Keys of the Alexander Technique (part 2): THINKING yourself into Movement.

The Alexander Technique deals first with clearing your thinking so that you are able to move in the direction that you wish to move, and not where your unconscious habit would take you.

So, before setting out, you pause to remind yourself to let go of your habitual tension patterns. And then, after the pause, it is a matter of committing to your new direction.

Ultimately, direction is a movement from point A to point B. But, in the Alexander Technique, we’re much more concerned with how we travel that distance.

In bodily terms this “how” is determined by a “primary movement” that comes before any actual step we take in the direction of point B. This “primary movement”, which has its definite physical manifestation in the dynamic relationship between head-spine-ribs-girdles-limbs, is governed by two “mind” aspects.

The first “mind” aspect is body awareness (body map). During lessons we strive to raise our sensory appreciation of our body parts, and their relationships to each other and to the whole.

The second, and most important “mind” aspect, is perhaps unique to the Alexander Technique.

Having determined "how" we want to travel from A to B, the Alexander Technique concerns itself with making sure we start and keep moving in said direction in the manner that we decided. What we don’t want is our habitual tension patterns to sneak in on us the moment we spring into action and undo our “primary movement”.

There are infinite ways of getting from A to B. The “primary movement” ensures that we do so in such a way that we’re not interfering with our natural postural reflexes. Alexander called it “lengthening (and widening) in stature” which is akin to “decompressing your joints for movement” or “creating space for movement to occur.”

Read More

POSTURE FOR BEGINNERS (part 2): An (un)learning process.

Most sports and art forms have an “ideal posture” to practice them. Books and articles on them will describe this ideal posture, and sometimes offer muscular exercises that will help you achieve it.

However, if visually identifying what we need to change and doing muscles exercises to correct deviations from perfect form were enough, we’d all have good posture and no one would have back pain from bad postural habits.

This visual and muscular take on posture presents 3 problems.

Firstly, it assumes that he who receives the instructions knows his own body (has a clear body map) and can adopt the recommended posture without undue tension.

Secondly, it assumes that he who gives instruction and he who receives it, both interpret the concepts in the same way. Truth is we all have our own conceptual and sensorial definitions of our different body parts (“the neck” might not be exactly the same in my body map as in yours).

Thirdly, it assumes that we have to “work our postural muscles” with specific exercises, otherwise we’re bound to “go downhill” with gravity and age.* 

This view does not recognize that it is our heritage as homo sapiens sapiens to be proudly erect without undue effort if we do not interfere with the postural reflexes of our elegant design.

If instead we adopt the view that nature made us upright bipeds, and did so quite satisfactorily, then we shouldn’t so much “learn” to stand upright as “un-learn” to stand crookedly.

As homo sapiens sapiens we’re inheritors of a basic “software” that enables us to stand on our two feet in easy balance. This “software” is made up of a set of reflexes that we integrate, with greater or lesser success, during our early development. Since we all have the software, perhaps all we need is a little re-programming.

Hence, the best way to work on your posture is first to recognize what you must “stop doing.”

We must go to the deeper causes, to what is under the surface and cannot be seen with the naked eye. Self-knowledge is at the base of good posture.

* I don’t mean by this that you should not do exercise to correct muscle weaknesses that go hand in hand with bad posture and lack of joint mobility. What I do encourage you to do is to work those muscles ‘functionally’ and considering your body as a whole unit. You should be conscious of the balance and integration of your whole body during movement, and not just work the “weak muscles” in isolation.

Read More

Celebrating Achievements: a blog about Honoring Rest

Yesterday, my partner Eduardo and I, gave our first joint workshop on the Mistery of Stopping and Taking Root in the Body. It was the culmination of several months of arduous work, of comings and goings, of long discussions on the topic and longer practice sessions of the work. Finally we made it, and by yesterday afternoon it was successfully over.

It takes a while to come to rest after such an impulse. The inertia continues for a while. After such a race, coming to rest is something we have to consciously if we mean to savor the sweet space in which we do nothing for a while. It is a regenerative space.

It is not easy to stop and savor. The impulse’s inertia makes me believe that there is stuff I need to plan, things to do, processes to evaluate and new decisions to be made.

There’ll be time for that… tomorrow. Today I rest. Today I do nothing. Today I enjoy what I’ve achieved. Today I don’t look at what could have been better, what remains to be corrected and adjusted. Today I don’t look ahead to the road that’s left to travel. There’ll be time for that… tomorrow.

It’s so difficult sometimes to just stop and give ourselves permission to simply enjoy our achievements. We’re always noting what was missing, what wasn’t perfect, what is left to correct.

There will always be something to do. Every new achievement opens up doors to new avenues for improvement and discovery. When we reach the top of the hill we always find that the road goes on, that this hill has to be climbed down to climb the next one in line.

But enjoying the road implies savoring not only the effort of the climb, those moments when we feel we’re “doing something productive.” Walking the path also implies learning to savor the rests, those moments when we “do nothing” other than enjoy the vistas of what we’ve already travelled.

Therefore today… today I rest. Today I enjoy the view from here. Today I say thank you for having been able to walk this far.

Victoria

Read More

On Being a Beginner: A blog about savoring the process.

 I ran my first 5K today. I hadn’t run a race since my teen years.

I didn’t race… I ran, just that, my pace, my way, my world.

Being of a competitive and self-demanding nature, just being able to run for my own enjoyment is a huge accomplishment.

It all started about a month ago when my sister signed up to run her first 5K and started training. Something in her way of going about it inspired me. My sister doesn’t seem to run to beat anybody or prove anything.

So I started running too. Easy. Slowly. At my own pace. Trying not to strive for Olympic Gold just yet.

Still, the competitive-bug will come flying and prying any time I lose focus. It will whisper in my ear: train harder, run faster, run farther, make it worth your while.

So I stop.

I don’t have to “be somebody”, I don’t have to win anything nor prove anything to anybody. Running is simply good for me, for my body, for my psique.

That bug is no more than a habit of thought, a habit of my way of being.

Therefore, when I recognize it for what it is, I treat it like any other old habit.

I stop. I greet it like an old friend. And I let it go. I return to my body, to my breathing, to my inner organization. I remember my purpose.

Today my purpose was to run, listening to my body, collecting my thoughts, following my breath. Only that mattered. All the rest I could leave behind or watch them pass me by, as if they were other runners in the race.

I return to myself, to the wonder of being able to run, to the sensation of moving. I return to the present.

That is all.

Victoria

Read More