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Well-Being

Well-Being and Our Overall Manner of Use

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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Movement & Poise

Self Possession, Freedom and Ease

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 […]

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Basic Premises of Alexander Technique

The Alexander Technique: A Means to Clear Thinking.

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 […]

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Performance & Potential

Living Consciously with the Alexander Technique

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 […]

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Well-Being

Asthma Management with the Alexander Technique

“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 […]

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Well-Being

The Primary Control and Asthma Conditions in Young Children

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 […]

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Well-Being

Alexander Technique and Posture: A Matter of Attitude

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 […]

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Well-Being

Stress Reduction and Emotional Well-Being

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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Well-Being

Lower Back Pain and The Alexander Technique

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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Guest Bloggers

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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Well-Being

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 […]

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Performance & Potential

Debauched Kinesthesia; Or, How Our Senses Deceive Us All the Time

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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Performance & Potential

Kinesthesia Part II: How Our Thinking Makes It So

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 […]

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Performance & Potential

Kinesthesia PART III: Re-Thinking

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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Guest Bloggers

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: […]

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Articles on Alexander Technique

No Easy Fix: Part I

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. […]

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Articles on Alexander Technique

No Easy Fix: Part II

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 […]

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Articles on Alexander Technique

No Easy Fix: Part III

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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