Tag: Alexander Technique

Why would you learn the Alexander Technique?

To feel great in your own skin – you don’t have to be in pain to want to learn AT. Improving your relationship with your body brings about other positive changes. If you can love your body, you’re a lot less likely to want to fill it with poisons or ignore its little messages to you (those grumbles, aches, and pains). We take care of the things we love. Starting to improve your body awareness is the start of the journey to love yourself.

Get the internal space back in your body – if you’re squeezing your body with muscular tension and/or habitually falling into a collapsed posture, you’ve lost your internal space. Trying to hold yourself up against years of habitual collapse is like holding back the tide, but learning to change the postural habits of a lifetime is the start of getting back that internal support and space. You don’t hold yourself up, your body supports you. Doesn’t it?

Improves all movement based activities ……….. Improves all non-movement based activities – it doesn’t matter if you’re lying on the sofa, standing in a queue, or running in a marathon. The “way” you’re using your body is the same if it’s born out of unconscious habits. So, learning to become aware of how you use your body, then learning to become more skilful at that, will improve EVERYTHING that you do.

Be in charge of your own body – as my wise little nana got older she said “It’s wonderful Gemma! When my hip is starting to get stiff and tighten up, I can do something about it”. In those last 10 years of her life (from when she started her AT lessons at 84), whilst so much of life was becoming a struggle and more and more out of her control, SHE was still in control of her “use” and of her own body. What a gift!

Be in charge of your own pain relief – ok, so this isn’t on tap opiates, it’s not like that. And if we’re being honest here, pain is an area where science is still very much working on understanding it, especially chronic pain. What we’ve got available to us at the moment is ways to manage the pain and the skills within the Alexander Technique are invaluable for this.

Why wouldn’t you learn the Alexander Technique?

You think it’s someone else’s job to fix you – whilst many people can help you find wellness again, the ultimate responsibility for your body lies with you. When you learn the AT you learn to look after yourself in a totally unique way, it’s a skill of self-mastery, a skill for life. However, if you’re the person who wants to change nothing about your life and would rather have a fairy godmother with a magic wand to take away your problems, then this isn’t for you.

You like living in a body that feels 20yrs older than it is – I’m going to make a really bold statement now “the Alexander Technique keeps your body feeling young”. There’s a big and shocking illusion that our world is selling to you. It’s that the older you get the more decrepit you become. Whilst in some areas you might need a bit more assistance, glasses perhaps or maybe a hearing aid, when it comes to your body feeling good, upright and mobile all you need is a little awareness, time and skill to continue improving as you get older.

It takes up too much of your precious time – yes, it’s an investment in yourself, but we know investments take time to mature. Honestly! What else are you doing that’s more important than your own self-care? Step away from the remote control and practice some Constructive Rest.

You think that getting older is why you can’t stand up straight anymore – the reason your posture has changed over the years isn’t “old age”, it’s because your inappropriate muscular tension has gotten in the way of your marvellous postural mechanism – the support system within you that keeps you upright. You can get this back again, with patience and learning.

You don’t want to be the one flexible enough to paint the ceiling (FYI totally valid reason) – however, that probably means you’re not flexible enough to get on the floor to play with your grandchildren or get down and dirty in the garden (translate that however you like!) Freedom in movement is a delight; the lightness we feel when our body supports itself and the feeling of being safely balanced as we navigate uneven ground – it’s all there for the taking, with just a little investment in yourself.

Hypermobility

 Often people don’t realise that they have it, because they’re very tight in their body and expect it to make them very loose and lax, which of course when they were young they probably were. Over time, excessive tension can be created in the body in an attempt to hold them self together. Learning to” leave your-self” alone (not over tightening the bodies’ musculature) you’ll find that a springiness and appropriate tone can eventually return. However, it’s not just about the releasing, it’s the directed thinking (the organising principle) that is so useful within the Alexander Technique for those people who are hyper-mobile, because it gives the form its structure again. Mentally body mapping can also be very useful too. There’s always a psychological aspect, a need to safely let go; letting go into a framework gives this sense of safety. Widening and releasing into the space around you, safely knowing where the boundaries of your-self are. If you’re familiar with the Alexander Technique directed thinking, it can be very helpful to mentally connect yourself up – thinking hand to wrist, then to elbow; whole arm into shoulder, which connects into spine etc. Thinking inward instead of outward can be very helpful with the “unsafe” feelings that often go with letting go. You can apply this thinking to anywhere in the body; to connect your legs into your back or even connect your head into your back. I’m sure it sounds rather strange, but put another way, if the musculature of your body has lost its integration, due to excessive tension, the deeper muscles won’t be doing the job of keeping you connected and supported, so the more superficial muscles will be taking too much responsibility for holding you together. When it comes to figuring out if you’re getting things right, if your body is feeling relaxed, yet well supported whilst in rest and in movement, then you’re going in the right direction.

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bodymindfulness

More than just a title

This July will be the 20th anniversary of my graduation from the Brighton Alexander Training Centre. Twenty years is a long time to be teaching the Alexander Technique and I can happily say that I enjoy what I do and that I‘m good at what I do. But the question is; what is it that I do?

Before I learned to teach the Alexander Technique, I learned a form of energy healing from a small, grey haired lady, who had some pretty crazy ideas, but was extraordinarily full of love. She was totally convinced that this was my destiny…..I was very young at the time and thought very little of destiny or life paths or of the unknown future rolling out ahead of me.
So I learned how to harness energy, to hold it, channel it and release it. I learned how to meditate, the language of the Tarot, of colour and symbols. I looked at my stuff, mental, emotional, physical, spiritual and then learned how to hold the space so that someone (or indeed a group of people) could feel safe enough to look into their stuff. I practiced yoga, Tai chi, chakra dancing and chanting, and I loved it. The more I learned, the more a happier version of myself I became.

All in all a jolly happy story; but now, here I am trying to work out how to describe myself and what I do. For our fast moving marketing obsessed society I need to find a Unique Selling Point, something catchy, to grab my audience within a millisecond , before they move on to look at fluffy kittens. And everything about it makes my skin creep and crawl. The anarchist inside me wants to rebel against this world where we have to present a perfect self. I’m not perfect. I’m very, very flawed. I drink caffeinated tea, along with chocolate biscuits. I rarely get up before 9am. I like listening to music too loud for my ears. I say negative words – mostly about myself, berating myself for another late night. Successful people go to bed early (I read it somewhere, must be true). So if I was to present to the world a perfect version of me – it would be a lie – a really big one. I’m an average person, living an average life, with average flaws and just in knowing that I feel a huge sense of relief.

So what do I do? I stay present to each moment and hold the space to facilitate a clients healing/transformation of their situation. In amongst that I teach them what I can, of what I know and hope that they find it useful. I‘m not sure that there’s a name for this. Not one that really describes the sum of all the parts and certainly not a snappy one to market myself with. Well being is a growth industry, becoming increasingly multi faceted as time goes on. I know that I’m not alone in this dilemma. There are many people in the arena who don’t have a handy job title, mostly because they’ve made their job up, through no other reason than because the world needs people to be present, compassionate and nurturing –  they are beautiful, simple skills, which can be learned by anyone and celebrated by everyone.