomfortable.  Chances are that discomfort was due at least in part to the state of the person on stage.

We’ve also been to events were we’ve immediately felt at ease – again probably reflecting to some extent the ease we see and hear demonstrated by the presenter.

And of course this kind of transfer of one persons’ state of being to those around him or her is at work all the time in all our personal interactions.

An interview I did recently for the Alexander Technique Podcast with Sharon Jacubecy, an Alexander Technique teacher in Los Angeles, nicely brings out some of these points.  You can listen to it here:

I’d love to hear about experiences you’ve had with speaking, teaching and performing.

 

Swimming Pool© Carloscastilla | Dreamstime.com

Women in Pool© Andres Rodriguez | Dreamstime.com


Was God the first Alexander Technique teacher?

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God. Was He the first teacher of the Alexander Technique?

He doesn’t appear on any of the official teachers’ lists – but then neither does F. Matthias Alexander, developer of the Alexander Technique.

Like Alexander, and teachers of his method today, God had a great interest in the condition of people’s necks.  You might even say that, like us, He was obsessed with their neck tension – although it’s also fair so say He took this obsession to a different level altogether.  Consider what He said to Moses after the golden calf incident:

I see this is a stiffnecked people. Now let Me be, that my anger may blaze forth against them and that I may destroy them… (Exodus, 32: 9, 10)

Here’s the back story:

Moses had been up on the mountain top for awhile receiving God’s commandments. The people had lost faith in his return – and in God. They built a golden calf to worship and began sacrificing animals to it.

The Golden Calf, and the stiff-necked people having a wild time

God had just led them out of Egypt, saved them from Pharoh’s army and provided for all their needs. Yet just a little delay in Moses’ return, and they reverted back to their old idol-worshiping ways.

It’s not surprising that God was angry when He saw what they had done. But why did He use the phrase “stiffnecked people”? And why is that same phrase (the Hebrew word is kashe-oref – kashe: hard; oref: scruff of the neck) repeated again in Deuteronomy 9: 13 and 14 and several other places in the Bible? After all, God didn’t rail against their stiff shoulders, stiff arms or stiff legs.

What’s so important about that particular part of our anatomy that God should make specific mention of it in His anger?

Take a moment to think about where your neck is located and what function it plays in your life.

Your neck is the vital connecting corridor between the most important parts of your body, your head and your torso. These are two parts of you that are absolutely necessary for you to survive as a living human being.

A surgeon will tell you that there are as many distinct structures in your neck as in all the rest of your body. Air, food, nerve pathways and life-sustaining fluids such as blood and lymph have to pass through this narrow region of your body. And because the structures of your neck are packed so closely together, they require an absolute minimum of excess tension to function at their best.

Clearly its important for your general well being that your neck freely allows what might be called efficient “biological connections” between your head and torso. But it’s condition also has a huge impact on the “mechanics” of your functioning: your posture, coordination and your ability to move efficiently.

Your head weighs between 10-12 pounds and it is poised at the very top of your neck. I often hand my new Alexander Technique students a sack filled with 12 pounds of sugar and ask them to hold it in their arms for a few moments to get an idea of what this feels like. Most are amazed that they’re carrying so much weight on top of the necks.

If your head is lightly balanced on top of your neck, very little muscular effort is needed to keep it there. But if that balance is compromised, you’re going to have to hold it up with a lot of muscular effort. In other words, you’ll have to stiffen your neck to keep it from falling forward, or to one side.

And if your neck is stiffened, that tightness will cause compensatory tightening throughout the rest of your body, harming your ability to move freely and efficiently – not to mention restricting your breathing, putting pressure on your internal organs, etc.

Think for a moment of people you know who have stiff necks. Watch how they sit, stand and move and you’ll see what I mean. Chances are they move comparatively stiffly and awkwardly.

And then think of how they adjust to changing circumstances in general and how flexible they are in their thinking. Very likely you’ll notice a certain mental rigidity that mirrors their physical stiffness. (It is for good reason that the word “stiffnecked” is often translated in the Bible as “stubborn”.)

If we are indeed made in God’s image, then it stands to reason that He would be displeased when we would take poor care of ourselves. Stiffening our necks is one of the quickest and surest ways to do just that.

