“Studying the Alexander Technique with Steve is one of my favorite things each week. He’s a body whisperer who coaxes diminishing habits away and introduces the body to a better way. As an athlete I am less sore, as a singer I have more resonance, and as a lawyer I am more in command.”
What is the Alexander Technique?
The Alexander Technique is mindfulness in action.
The work places our attention at the intersection of brain and body, mind and muscle, habit and change. We all have habitual patterns — of movement, of tension, and of being that are all tangled up with each other. The premise being that if we can get ourselves tangled, then we can also get ourselves untangled. The AT gives us a framework and a process for working with ourselves so that we can not only become aware of how things are, but so that we can begin to make skillful choices.
My teacher Luc Vanier and I working through a spiral.
Who does the Alexander Technique?
People come to the AT for a variety of reasons. Posture, migraines, back trouble, joint pain, but also musicians, dancers, and actors. I’ve also worked with surfers, cyclists, and sommeliers. The range of folks who find benefit is an indicator that the AT is not just one thing, and that there’s something universal at the center.
How does the AT contribute to Good Health?
Good health means participation.
Taking responsibility for how your energies are directed.
Being alert, open-minded, energized.
Free from pain and being able to cope constructively when pain is present
And to some degree, control over your reaction to stress.
Is AT about posture?
Good posture is a series of curves that are in balance. Poor posture often occurs when the balance is interfered with.
We all have strategies for balancing our curves. Often those strategies are a bit miscalibrated.
So things are a certain way and it may be good to get to know which relationships to encourage and which ones you’d like to prevent.
In that sense, yes, the Alexander Technique is about posture.
Will it help my _______? (back pain, migraines, tension, etc.)
Maybe…there’s a good chance… I would direct you to what others have experienced.
“…I get monthly migraines. I usually take a cocktail of pain meds to manage them, but my day is always ruined. Last week was intense for me, and I should have gotten a migraine. Instead, I kept noticing again and again the moments when I was holding tension in my head and neck and shoulders and I just gently let them release. And that migraine never happened. I’m wary of declaring victory over my migraines, or saying the Alexander Technique can cure something that’s plagued me my whole life, but these ways of being aware and gentle with my body are life changing.”