What is Alexander Technique?
The Technique
Alexander Technique is a set of principles aimed at improving postural and muscular habits, mobility, and attention.
By becoming aware of our reactivity and habitual response to the environment, Alexander Technique empowers us to make meaningful and lasting changes in our lives.
Unconscious Habits
People are often unaware of their habits that prevent them from reaching their full potential.
These habits are physical, cognitive, emotional and indivisible from one another. For example, you cannot experience anger or chronic stress without tightening your body and raising your blood pressure, heart rate, and cortisol levels. Conversely, when you are joyful and not stressed, your body and mind relax and dopamine and endorphins are released.
Long term persistence of these habits can detrimentally affect the health and well-being of individuals.
Imbalance
We do not stop and think about how we use our bodies. Over time our habits cause us to shorten and distort our stature through inappropriate muscular tension, leading to pain and injury. Our bodies become misaligned and stiff, and we falsely believe these changes are an inevitable consequence of aging.
As Andrew Wood suggests, “Engaged in continuously over time, chronic tension and overexertion have an impact on our neuromuscular system: the tensed muscles form a kind of body armour that we use to brace ourselves against the incoming emotional volleys we’re constantly subject to.” (Backstage.com)
From our place of imbalanced habits, we can often misinterpret sensory information. For example, we may not know that we lean forward too much when walking, placing strain on our lower back. When an Alexander Technique teacher shows us a better alignment of the head, neck, and back and we do not lean forward as much, initially it may feel wrong because we are judging the sensory experience of the new alignment based on the old one.
We become imbalanced because we react habitually to endless stimuli in the environment without thought, without pausing to reflect on how we might respond better.
Ultimately, our lack of awareness of what we do and our unconscious responses take away our freedom of choice.
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Everyone wants to be right, but
no one stops to consider if their
idea of right is right.
– F. M. Alexander
The Solution
But here is the good news! Alexander Technique can give you back freedom! If you want to be able to control your reactions to the environment, if you want to regain poise and fluidity of movement, and if you want to be the best you can be in whatever you do in life, Alexander Technique can help you.
The Alexander Technique offers a gentle, subtle, and gradual restoration of the natural coordination that you had as a very young child. In part, it is a process of retraining movement patterns that are dysfunctional by bringing attention to how you move in space and within your body. The Technique takes you from a state of constant physical contraction and misalignment to a state of expansion and integration. The result is a greater integrity and wholeness of the mind-body that provides much better posture, control, and a quiet sense of mental clarity and well-being.
Alexander Technique is a powerful, yet practical tool that develops a strong self-observation and a deeper awareness of yourself and your response to the environment. As you recognize your reactive physical and mental habits, you choose to prevent them and replace those habits with better responses to stresses in life. In the process, you learn that your thinking can profoundly influence how you use your body and vice-versa.
A Unique Approach
One of the many things that separates Alexander Technique from other methods is the unique learning through the teachers’ tactile work. When exploring the principles of the Technique during lessons, through verbal instruction and touch, teachers will gently encourage students to find new pathways to using their bodies in a more integrated manner. The students feel a new release of energy and lightness within their bodies and minds. Their understanding of how their thinking impacts these sensations can be an exceptional and transformative experience.
The Alexander Technique is endorsed by scientists, educators, and Nobel prize winners. There are numerous scientific studies that confirm the efficacy and benefits of Alexander Technique.
There are no conditioning exercises that are needed to learn Alexander Technique. Instead, individuals learn to use the Technique as part of their daily activities, moving away from dysfunctional postural habits to alleviate pain, reduce tension, and improve balance.
The Technique is also commonly used by professional musicians, actors, dancers, and athletes to excel in their specialized fields. Alexander Technique has helped these individuals gain efficiencies of movement, improve performance, and control performance anxiety.
In a world filled with stress, uncertainty, and constant over-stimulation, the Alexander Technique offers a wonderful opportunity for individuals to quietly explore the art of mindfulness as they discover a new world of poise and self-awareness.
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– F. M. Alexander
The Principles
There are five core principles to the Alexander Technique that are interconnected with one other.
Recognition of Force of Habit
We all have habits and default behaviours to help us navigate our environment. Habits assist us to accomplish tasks without needing to think about them. For example, without thinking, we automatically press the brake pedal in a car when the car in front of us slows down. Some automatic behaviours, like braking, are extremely useful, while other actions we have automatized are not always beneficial.
Alexander Technique begins with the premise that some of our habits lie beyond our full perception or consciousness. Alexander Technique teachers guide students to become aware of harmful habits that were unknown to them. This first step is necessary for improving how we use our bodies because we cannot change unhelpful habits that we are unaware of.