And learning how to release undue tension in our necks – a major focus of Alexander Technique teaching – is one of the best things we can do to improve our overall functioning.

So, back to the original question – was God the first Alexander Technique teacher?

Sure, He recognized the importance of the state of humans’ necks, just as Alexander Technique teachers do today.

And He did make an explicit connection between neck tension upright posture: In Micah 2, verse 3 He declares: 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.

But I would argue that on balance He wasn’t such a great Alexander teacher.

Threatening to destroy someone, or prevent them from walking upright, because they are tensing their necks is hardly going to encourage them to release that tension.  You certainly don’t see Alexander Technique teachers today using this particular teaching procedure!

We are more likely to suggest that our students gently direct themselves out of their harmful tension patterns, perhaps by using a phrase like “I am not stiffening my neck”.

I think the best we can say about God’s teaching – if that’s in fact what he was trying to do – is that it was very much a work in progress.

F. Matthias Alexander: Certainly the first human Alexander Technique teacher

It was left to Alexander, and those who have followed him, to figure out how to teach people to effectively release the kind of tension that God was upset about.

Here’s a podcast interview I did with Amy Ward Brimmer on this general topic

**

What do you think about God, stiff necks and the Alexander Technique?  Do you know of similar references in the texts of other religions?  I’d love to hear from you.

 

Chairs: The Seat of Wisdom

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Is there a perfect chair?

A chair that encourages an easy upright posture, a minimum amount of harmful strain, and that is comfortable to sit in throughout the day?

Most Alexander Technique teachers would say “no” – that the harmful postures people exhibit when sitting are primarily a function of the way in which they sit, not the object they sit on.

F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the Technique himself said – in this case about “correct” school furniture:  “…what we need to do is not to educate our school furniture, but to educate our children. Give a child the ability to adapt himself within reasonable limits to his environment, and he will not suffer discomfort, nor develop bad physical habits, whatever chair or form you give him to sit upon.”

And just how can you (or your child) acquire that skill?

Simple: take a course of Alexander Technique lessons from a qualified teacher.

And, by the way, a portion of your lessons will consist of “chair work” – sitting in a chair, standing up, sitting down again.  A teaching procedure almost as old as the Technique itself.

There is certainly a lot to be said for taking Alexander Technique lessons in order to be able to sit more easily – especially these days when many of us are sitting for longer and longer portions of the day.

But of course the same sort of argument be made for – let’s say – coal miners working in a four-foot shaft.

With proper Alexander Technique training, they could spend their long and hard-working days in a “posture of mechanical advantage” – ankles, knees and hips easily bent, head releasing gently away from their unstressed torso.

I wonder how many Alexander Technique teachers would willingly sign up for this experiment!

I think we need to admit that there are some activities we humans just aren’t well adapted for – and that maybe sitting for long periods is one of them.

That’s the argument made by Galen Cranz, a Professor of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley and a teacher of the Alexander Technique.  She is the author of The Chair: Rethinking Culture, Body and Design, a fascinating book on many levels, and one I highly recommend to anyone who uses a chair.  She also wrote an essay titled The Chair as a Health Hazard.

The title pretty much gives away her general take on chairs!

Galen makes a few specific suggestions for sitting – using a stool that’s about 1 1/2 times as high as a standard chair, “perching”, and using a lounge chair.

This latter idea will probably come as a shock to most Alexander Technique teachers and students, but like all of her suggestions it is deeply rooted in basic Alexander Technique concepts.

Galen challenges some long-held Alexander Technique beliefs, but her thinking is solidly based on basic Alexander Technique principles and I believe her ideas are worth serious consideration.

You can listen to an interview I did with her for the Alexander Technique Podcast here:

What are your views on this important subject? How important is it that we learn to sit well in any chair?  What do you do to look after yourself while sitting? Do you use a non-standard chair or sitting surface when you can?

Chair Image: Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net  Recliner Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Alexander joins the NeuroZone

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Marjorie Barstow, 1899 – 1995

Marjorie Barstow, a well-known teacher of the Alexander Technique used to say “Someday there will be a science of human movement that incorporates Alexander’s discoveries.”  (Alexander is F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the Alexander Technique.)

I was always a bit taken off guard when I’d hear her say this because Marj rarely seemed to have any interest in the future, or for that matter, the past.  She was the most in-the-moment person I have ever met and a statement of this kind seemed out of character for her.  Yet it was a theme she came back to with some regularity.

