I was in my first year of undergraduate studies when a professor suggested I take his Alexander Technique class. I thought it’d make me a better dancer so I signed up. But there was no dancing. Just sitting up and down in a chair. Moving slowly. Paying attention on purpose. A little boring for my 19 year old self. Still, there was something there. It felt good to do a lesson. I felt safe and supported. I was exploring the building blocks of movement. After awhile I began to experience a sense of expansion in my life. Not only in my body releasing it’s grip, but of having a deeper, emerging sense of myself.
The Technique felt like a coming home because I was so fragmented and desensitized in my body. The hardness of a dysfunctional childhood gripped itself around everything I did. I coped by becoming disembodied. I hid behind a facade of being good and smart and resilient. What I didn’t yet understand was that those things were somewhat of an illusion. I had in a practical manner severed the relationship between mind and body so I could survive. As a result, I wasn’t able to feel much, and I certainly wan’t aware of the numbness. My "progress" with AT came in bursts of intellectualization with the embodied part a few steps behind.
Eventually, I learned that nothing fragmented can be free. The Alexander Technique pointed me through my body in the direction of wholeness.
I don’t expect or even want that this be everyone’s experience with the work. It is, however, what I needed. And after 18 years, it’s still the practice I need most.
My hope is that the Alexander Technique can help you with what you need. Whether that’s helping you play your instrument with less pain, pick up your grandchildren with ease, or address your posture. It’s all relevant.
How interesting that we all walk around, sit at desks and on couches, sip our coffee, negotiate with stress and expectations, have fears and desires, all the while never really considering the pervasive pull of life gripping itself around all that we do and become.
Then again, everyday life makes things disappear. The ordinary and familiar become invisible. And habit is the master of the everyday.