When people ask me what the Alexander Technique is, I can get a little flustered. It’s not easy to describe something that affects every aspect of our being, something that is both so obvious yet opaque.
My attempt now would be something like – Alexander Technique is being able to remember or re-learn how easy it can feel to be a human being doing ordinary stuff. It is learning how to cope with the continual barrage of stress and stimulus. It is building a strong and reliable awareness of oneself in the present moment, kindly.
For those whose syllabus has included Shakespeare, you may recall the famous Prince Hamlet’s reflection:
“How noble in reason,
how infinite in faculties, in form and moving,
how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension,
how like a god!”
The human being is a masterpiece of creation. Perfection is not the goal in any Alexander Technique class, but it does feel good and empowering to co-operate with our beautiful design.
Learning Alexander Technique allows us access to our full scope of resources (ourselves) moment to moment. Real connection. Going in to check ourselves. Going out to meet the world. While driving or typing or hustling or making waves. It feels good and it prevents the wear and tear that is en route to that slipped disc, that migraine, that panic attack, that self-doubt.
Brushing my teeth I notice my knees are locked. Why on earth is this interesting? Because I’m authoring this tiny misuse and I don’t know it and it has a knock-on effect throughout myself (including my breath). Going in, I can unlock my knees, free myself up a little, go out and finish brushing. The amount of times I notice my shoulders rising to my ears while I’m doing something that doesn’t require shoulders rising! Stop. Come back to my full self. Going in and going out, again and again, one after another all at the same time. Because I can.
Applying such practical awareness is far reaching. Particularly for our t(w)eens. The intersection of self-awareness and self-consciousness. Knowing themselves versus being obsessed with themselves. Helping themselves with a curious attention that doesn’t leave them feeling self-conscious and worried and comparative and insecure.
Pop psychology would say something like “think positive”, “learn to love the person in the mirror”. Good and well. But how? When, at the best of times, our view of ourselves is quite limited. The things we notice largely surface, physical, obvious, through the lens of peer review.
I have a handful of t(w)eens coming through my studio. Such a special privilege to work with the developing proprioception and self-concept of these dudes. What’s surprisingly common among them is the need to rest. Not still (very jiggly is the nervous system at this age) but quietly organized in their bodies and feeling into what’s there behind the mind-chatter. Going beyond the noise, the worry, the need to be anything other than here and now, with themselves. Growing the sense of what’s there right underneath their noses and finding the solid ground within.
John Kabat-Zinn notes that many are feeling overwhelmed because “it’s all unfolding faster than our nervous systems can manage”. I think doing nothing constructively, having no agenda, is the most important thing to counter act this overwhelm. To increase our sense of self as available, responsive, beautiful and powerful.
In an AT class with this age group I teach Constructive Rest (also known as Active Rest). It is a way of lying down in a semi-supine that promotes good spinal alignment and release of excess tension, offering a time of rest, thoughtful awareness, and insights into the body’s amazing design.
As well as making space for this “active Rest” I also help my students find their true backs and spines – so that in times of need they can ‘have their own back’ keeping them centered, supported and breathing easily. Where is your spine? How long? What shape? Where does it begin and end? Learning something about our bodies can change the way we inhabit them. When you can notice a collapse or a slump – instead of feeling this postural inevitability or going into a ramrod straight position to ‘correct’– you can think of your long curvy spine supporting you, knowing where and what it is. Helping yourself one subtle, yet deep and lasting, intervention at a time.
I don’t want to make this sound too slow and boring- It’s fun. Learning about ourselves and playing with our understanding our “how” we do the things we do, is revealing and enjoyable. I find this age group is already primed with a certain level of self-interest that we can direct into wonderful insights. Looking in the mirror without appraisal yet noticing the person there. Playing games that involve waiting before responding so that we practice ‘going in to go out’ making space for our full selves.
Young or old, tween or teen, Hamlet or Everyman, Alexander Technique is learning about ourselves ‘in form and moving’ and finding what true confidence can be.