She never elaborated on how and when she thought this science might develop but she seemed sure that someday it would.

Marj died in 1995.

Now let’s fast forward a couple of decades from the time of Marj’s last workshops.  STAT News publishes an article about studies of the Alexander Technique’s impact on postural tone that includes a photo of this contraption:

It called “The Twister” and I’m sure Marj would have loved it – and probably would have wanted to try it out herself!

it was developed at the Oregon Health and Science University and used by Dr Tim Cacciatore, PhD to measure, among other things, the effect of Alexander Technique lessons on postural tone.  Dr Cacciatore is now a neuroscience researcher at the Institute of Neurology, University College London where he is engaged in a series of studies on this general topic.  He also happens to be certified as an Alexander Technique teacher.  You can see a video about the Twister here.

The first few of these studies have been completed and the evidence is now pretty clear that lessons in the Alexander Technique change the way anti‐gravity muscle tension is regulated, reducing stiffness along the spine and in the hips. You can read these studies here, and listen to a podcast interview about them with Dr. Cacciatore here.

 

Actually, for some time there has been growing evidence of connections between the Alexander Technique and neuroscience.  As Henry Fagg notes in a recent article in STAT News: “Over the last decade there has been an explosion of neuroscientific evidence which is of possible relevance to, even if it is not explicitly about, AT.”  Cacciatore’s studies are the latest, and certainly the most explicit, manifestations of that trend.

***

So how was it that Marj Barstow, with absolutely no formal scientific training, could be so sure this would happen some day?

Certainly it had something to to her over 60 years teaching during which she was always trying out new ways to teach.  She once told me that she had been thinking about and experimenting with Alexander’s discoveries every day since she first read one of his books in the early 1920s.

Marj just knew that science would someday begin to understand the mind-body link that she was living every day of her life.

***

Can you imagine Alexander’s discoveries having an influence on the development of neuroscience?  Can you imagine developments in neuroscience influencing the ways in which his discoveries are taught?  Seems like a fertile field for exploration.

 

 

 

 

 

Alexander Technique tip from a Card Shark

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To paraphrase a verse in The Gambler by Kenny Rogers, it’s not a good idea to count your poker winnings while you’re still at the table.  The time to do so after the game is over.  (Because of copyright restrictions I can’t print the exact lines here, but you can listen the song at the bottom of the page. I highly recommend this since the actual phrase is an excellent tool for students and teachers to remind themselves of an extremely important aspect of the Alexander Technique. I use it all the time in my own teaching.)

In a last week’s podcast, I wrote about the willingness to take a chance – a “gambling chance” – that seems to be so much a part of the Alexander Technique world.

Applying Alexander Technique principles in your life can be seen as a series of experiments – you direct your thoughts in a way that seems like it might improve the way you function and sometimes it turns out to be useful.  And sometimes it does not.

It’s almost a cliche to say, as I did last week, that you can learn something useful either way.

But let’s say you “win” the bet and your new thought brings about a change that is clearly beneficial.  For example: You’re experimenting with walking and you say to yourself, “I’m not tensing my neck” as you walk, alternating that with plain old everyday walking.  You notice that your walking is easier with the Alexander directing, perhaps by sensing that your feet don’t hit the floor so hard with each step.

That moment of success can be surprisingly dangerous.

How so?  Because the lightness of you feet is a new and enjoyable sensation and it’s extremely tempting for you to shift your focus to to that nice new feeling. And away from the mental directing that made that nice new feeling possible.  It’s all too easy – and tempting – for something like this sequence of thoughts to take place: “I’m not tensing my neck. I’m not tensing my neck. Wow, my feet feel so light as they arrive at the floor. My feet feel so light.  I’d like to keep that feeling. etc etc.”

It’s the kind of experience that every Alexander Technique teacher and student has had.

And it’s a trap because your intent has now shifted away from process and towards result.

Kenny Rogers’ advice is exactly what’s needed here.  Of course you’re glad about the nice feelings or release just as you’re glad about your earnings in a poker game.  But you don’t want to dwell on nice feelings while you’re experimenting with self-directing since they take you away from those directions   And you don’t want to “count your winnings” while the game is still in progress because you need all your wits to play well.

