What is a feeling of well-being? Why it is sometimes a very elusive thing to have well-being? How are we actually involved with its presence in our day to day lives, and how can the Alexander Technique make well-being a new habit of life? I would say a feeling of well-being is the very opposite […]
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I believe that many of us have had the experience of being in a conversation or social situation in which we lacked self-possession. When after it was over we thought to ourselves, darn it! Why didn’t I think to say this…or that…. Why didn’t I make this point? I should have said…. So what has […]
Continue to Full Post...A new means whereby we may become masters of ourselves. This is the fourth in a series of posts on “directions.” To recap here, first, to really become wonderful at doing anything, we have stop the self-sabotage and subconscious and semi-conscious habits (of thought and action) that derail us. Therefore, we have to see clearly […]
Continue to Full Post...One of the chief aims of the Alexander Technique is heightened consciousness. (F.M. said of his work, “It is quickening the conscious mind.”) Consciousness in what we are doing and how we are doing it in life, unfailingly leads a person to a state of prevention of disease, mental and physical malformations, and loss of […]
Continue to Full Post...“I do not claim to have discovered any new method of breathing, but to understand the only true one- Nature’s” – F. M. Alexander Asthma gives a feeling that you cannot inhale air. In reality, the sufferer cannot exhale. But it does not feel that way (unreliable kinesthesia). For asthmatics, the ease of air in […]
Continue to Full Post...According to Nemours, asthma affects about 1 or 2 kids out of 10, making it the most common chronic disorder in childhood, currently affecting an estimated 7.0 million children under 18 years. While most common in school age kids, asthma can start at any age — even in a little baby or an adult. Over […]
Continue to Full Post...Look up in any dictionary (in any language) the word “posture” and the definition is attitude. That means that if you think you have “bad” posture your attitude about yourself and yourself out in the world could be vastly improved with Alexander Technique lessons. Alexander Technique lessons will help you change deeply within yourself. This […]
Continue to Full Post...We all get stressed. And often, it seems as though this stress is imposed on us from the outside. But the Alexander Technique helps us see that this is not the case. Stress is really not something outside ourselves. It actually is all about how we are reacting to conditions, whether the conditions are created […]
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Going Up
By Stella Weigel In Thinking Aloud [Mornum Time Press, 1994] Walter Carrington describes what was probably the last lesson between Alexander and an old lady who had been a pupil of his for some years. At the end of the lesson, Alexander “patted her on the shoulder and said, “Now, my dear, see that […]
Continue to Full Post...Many people come to the Alexander Technique because of lower back pain. It’s not surprising. Our lives have become very sedentary and most of us will spend many hours a day in service related jobs sitting at desks looking at computers. Working pain free in our stressful world is becoming very difficult. According to the […]
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New Eyes
By Stella Weigel I recently attended the Alexander Technique Workshops International in Tuscany, organized by Michael Frederick. I had not attended since 2007, the summer after I began my lessons, and I knew this would be an entirely different experience. The place had not changed (I had even been given the same room), yet everywhere […]
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What Does Your Posture Reveal?
I recently had a chat with someone about the Alexander Technique, not about what it is, but what it is NOT. This person thought that the Technique had to do ONLY with “good posture and standing up straight.” This idea of “good posture,” or standing up straight, implies something fixed, rigid, and set, definitely NOT […]
Continue to Full Post...During his career as a dramatic performer, FM Alexander struggled with vocal problems. He had been to doctors repeatedly to no avail. But he had a fierce determination to understand what was getting in his way and decided he would find the reason for his voice failure, no matter what. This is very rare. When […]
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Width
by Stella Weigel What do you think of your shoulders? I only ever thought of mine as being ugly and rounded. I loathed seeing them in a mirror or in photographs, and tried to conceal them from display, not wishing to draw attention to them. I was asked to push my shoulders back and I […]
Continue to Full Post...Hamlet: Denmark’s a prison. (…) Rosencrantz: We think not so, my lord. Hamlet: Why then ’tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. William Shakespeare, HAMLET (II, ii) In the first article on this topic, we looked at some of what Alexander went through, and what […]
Continue to Full Post...FM Alexander figured out that our thinking shapes our feelings and our feelings shape our thinking, so if either of those two inputs is warped, both will become warped, and lead to a “debauched kinesthesia.” Most people will rely on their own kinesthetic sense as their guide in every decision in their lives, whether it […]
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Farewell to Lansdowne Road
by Stella Weigel 3 December 2010 marked the final day of teaching at 18 Lansdowne Road, Holland Park. For the past fifty years, it has been the London home of The Constructive Teaching Centre, dedicated to the study of the Alexander Technique. This historic turning-point has demonstrated the Centre’s ability to practice what it teaches: […]
Continue to Full Post...I have been writing about debauched Kinesthesia (here, here, and here) and there is an aspect to this topic that rules most of our habitual reactions. Let’s call it the blind spots in our thinking and in our perceptions. Of course we are unaware of the blind spots otherwise they would not be blind spots. […]
Continue to Full Post...In Part I, I started to describe Dr. R and her struggle with back pain (and the idea of a blind spot). Dr. R comes to an Alexander teacher who tells her that her back is not the key issue in her troubles. Dr. R does not follow this line of thinking. When she is […]
Continue to Full Post...I’d like to continue my exploration of Dr. R and her back pain (see here and here). Her problems did not begin over night. She tells her Alexander teacher that in high school her back would get tired frequently, but since the problem would go away, she didn’t bother with it. “But surely, you don’t […]
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