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If you are like many new Alexander Technique students, you
probably experienced new kinesthetic sensations in your first lesson, and
are now wondering how to re-create that experience. You may be puzzled
about heads and bodies and why heads should go forward and up and bodies
should follow. You may wonder what thinking has to do with moving. And
probably most of all you just want to know what to do to make it all
happen again.
The paragraphs below outline some basic concepts
underlying the Alexander Technique, and answer some of the most common
questions new students ask.
Basic Concept #1: Muscles can
only pull.
Place one arm, palm up, on the table. Now bend your
elbow. If you simply followed that instruction, your hand should have
moved closer to your shoulder. There is a muscle that reaches across your
elbow joint and attaches to your lower arm. When you "bend your elbow" you
are contracting that muscle--making it shorter. Muscles can only get
shorter when you contract them, they cannot get longer when you contract
them. This fact is true for all of the skeletal muscles in your
body.
Basic Concept #2: Your body has a natural "resting"
length.
Imagine a metal spring. Left alone it has a natural
resting length. If you push on the spring, it gets shorter. If you take
your hand off the spring it "gets longer" by returning to its natural
resting length. You can "push on" your body and make it shorter by
contracting various muscles. For example, if you contract the muscles in
your back, they will get shorter, bringing the top of your back closer to
the bottom of your back, and causing your chest to "stick out." Stop
contracting those muscles and your body returns to its previous state. If
you contract the muscles in the front of your body, you can "pull" your
body down into a slump. To get out of the slump you only need to stop
contracting the muscles you contracted to cause the slump in the first
place.
Basic Concept #3: There are only two ways your head
can move in relation to the rest of your body: down and not
down.
Your head is delicately poised on the top of your spine.
You can interfere with that natural poise by tightening the muscles in
your neck. (Try it, but do so gently!) If you observe closely, you will
notice that your head is pulled away from its natural resting poise,
usually in a back and downward direction. To stop your head moving in this
downward direction, you must stop tightening the muscles in your neck, and
your head will "move up" because you have stopped pulling it down.
Basic Concept #4: Your head moves first.
For every
movement we make, the first part of our body that moves is our head. This
idea may not seem obvious at first, because we tend to think that our leg
moves first when we walk, or our hand moves first when we start to reach
for something. However, if you are a very careful observer, you will
notice when you reach across the table for the cup on the other side that
the very first change that happens is a change in the relationship of your
whole head to your whole body--most probably you have moved your head in a
downward direction, toward your body by unnecessarily contracting the
muscles in your neck.
Basic Concept #5: The poise of your head
on the top of your spine determines your balance and
coordination.
Your head is normally and naturally lightly balanced
on the top of your spine, and in this condition is able to move and adjust
to any moving you do. Unfortunately most of us usually overtighten the
muscles of our neck, which prevents our heads from moving freely, and thus
interferes with our natural coordination and balance.
Basic
Concept #6: We are all born with the ability to move easily, naturally and
gracefully.
Think of a cat leaping lightly from the floor to a
table. Or of Michael Jordan flying through the air to dunk a ball. Or of
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing. We are all inherently able to move
as freely and easily as any of these, but we learn to interfere with our
own natural coordination. It is normal to be natural and easy in our
movements, free from any chronic muscular stiffness or pain. It may not be
average, but it is definitely normal.
Basic Concept #7: What
we're used to feels right because we're used to it.
We move the way
we do--walk, talk, sit, play, sew, read, work at a computer, run--because
that particular way feels right. It feels right because we have been
moving that way for so long that we have gotten used to it. As an example,
clasp your hands together with your fingers interlaced. One or the other
of your thumbs will be on top. Now pull your hands apart and clasp them
again so that the other thumb is on top. This position will probably feel
very wrong to you. The same will be true if you switch a ring to another
finger, or your watch to the other wrist. However, if you persist in
clasping your hands the "wrong way," or leave your watch on the other
wrist, you will soon become so accustomed to that condition that the
previous "right way" of doing it will now feel wrong.
Basic
Concept #8: What feels right is probably not right.