There’s plenty of time for counting after the game…and after the Alexander Technique experiment.

***

I think it would be interesting for other teachers and students to hear of your experiences with this potential obstacle to Alexander Technique success.

Here’s Kenny’s advice – it’s a great song, but if you want to skip to the key phrase, it’s at about 1.10 minutes:

 

Image: healingdream / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

“Take a gambling chance”

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That’s a phrase the late Marjorie Barstow used a lot.  When she was 90 years old, someone she had never met called and asked if she’d fly – by herself – across the country, to a city where she’d never been, to teach an Alexander Technique workshop.  She agreed and when we talked about it later she told me “Well, I thought I’d just take a gambling chance and go.”

Her inclination was always to say “yes” to anything new.  When she was only in her 70s, she was asked to spend two months in Texas teaching the Alexander Technique to groups.  As she writes in her preface to the Centerline edition of Use of the Self, “This (invitation) delighted me as I had wondered for some time if the Technique could be taught successfully to groups of students.  This gave me the chance to explore this idea and I started off alone driving to Texas, eager to be in a new situation (italics mine). My first class in Texas and my subsequent teaching have proven that the Technique can be taught successfully to groups of students and I have found my students excited and happy with their experiences with Alexander’s discovery.”

Actually F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the Alexander Technique, had had a similar experience nearly eighty years earlier.  As he recounts in his Autobiographical Sketch (Published in Articles and Letters), while in Melbourne, he was approached by the secretary of a theological college asking if he would take a number of his students in class.  He told the secretary that he had “…never attempted to teach a number of pupils together” and that he doubted in would prove successful.  “Nonetheless”, he wrote, “if he and the students were prepared to take a risk on this (italics mine) I was quite prepared to undertake the experiment.”

Reflecting back on the experience he said, “At the end of a couple of months I had reason to be thankful that I had consented to take the students in class…”

Of course, it might be said that Alexander’s biggest gamble was leaving Australia.  In 1904 he boarded an ocean liner bound for England to seek fame and glory in London.  Quite a leap of faith on his part and, fittingly, the trip was financed by a long-shot bet on a racehorse!

Clearly this willingness to “take a gambling chance” seems to be a feature of the Alexander Technique community.

I would even say that it’s an integral part of the Alexander Technique teaching and learning process.  Whenever students experiment with an Alexander direction, or teachers with a new way to convey Alexander’s discoveries to their students, they are “taking a gambling chance”.

It might work.  It might not. Either way, something useful can be learned.

I’d love to hear about some “gambling chances” you’ve taken in your Alexander Technique journey.

Image: dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Alexander Attitude

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I recently watched a short PBS News Hour piece about the American hero John Glenn.  Fifty years ago, Glenn became the first person to orbit the earth and he was being interviewed about that historic – and extremely dangerous – flight and about his thoughts on today’s space program.

Here’s the interview:

Towards the end, the interviewer asked Glenn – who is 91 years old – a question I’m sure was on every viewer’s mind: How did he manage to keep in such great physical and mental shape?

“A good attitude and exercise” was his immediate reply.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that answer over the past few weeks.  Here’s one dictionary definition of attitude that resonated with me: “position or posture of the body appropriate to or expressive of an action, emotion, etc.”

John Glenn at the time of his second space flight.  He was only 77 at the time.

Interestingly enough, the words attitude and aptitude share a linguistic root. One definition of aptitude is “the state or quality of being”.  Glenn’s “state of being” seems exceptional for a person of his age.

What I find interesting about these definitions is that suggest a physical link to what is usually considered a mental state – that the way you organize your body can affect your attitude.

This is not be at all surprising to Alexander Technique students and teachers – the Technique is all about releasing habitual tensions that get in the way of free self-expression. Many of us have experienced improvements in our general attitude towards life as we’ve freed ourselves from those tensions.

I can still vividly remember a residential Alexander Technique workshop I took in rural England a few months after I started with lessons.  The afternoons were largely free and I would often use that time to explore the narrow one lane roads in the neighborhood.  I was struck by how much easier my walking had become – but even more by how unexpectedly happy I felt.