Recognition of Faulty Sensory Awareness
Faulty sensory awareness occurs when our subjective perception of a sensation does not match objective reality. If someone has lifted and tensed their shoulders for years and an Alexander Technique teacher then encourages the shoulders release and widening, the student may initially believe that this new and better position of their shoulders is wrong because of their faulty sensory awareness.
Generally speaking, reliable sensory awareness continues to degrade as our quality of movement deteriorates. What is perceived as normal to individuals can become increasingly harmful to the point that physical maladaptation may cause pain and interfere with mobility. Alexander Technique lessons aim to improve sensory awareness and educate students on healthier movement and posture options.
The Primary Control
The Primary Control is the dynamic relationship between the head, neck, and back/torso that is central to healthy movement and coordination. If the relationship between the three is strained, then maladaptation of the body will occur. If the neck muscles pull the head into the spine instead of allowing the head to naturally balance on top, the spine will compress. Poor coordination of the Primary Control can lead to physical and health challenges for the individual.
Alexander Technique students learn to maintain the quality of a functional head-neck-back relationship through inhibition and directions (see below). In a well-coordinated body, the primary relationship of the head, neck, and torso allows maximum mobility and facilitates free movement of the limbs.
Inhibition and Non-Doing
Viktor Frankl famously wrote, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” His words epitomize the core value of the principle of inhibition.
In Alexander Technique, inhibition is an active choice not to engage in poor habitual responses to the environment. In other words, inhibition is a non- doing of all the physical, emotional, or psychological manifestations of that habit. For example, individuals who have difficulty managing anger may impulsively react to a situation, tighten their bodies, shorten their breath, and inadvertently raise their blood pressure. If they recognize this habit, by utilizing the principle of inhibition, they have the opportunity to choose not to become angry and remain calm.
When individuals inhibit their responses, such as anger, by attending to the quality of their primary control, they have a greater capacity to think clearly, make conscious choices, and reframe their immediate circumstances. They gain greater control of themselves.
Giving Directions
After recognizing and inhibiting our habits, we can replace them with unique directions that are psychophysical in that they involve the mind and body. They include thoughts, awareness, and intentions regarding the way we choose to move.
For example, if you notice that you are sitting with rounded shoulders and a sunken posture, you can think within your body about freeing your neck, to allow your head to go forward and up and to allow your torso to lengthen and widen, thereby improving your posture. Similarly, just paying active attention to your balance and observing the weight transfer from heel to toe and from foot to foot while walking can change your gait.
Over time, when your mind is actively engaged with what your body is doing and has clear directions, the changes to the body and mind can be empowering and transformational. An Alexander Technique teacher can help you find your best directions in any endeavour you want to explore.
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When people are wrong, the
thing that is right is bound to
be wrong to them.
– F. M. Alexander
“I have been a student of the Alexander Technique for over eight years. My teacher changed my life with her profound understanding of the mechanics of the body, the relationship between the body and the mind, the power of inhibition and intention. I have re-educated myself to move completely differently as a natural way of being. The whole approach has allowed me to manage chronic pain in ways I did not think possible. My teacher is gifted, patient, knowledgeable, and understanding. I am endlessly grateful to her.”
— Nicky Basuk
“For me the Alexander method offers a system of reconnecting mind and body so that they work together with remarkable efficiency, replacing poor habits of body use with a lightness of being which is remarkably satisfying both physically and mentally. Since the Alexander method is about behaviour change, it takes patience, concentration and quality time. In my experience Alexander “work” is not tiring so that the learning process has allowed me to continue with my normal routines and responsibilities.”
— Elisabeth, Retired Librarian
“After a number of years of doing mainstream modalities, I had been searching for something alternative to help relieve chronic neck and shoulder pain as a result of 27 years of being a dentist. Somehow one search led to another online and I found Alexander Technique. I started lessons in July 2018. I found a teacher with whom I feel very comfortable. I am able to relate to her and most of all trust her and my body definitely feels different in a positive way.
After a session with my teacher, I feel a sense of lightness and a calming effect on my nervous system, going from a high alert sympathetic to a parasympathetic. I particularly enjoy the benefits of constructive rest on the floor, which I do every morning religiously. Lessons have helped me to slow down, rather than doing things in a rushed manner. I am aware of performing actions with intention rather than just out of habit and I am much more aware of what my body is doing. I really find AT a combination of mindfulness and meditation. In particular, constructive rest helps to ground and centre me. I am able to “let go”.
I must say that I really enjoy my weekly lessons and very much look forward to them. My teacher has a calming effect on me. It is very important to find a teacher with whom you resonate but once you do, your life will change.”
— Sheila Baker, Dentist
