Alexander Technique
WHAT IS ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE?
To Solve Your Body Problem, You Need to Learn How Your Body Works
Some of our back trouble, joint pain, muscle distress, even vocal problems are - to be frank - our own fault.
But this is good news.
If we can get ourselves into trouble, we can get ourselves out of it again.
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Alexander Technique lessons aim to teach people two things. First, the body is a complexly organized instrument, and it can get disorganized. Imagine a race car. When it is working well, driving is efficient and comfortable. When it's not, all kinds of problems arise.
In a malfunctioning car, you get unevenly worn tires, engine damage, brake wear. In our bodies, it's slipped discs, stiff joints, muscle pain and breathing issues.
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Second, these problems come about because of how we operate our own bodies, and we can learn to use our bodies in a more skilled, conscious manner. Think of the race car. Driven by a skilled professional, it can do amazing things. We can learn the skills to "drive" our own bodies in a more conscious way that actually improves function, resulting in higher levels of coordination and comfort.
WHAT BENEFITS CAN I GAIN?
Take Control of Your Body
FM Alexander studied how he performed actions, like speaking and walking.
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When he went deeply into this study, he realized that while he performed actions, even simple ones like sitting down in a chair, he was pulling his body out of proper coordination.
It wasn't deliberate. In fact, he learned that he was doing this quite unconsciously.
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He wanted to teach himself how to do what he wanted to do – in his case, perform in front of an audience – without pulling himself out of coordination.
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In our lessons, the goal is to get you to see what you're doing to yourself, and to learn to have some real skill in the use of yourself.
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When you study Alexander Technique, you are studying the body that nature provided you. You're opening your eyes as to how you customarily use it. It has much in common with martial arts in which the study of one's own movement and mental states are primary.
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In fact, my teacher Ted Dimon has often said that Zen in the Art of Archery is one of the best expressions of our work.
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So "technique" doesn't really do it justice. There's more to learn than that.
WHAT HAPPENS IN A LESSON?
Restoring, Re-learning
We'll spend a lot of our time together learning how to reinstate the buoyant, spring-like postural function of the body.
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Some of this involves hands-on body work, but mostly it involves learning to focus your attention strategically.
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As this becomes more familiar, we'll work on learning to perform actions -- speaking, walking, sitting -- in a way that doesn't interfere with this functional buoyancy.
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You'll be learning how to work on yourself at home.