Here’s a little experiment you might want to try right now: Let your attention go to some situation in your life that concerns you.  Notice your attitude towards it. Then, quietly say this to yourself for a few seconds: “I am not tensing my neck.” Say this without any effort or expectation on your part.

Now let go of that neck-intention for a few seconds and then bring it back, again for a few seconds.  Shift back and forth a few times.

Now, thinking back, did anything about your attitude toward the situation change during your experiment?  And what do you notice about your attitude right now?

I’d love to hear your experience with this

 

Pity Poor Posture…So Terribly Misunderstood

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A British army recruiting poster from the 1930s showing a Sergeant Major’s “good posture”.  You can see why Posture is so upset.

I recently tried to do an interview with Posture for the Alexander Technique podcast, but he’d moved so far from civilization – and good internet connections – that the audio quality was terrible.  But he has an important point he wants to make, so I’ve transcribed part of our conversation here:

Me: It’s good to get a chance to talk to you Posture.  I am curious why you’ve moved to what you describe as an “undisclosed and very remote” location?

Posture: Thanks for asking. I moved far away from civilization because I felt I was undergoing so much misuse. What was once my greatest joy had become a living nightmare.

Me: How so Posture?

Posture: Well I used to love being both a noun and a verb.  That opened up so many opportunities for me to hang out with all my word buddies.  And I thought I was performing a useful service for humans.

Me: Well you’re still a noun and verb…

Posture: Stop right there!  A noun for sure but my use as a verb has almost entirely disappeared.  It now pretty much always has a negative connotation.  Nobody likes someone who’s “posturing” – that’s what politicians do – and who likes them these days?

Me: OK, I can see that, but what about your noun function?  That seems to be going well for you.  I’m always seeing and hearing advice on how to improve posture.

Posture: That’s just what I’m trying to tell you!  When people hear my name today, they immediately think I’m a position and try to get themselves into the right one. Then they talk about their “poor posture” and that they just can’t seem to hold it…they just go on and on and make themselves stiff.  And, worse for me, they’re never happy talking about me, or demonstrating what they think I am.

Me: So what should they be thinking when they hear your name?

Posture: They should be thinking that I’m a process, not a place.  And an enjoyable process at that! If you’re alive and breathing – which by the way is movement – there will never be a right position to hold. You just can’t hold a movement. Trying to do that doesn’t make sense, and it almost always makes things worse.

Me: So you’re saying your always misunderstood?

John Dewey being taught by F. Matthias Alexander

Posture: Not always, thank goodness, but most of the time.  People in your field, the Alexander Technique, get it and some others do too.  By the way, one famous student of your work, John Dewey, totally got it.  But he’s been dead for half a century.  I miss him terribly… (Posture takes a break to compose himself here.) People like Dewey made me feel understood, cared for even.  For awhile after there was still Marjorie Barstow, but then she died, and well…

You know, when I’m feeling really down, I think of something she once said: Life is really moving from one position to another. We never stop and say, “This is right–this is my posture, this is the way I ought to be”. If we do that, we’re stiff trying to hold that posture. It isn’t natural for our bodies to be held in positions.

Just thinking about that helps me remember my glory days.

Me: Well let’s hope that we can restore your verb-ism, if I can use that phrase, to it’s proper role.  Thank you so much sharing your thoughts.

Marjorie Barstow, 1899 – 1995

Posture: Thank you for listening.  You’ve no idea how lonely it is for me here. Nobody knows who I am. There doesn’t even seem to be a word for me here – everyone just is good posture.

Me: Hang in there Posture – we’re going to work to bring you back here where you’re sorely needed!

***

After our interview, I asked Posture if he could recommend some material that would help visitors to my blog better understand his concerns.  He thought for awhile and finally said he thought this interview would be helpful:

Posture has promised to read your responses to this blog – so please, please send him a message.  He’s really not doing well. I had to cut out, at his request, some of the saddest moments of our interview.

 

The Power of Negative Thinking

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Just say no.

You’ve all heard this. Popularized by Nancy Regan in the 1980s as part of the “war on drugs” it later morphed into campaigns against violence and pre-marital sex.

The phrase gained a lot of attention at the time, not all as intended.  I remember the drug dealers in Washington Square Park in Manhattan in the 90s were easily identified by their prominent “Say No to Drugs” buttons!

