Alexander Technique Blog

Alexander’s Primary Control in Action

May 26, 2011

It takes less than five minutes for this animal to adjust reflexively in gravity. Notice the HEAD LEADS, then the partial or secondary patterns follow (first with the forelegs then hind legs) becoming reflexively coordinated. The reflex travels down from the head end to the tail and co-ordinates the entire animal. There are some Alexander Technique “teachers” who actually dispute that the primary control even exists. This is because they are badly trained. There is no nice way to put it. But here is the principle of it for everyone to see for themselves.

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Alexander Technique for Kids

May 12, 2011

We seem to be more and more nervous, mentally unbalanced and muscularly unfit. Our children are fatter, becoming less motivated and more entitled, showing all the signs of ill health (of course diabetes, but also many are emotionally maladjusted) and they seem to have all the signs of a terrible life ahead of them. They don’t move, or play. They sit at computer games and go online, connecting to sites that are mostly a waste of valuable youth. Some of these sites are criminal and dangerous. They don’t use this time to shape themselves for their futures. And nobody is guiding them either! They take all manner of drugs and many are addicts before 15. Others are fixated with celebrity and they want recognition as a validation for themselves. This alone shows a total lack of values and the power they should be developing to make a life in the future. They can only become shallow, angry adults without a shred of the wherewithal to face life.

Seeing such children lumber around deformed and unhappy, I ask myself Why is this? How can it auger well in the future for all of us if these young generations are already so dysfunctional and delusional? Everything about them screams out at the casual observer and these are the young that will run the governments, make the policy and shape the way our world is run.

We adults seeing this, seem incapable of lifting even one finger. So I decided to offer either free lessons or nearly free lessons to some children who I believe need this work. They fill all these criteria of need to change their ideas of self and life. I can’t change the world but I can help one person or even two. Maybe it helps them and maybe it falls on deaf ears, I don’t know, but I am doing this because it is the heart and core of Alexander’s principles to work with the individual. One child at a time.

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Human Excellence

April 14, 2011

“There is an ideal of excellence for any particular craft or occupation; similarly there must be an excellence that we can achieve as human beings. That is, we can live our lives as a whole in such a way that they can be judged not just as excellent in this respect or in that occupation, but as excellent, period. Only when we develop our truly human capacities sufficiently to achieve this human excellence will we have lives blessed with happiness.”

Aristotle

I contend that FM Alexander managed to offer us a pathway to develop this very human excellence. By overcoming our shortcomings and the traits that block us, we can learn to more fully realize our potential and enjoy a greater measure of happiness. What is demanded of us is a great deal of self-examination.

But how does the practical work of an Alexander lesson relate to human excellence in the general sense? How do we possibly connect standing and sitting in a chair (with some gentle “adjustments” along the way) with an excellence that leads to happiness in life? What on earth has one to do with the other?

Think of it this way. If we are habitually distorting ourselves just in order to stand on the planet, if we’re constantly contorting ourselves as we move, and slumping to sit, if we go about the very basic tasks of life while simultaneously pushing ourselves down and lifting ourselves up, then we are in a bad fix.

In this condition, as we set about to master any specific trade or occupation or any avocation with specialized demands, we bring all of our habitual baggage with us. In the process we can make an even bigger mess of things. We pressure ourselves to excel, practice longer and harder, and get better and better at distorting and blocking ourselves.

The process of learning that FM Alexander discovered, offers us a way to change this condition, because it offers us a way to change our habits. With the help of a good teacher we can have a new experience; we learn to Stop/ Think/ Observe/ and Allow change. This leads to self-possession and toward self-mastery. This is the kind of excellence I believe Aristotle had in mind; excellence that can help us to “have lives blessed with happiness.”

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Pandora’s Box

March 18, 2011

During my 30 years of teaching I have often observed how disturbing it is for pupils when they come up against a totally new sensation of themselves. They tend to feel odd, misplaced, and peculiar. Indeed, they are often alarmed by the sensations that flood them.

Time after time they will try to edge themselves back into the twists, distortions, and holding patterns that they are familiar with. Even though they can see for themselves in my 4 mirrors (or in my photos of them) how distorted and twisted up they are when they are left to their habits. Sometimes I will have to remind them 20 times in less than a few minutes not to sink back into a habit. That whole time they can plainly see that the habit is a distortion. They would like to be free of this distortion, which is why they are coming for lessons. But they still go to the familiar, so that they won’t feel “wrong.”

It takes a lot of humor and good will for us to take this information in stride. I actually tell every prospective pupil, that in order to work with them I will need two things; they must have a sense of humor, and they must be a good sport. That is because this work is an undertaking which encourages a real shift within oneself and in one’s very way of being on this planet. It is to open up a wonderful, terrible Pandora’s Box full of personal fears, talents, doubts, and false beliefs.

So if you are taking lessons or if you think you may want to start lessons, prepare to keep a good humor and be a good sport because to change the habits of a lifetime is “mind-blowing.” You will open a door into your very Self and discover a wealth of new possibilities. No other discipline I know can help us to facilitate this process as effectively and reliably as the Alexander Technique.

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The Need to Be Right

March 6, 2011

By Stella Weigel

The King’s Speech, based on events from the life of King George VI of England, has taken the world of cinema by storm. The film shows “Bertie” struggle to overcome his stammer and find his voice, in order to rally the free world to resist Nazi aggression. The film illustrates how a “need to be right” can have crippling effects on speech and deed.

Bertie’s father has the highest expectations of his son, as does an entire nation. Lionel Logue, an expert in speech disorders, encouragers Bertie. He is able, with some pushing, prodding, and a little manipulation, to help Bertie break through some of the habitual defences that he has used to suppress himself, and suppress his voice. When Bertie starts to own his authority as a man, he starts to become the leader that his country needs.

Alexander understood that the “need to be right” was a root cause in many of our troubles. In fact in many ways, Bertie is no different from Alexander’s golfer who cannot keep his eye on the ball, or the stutterer (both found in The Use of the Self), or you, or I.

The pupil attempts to please the teacher, and becomes, therefore, nearly un-teachable. The teacher is not able to provide an improved “means whereby.” And the pupil tries harder and harder to correct himself, “to be right.” This circle of failure leads to a loss of self-confidence and to a renewed fear of always being “wrong.”

Alexander Technique lessons encourage us to go out of our comfort zone and be willing to be “wrong.” We will most certainly be wrong, since from the outset we have faulty habitual use, and faulty kinaesthesia. The lessons help us tolerate being wrong, as we stop, reconsider and perhaps choose a new direction governed not by habit, or how others think we ought to be, but how we wish to be.

Guest Blogger, Stella Weigel, is an Alexander Technique student at The Constructive Teaching Centre, London, the world’s oldest and largest Alexander Technique training school. She had Alexander Technique lessons from 2006-2009 before embarking on her training in April 2009. She lives in the city of London.