“A Little bit of Nothing”

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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.”

Marjorie Barstow 1899 – 1995

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

Chillin’ with Mister A

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F. Matthias Alexander

That’s Mister Alexander we’re talking about.  F. Matthias Alexander, developer of the Alexander Technique and a pioneer in the field of mind-body studies.

In his early teaching days, so the story goes, his students needed to take a short rest after lessons with him and there happened to be a large couch in his outer office they would use.  Alexander, never one to waste an opportunity, assigned his assistants the job of working with them a bit while they were lying down.

This lying down work morphed into what is now known as Alexander “table work”, often a staple of Alexander Technique lessons.  Along with this development came the realization that  students could benefit by doing some lying down on their own at home for a few minutes a day.

But not just any old lying down.  For maximum benefit, a fairly firm surface is required, the knees need to be elevated with respect to the hips and there needs to be some support under the head.

Over time, it was found that the “Alexander Technique Lying Down Position” could be very helpful even for people who were not having lessons in the Technique. The firm surface provides useful feedback about what our back is doing and the position itself tends to encourage a lengthening of the spine and release of harmful tensions throughout the body.

A great deal more information about this process, sometimes now called “semi-supime” or “constructive rest” is available here. If you feel you’re carrying excess tension in your body, give it a try for perhaps 15 minutes a day for a few days and see what you notice.

I would love to hear your experiences with this method of tension release, whether it’s been for a few days or many many years.

What’s the Use…of the Alexander Technique?

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There’s not a lot of jargon in the Alexander Technique, but the word “use” – as pronounced in the title above – has a special meaning that’s worth thinking about because it relates directly to just about everything we do.

Use, in Alexander parlance, is a kind of shorthand word for the quality of how well, or poorly, we use (rhymes with loose) ourselves in all our daily activities.*  Putting it another way, how efficiently we perform those activities and how little, or how much, unnecessary tension we create while doing so.

Helping our students learn to improve the overall quality of their use is one of our major goals as Alexander Technique teachers.

One of the most important discoveries of F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the Alexander Technique, is that our use patterns tend to manifest across a range of activities.  For example, someone who over-tenses their neck in order to speak is very likely to doing something similar while walking, or chopping vegetables, or working at a computer.  Helping a student improve their use in one activity often carries over into others.

I’ve found it’s helpful for my new students to be on the lookout for examples of good use and poor use.  Sadly, examples of poor use are all to easy to spot these days – hunched shoulders, shallow breathing, clenched jaws are a kind of modern day epidemic.

What about examples of good use?

My personal favorite is the late actor, dancer and singer, Fred Astaire.  His movies are always available on TV and I urge my students to record one or two and then make a point of watching Astaire in scenes where he is not doing his spectacular song and dance routines – ordinary scenes where is just walking, or talking or doing other mundane activities.

I suggest they turn the sound off, so as not to be distracted by the plot, and gently focus on how he moves.  If you try this yourself, you’ll soon see just how smoothly and effortlessly he carries himself, with absolutely no wasted energy.  You may find, as have many of my students, that just watching him in this way actually triggers a bit of release in your own tension level.  You may, for example, sense your breathing becomes a bit easier or your body feels a bit lighter.

Here’s a nice clip you can watch right now to give this a try.  Notice how seamlessly Astaire transitions from walking and talking into singing and dancing and how he makes those transitions without adding any unnecessary tension to his body:

Let me know what you experience – I’d love to hear from you!

*There’s a bit more to be said about the term use and if you’d like to explore the topic further, What’s the Use is a good place to start.

Devils, Tigers, a Hollywood actor and Alexander

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Quick – what do you think of when someone mentions Tasmania?

For a lot of people it’s the Tasmanian Devil, popularized by cartoons and comic strips.  Characterized by its pungent odor, extremely loud and disturbing screech, keen sense of smell, and ferocity when feeding, it’s probably not Tasmania’s best ambassador to the world.

For others it might be the now extinct Tasmanian Tiger or the island’s famous native son Eroll Flynn, a movie actor known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films and his flamboyant lifestyle.

So who’s the Tasmanian Alexander?

Well definitely not Alexander of Macedonia, aka Alexander The Great! India was the closest he ever got to Tasmania.  No, it’s F. Matthias Alexander, developer of what’s become known as the Alexander Technique and one of the great mind/body thinkers in modern times.

He was born in 1869 in Wynyard, Tasmania, the son of two convicts who had been transported to Tasmania from England. Through years of personal self-observation and experimentation, Alexander developed a number of very important insights into human posture and movement, and how we can learn to use those insights to improve our physical and mental functioning.

Alexander’s origins were humble, but over time his work came to be lauded by famous scientists, writers and intellectuals – and by many thousands of other students of his work.  Aldous Huxley based a character in one of his books in part on Alexander.  The famous American educational reformer and philosopher John Dewey wrote the introduction to three of his books.  He was the subject a Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1973.  The Alexander Technique has received numerous other medical and scientific endorsements.

It is my intent to use this blog to help promote greater awareness of Alexander’s work, and of the Alexander Technique.  And to popularize – in the best sense of that word – Alexander’s discoveries, and make them accessible to anyone who wants to explore them.

(I would also love to see greater recognition of Alexander in Tasmania itself.  I was amazed to see no mention of him on Tasmania Top Ten or any of the Tasmanian information sites.  Perhaps an Australian Alexander Technique teacher or student will bring this omission to the attention of the the right people in Tasmania? )

I welcome your comments and suggestions.  You can use the comment form below and/or subscribe to the blog using the form near the top of the right-hand column.

This is my very first blog! I would be remiss not to thank my Alexander Technique colleague Imogen Ragone for setting up the site for me, and for providing much-needed help in navigating WordPress software.  She’s definitely the go-to gal for anyone who wants to get started with social media, a website or anything else to do with the web.