Today the slogan is generally considered to have been useless at best – in large part because it was making unrealistic assumptions about what people could, or wanted to, change.

Which is too bad because a well thought out “just say no” can be a very effective tool for self transformation. The key is to say no to things you can do, but don’t want to.

Here’s an example which I think will illustrate this – and which you can try for yourself:

Most of us create excess tension somewhere in our bodies.  If you have a pretty good idea where you’re habitually tightening up – could be your shoulders, your chest, your pelvis, whatever – you can use it for the little experiment below.  If you’re not sure where to put your attention, put it on your neck.

Now walk back and forth across the room.  When going in one direction, walk as you usually do.  When you walk in the other direction, softly think “I am not tightening my (neck, shoulders – whatever region of your body you have chosen to experiment with)”.

The “I am not” part of this phrase is very important, but feel free to experiment with other words that mean something like “tightening” – maybe tensing, squeezing, compressing or any other similar word you like.  Feel free also to experiment with other activities you do – speaking, chopping vegetables, whatever.  Simply alternate between your usual way of doing them, and gently adding this self-directing phrase.

And remember a key word here is softly – whichever version of the phrase you are use is best conveyed to yourself without any pressure, detailed instructions or expectations.  Last week’s blog has more information about this.

If you feel you’d like more guidance, or want more information about the usefulness of “saying no”, you can listen an interview on the topic here:

and to several other audio interviews about this precess here.

Have fun, see what you notice and please share your experiences here.

Image: zirconicusso / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

“A Little bit of Nothing”

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Marjorie Barstow 1899 – 1995

That’s how Alexander Technique teacher Marjorie Barstow often described her work.  Sometimes, towards the end of her four-week summer workshops she’d say to the group: “Now when you get home, and people ask you what you learned in Nebraska, you probably shouldn’t tell them you learned a little bit of nothing!”

Her “little bit of nothing” was some of the lightest, most delicate – and most powerful and transformative – hands-on guidance I’ve ever experienced.

I think what gave her teaching that special power was a very clear intention coupled with the softest of touch, which I believe reflected the softness and lightness of that clear intent.

I’ve noticed in myself and others that when we focus on something that’s very specific – a book we’re reading, a computer screen, carrots we chopping – it’s easy to add a bit of tension to that focusing.  This can take many forms – a furrowed brow, neck and torso tightening, or restricted breathing for example.

Most of us have much less of that kind of tension when thinking about more general topics – such as “What a nice day it is.” or “I saw a wonderful movie yesterday.”

What we’re not used to, in the West at least, is combining lightness of mental intent with a clear intention about something very specific.  Marj was a master of that and it’s an important part of what made her teaching so powerful.

It’s also what can make Alexander Technique self-directing powerful.

Here’s a little exercise I use with my new students to help them develop this skill for themselves when applying their Alexander Technique directions:

I have them sit in a chair and ask them to tell me the color is a small table in in one corner of the room.  It’s a very ordinary table and it’s doubtful they would have noticed it before.  When they say “brown” I ask them how much of an effort they needed to come up with that answer.  Mostly they say none at all, but I point out they did have to shift their awareness from wherever it had been before to this little, boring, brown table.

I then have ask them to stand up, take a walk around the room and sit down again. And as they do so to have enough awareness of the table that they could easily answer a question about it either by remembering it, or knowing where to look to get the answer. I also tell them not to worry in the slightest if they forget about the table, but when they notice they’ve forgotten, to easily bring it back into their consciousness.

In other words, have a light interest in something very specific they would not have thought about before.

Most students can do this right away with almost no effort on their part.  A few go reflexively into concentration mode and it takes a few repeats and a bit of coaching to get them to let go of that.

Once they’re able to do this I tell them that if they’re using more effort than they just did when they think their Alexander Technique directions, they’re doing too much.

If you’re a student or teacher of the Alexander Technique, play around with this and see what you notice. Then think up some other ways of experiencing lightness of thought and specific intent, perhaps involving sound or some other sense.

If you’re not an Alexander student or teacher, next week’s blog will give you some simple Alexander self-directions that you can explore in this light, easy way.

I’d love to hear your experiences with this procedure.  And I’d love to hear about other ways you’ve thought up to develop this combination of specificity and lightness.

Desk Photo© Alexander Knjazhetsky | Dreamstime.com