The Alexander Technique
"Optimal Effort, Ease and Joy in Activity."
JULES HELM
"Between stimulus and response there is a space.
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In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and freedom."
Victor E. Frankl
"The Body Keeps the Score"
Bessel Van Der Kolk
SOMATIC
PROCESSING
Integrated Whole Body Reconditioning
Mind/Emotion/Body
Coordination
Objective:
Optimal Effort, Ease and Joy in Activity
Prevention and Recovery from Injury or Disease
Create better Vocal and Physical Communication
Balance Nervous System / Anxiety and Stress Reduction
Ease, Ability and Coordination to Accomplish Your Goals and Dreams
How:
Through a series of guided explorations you begin to discover unnecessary or limiting habitual resistance to stimulus. By gathering information about your Mental Habits, Emotional Habits and Physical Habits, you develop the consciousness to have choice in how you respond, instead of being tied to outdated unconscious overreactions that no longer serve.
In other words:
Psychosomatic Reconditioning / Alexander Technique is an educational technique/practice reveals where you are over working or resisting, therefore optimize performance in any activity.
Some benefits:
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Improves Poise
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Posture
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Ease
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Communication Skills
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Overall Quality of Life.
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Preventing Injures
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Injury Prevention and Recovery
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Tension Release
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Improving Respiratory and Breath Function
The applications of the Alexander Technique include:
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Communication/Interpersonal Skills
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Health & Wellness
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Stress Management
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Tension Release
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Self Care
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Sports
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Work Place
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Public Speaking
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Performing Arts (actors, singers, dancers, musicians)
What to expect:
A welcoming environment where you share your individual objectives and challenges.
Next you will go through various Movement Explorations. With the help of my observation and hands-on direction and your increasing self-awareness, you will start discovering honest yet compassionate information about your motion patterns, thinking patterns and perhaps emotion patterns.
You will start to find the Mental Triggers that generate Unnecessary Muscular Tension or Skeletal Collapse. Sometimes this is major, sometimes this is minor. It is important to have no judgement, only awareness and acceptance of what you find. A lightness in attitude is imperative for rich progress to occur.
I encourage a playful, curious approach, combined with a gentle rigor meant to release unnecessary tension and free you up in life. Sometimes strong emotions will come up as your body starts to release - it's important not to judge that either. As letting go of over-exertion is not just letting go of physical tension, it very likely will include letting go of mental or emotional tension as well.
Remember you are only gathering honest information and allowing the tension to move through and out of your body. The technique is a practice. Little by little as you move or are moved, different aspects of your mind and body will begin to reawaken, free up and let go. Through this reconditioning process your body restores itself to the optimal exertion (good use) required to perform all the activities of your life.
Useful thought when in Practice:
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Evolving habits. Getting out of your own. Less is more.
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Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
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Don't over think or make it too precious.
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Approach with eyes of child or as though it is the first time.
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"Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle." Bruce Lee
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When addressing strong emotions apply-R.A.I.N. Recognize, Allow, Interest, Nurture
History of the Technique:
FM Alexander was an actor in the late 1800s to the early 1900s. He kept having reoccurring vocal problems during performance, but not in everyday life. He went to several doctors and specialists who provided no solution to his problem.
Since there was no apparent medical cause, Alexander thought he might be doing something wrong leading him to strain or ”misuse” his vocal chords.
He observed himself in mirrors when rehearsing for performance and noticed that he stiffened his neck, pulled his head back and down, depressed his larynx and had an audible gasp for air when he opened his mouth to speak.
Continuing to observe himself, he discovered a bigger pattern or habit of tension involving the whole body. Even more profound, is that the tension pattern manifested itself at the mere thought of reciting.
He begin to experiment until he found a method to change this habitual reaction and prevent these harmful misuse patterns. His voice, breathing and stage presence dramatically improved, inspiring others to come to him for help with a multitude of ailments caused by unnecessary muscular tension.
As the public became aware of the many success stories using his technique, the demand for his teaching became so high that he ultimately shifted his professional focus and devoted much of his life to teaching what we know today as the Alexander Technique.
My Journey:
Initially I was introduced to the Alexander Technique as part of my dance and acting studies. I was amazed with how free and easy my body felt after a lesson, how my knee and lower back pain subsided and how I had a dramatic increase in vocal resonance.
Lessons also gave me a technique to independently continue optimizing the use of my body in both performance and in everyday life.
In short, I began discovering unnecessary habitual tension patterns of mind & body in activity, then through a systematic practice I began letting go of those unnecessary tension patterns to find more ease, flow and healthy use of my body.
Years later, my therapist suggested I study the Alexander Technique for a deeper reason. She believed there was unprocessed trauma stored in the tissue & tension patterns of my body, and that more study would aid in the work we were doing.
Was she ever right! It was during my training to become an Alexander Teacher that everything opened. Blocked emotions, suppressed memories all began to bubble up. The Alexander Technique served as a gateway for gathering emotional information which I could then articulate & process in my therapy sessions.
I share my story because I’m a big quality-of-life advocate and an even bigger mental-health advocate. The use of the Alexander Technique has had a tremendously positive effect on all aspects of my life.