When we make
any movement we get feedback from nerve endings in our muscles about the
movement we have just made. We use this feedback to judge whether or not
we have moved as we intended. Unfortunately our judgement is often in
error. It is in error because of Concept # 7: we have moved in a certain
way for so long that it comes to feel natural and right, and we use this
feeling of natural and right to judge our actions. However, how we are
actually moving is probably very different from how it feels like we are
moving. For example, new students in Alexander Technique lessons sometimes
feel like they are "falling foward" rather than standing upright, even
though looking in a mirror can tell them they are upright, other students
in the class assure them they are indeed standing upright, and in fact
they do not actually fall forward. They feel like they are falling forward
because they are in fact forward of where they normally like to hold
themselves, which is back of upright. The way they interpret the
information they are getting from their muscle sense is no longer
accurate. YOU CANNOT MAKE ACCURATE JUDGEMENTS FROM INACCURATE
INTERPRETATIONS.
Basic Concept #9: Feelings come
last.
How do we manage to move? The start of any movement has to be
an idea--you see a cup on the table and want to pick it up, for example.
If you decide to act on that idea, you direct yourself to move in a
certain way (one that feels right and natural) and you reach out and pick
up the cup. The feeling sense that occurs as you are reaching out to get
the cup happens only after you have directed yourself to move.
Remember, the nerve endings are there to give you feedback on how you
have moved. They can't give this feedback in the absence of
movement. Therefore you can't get this feedback until after you have
moved.
Basic Concept #10: We are always directing ourselves in
movement.
We make most of our movements unconsciously, that is, we
do not give any conscious thought to noticing how we are moving, or to
directing ourselves to move differently. With the Alexander Technique you
can learn how to notice how you are doing what you are doing and learn to
make a choice about whether or not you want to continue as you have been
doing. You can learn how to stop directing yourself in a way that is
inefficient and wasteful (e.g. pulling your head back and down to begin
walking), and let your natural ease and coordination operate
normally.
Basic Concept #11: To change the way you move you must
change the way you think.
This concept has two parts. The first
part is to realize that our old way of moving, the one that feels natural
and right to us, is habitual. Habitual moving is what we do unconsciously
and without thinking. Habitual moving is what we do when we have a
goal--to reach for a cup, for example--and immediately go for our goal
without any thought about how we will reach it. Immediate reaction is
almost always habitual reaction. Therefore, to change how you move, your
first reaction to any decision to move, or to do something, must be to
wait a moment and do nothing. The second part of this concept is how to
continue to do nothing and still reach your goal. Remember in Concept #4
we said that your head moves first, and in Concept #5 that the poise of
your head determines your balance and coordination. You want to be able to
reach for the cup without interfering with your natural
coordination.
Alexander experimented for a long time, and devised a
series of orders or directions which helped him to not interfere with his
coordination while doing any activity. The directions are: My neck to
relax, so that my head can go forward and up, so that my back can lengthen
and widen. Notice that each direction depends on the prior one. If you are
tightening the muscles in your neck, you will be pulling your head back
and down. When you relax the muscles in your neck, your head naturally
moves forward and up. When your head moves forward and up, you can stop
any unnecessary tightening of muscles in your body, and your whole body
will lengthen and widen. (PLEASE NOTE: These are NOT orders for you to DO
something; these are orders to STOP doing what you do not need to do in
the first place).
Basic Concept #12: Learning a new way of
thinking takes practice.
If you clearly direct your neck to relax,
and do not try to do what feels to you like relaxing your neck,
your neck will begin to relax. But remember that you have had many years
of experience in tightening your neck. Remember (Concept #10) that you are
continually directing yourself, and part of that habitual directing
includes orders for unnecessarily tightening your neck or back or arms or
legs or some other parts. This old unconscious thinking is much stronger
than your new thinking. Your new thinking is working and it is effective,
but you may not notice it yet. However, if you will consciously and
consistently practice this new way of thinking, and be willing to continue
with it even if you can't feel any results yet, you will find that it
becomes easier and easier and more natural to think in this new way
whenever you want.
Basic Concept #13: If you don't interfere
with the natural working of yourself, the quality of everything you do
will improve and continue to improve.
"Leaving yourself alone" by
continuing this new way of thinking will allow the best and most natural
movement to happen in any given situation. If you are singing, this will
allow your voice to come out clearly and freely. If you are dancing, it
will allow your movements to be free and your artistic intention to come
through clearly. If you are typing at a computer you will only make the
movements necessary to the task, and reduce symptoms of strain and stress
from the previous excessive tension you used. Working with these concepts
consistently will bring your performance of any task to a higher and
higher level of coordination. You will have a means of noticing how
you are doing what you are doing, and of changing how you are doing it
while continuing with your activity. You will have a means for
accomplishing any goal or task you set yourself in the most enjoyable,
efficient and natural way.
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