By Jeffrey Glazer (originally published July 16, 2015)
Recently I was watching a video on YouTube about Patrick Macdonald, a prominent first generation teacher of the Alexander Technique. The video portrays his training course in the 1980’s. I love this video, as I always learn something new when I watch it.
I decided to peruse the comments section, and I saw several comments about Macdonald being hunched, and people asking why that is. Since, among other benefits, the Alexander Technique claims to help with one’s posture, it is totally understandable why people would question why such a distinguished teacher appears slumped.
Read moreby Rachel Bernsen
In February 2016, Senior Alexander teacher Judy Stern convened a panel discussion entitled Living with MS and How Alexander Technique Can Help: A Students Perspective. The discussion centered around a student named Ron, who shared the numerous ways the Alexander Technique has been effective for coping with symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). To protect Ron’s privacy I’ll only use his first name.
The National Multiple Sclerosis Society defines MS as “an unpredictable, often disabling disease of the central nervous system that disrupts the flow of information within the brain, and between the brain and body.” Ron credits the Alexander Technique with lessening the severity of his symptoms, improving his quality of life and overcoming several professional prognoses that “there is nothing you can do”. With the aid of the Technique he is still ambulatory, walking with only a cane. He also drives, plays golf and is very physically active.
Read moreby Karen Krueger (originally posted Jan. 22, 2016)
I'm a big believer in speaking up about the Alexander Technique whenever I get the chance. So I jumped right in with a comment when I spotted an article in the New York Times about the importance of posture:
New York Times: Posture Affects Standing, And Not just The Physical Kind
Read moreFrom the Archives: Embracing Change (Originally published March 14, 2018)
Alexander Teachers could be considered “change agents” for the individual. We help our students expand ways of being in thinking, movement and behavior.
That can seem vague and hard to articulate, and many Alexander Teachers find ourselves momentarily tongue-ied when someone asks: “What is the Alexander Technique?”
Read moreFrom the Archives: Giving Up Good Posture (Originally published March 13, 2014)
by Dan Cayer
I started meditating long before I ever heard of the Alexander Technique. Now, my experience as an Alexander teacher has profoundly affected how I sit on the cushion and even how I approach meditation altogether. A week ago, I taught a workshop at the Interdependence Project called Posture, Pain, and Meditation Practice. My experience there inspired me to write about "good posture."
Read moreTraining Journal: Classes with Judith Leibowitz #30
Judy tells people it takes from 10 to 15 lessons to start to understand, and 30 to become facile and familiar.
Walking:
Your spine is the axis around which you rotate.
As the knee bends, it's coming from the small of the back.
Read moreFrom the Archives: How To Manage Anticipatory Anxiety with the Alexander Technique
by N. Brooke Lieb When I began my training as a teacher of the Alexander Technique, my biggest "symptom" was not pain, it was anxiety. I had started to have panic attacks, where I felt light headed and would begin to hyperventilate, and I was afraid I was dying. Often, the fearful thoughts centered around having an allergic reaction to something that would prove fatal. (I have had three incidents of strong allergic reactions, one to medication, one to food and one undetermined, none of which has been fatal.)
Read moreWhat I Need Will Bring What I Want Closer: Relief
What we want is for our pain to go away. What we need is to pay attention to what we do that creates the pain. Our wants aren’t satisfied without energy put into it, right? Our needs are a lot simpler than our wants, and are often delivered in unexpected ways. Our wants, well, we can want endlessly, about all kinds of things, but what we actually receive sometimes falls short of that list, right? And other times, what we receive is actually better and along the line of our needs instead.
Read more10 Keys to Understanding Trauma
by Cate McNider (originally published here)
A very important thing to know after you have experienced something traumatic, is that the subsequent events that bring it all up again, is the body’s way of telling you, there’s leftover information in your system that needs to be emptied. It’s the triggering events that are trying to help you heal, though it feels like it just hurts and depresses you even more.
Read moreHow are you doing?: Looking at how Allostatic Overload is Impacting Our Well-being
by N. Brooke Lieb
When I began my Alexander Technique teaching practice in 1989, my focus was on performing artists and helping people improve their posture and live with less pain.
Fast forward to 2020, when the Covid-19 Pandemic upended a way of life, and - perhaps for the first time- people who historically weren't so vulnerable to the ebbs and flows of resources and economies, found themselves part of the global trauma.
Read moreThe Hero's Journey Is Written In Your Habits
by Cate McNider (originally published here)
The blindspot humans love to avoid, is that the use of themselves, how they think and move is at the root of their problems. The systems we live by are justifiably crumbling, and addressing the pains of that evidence is everywhere, in process. Routinely, I see health articles omitting the responsibility of each person looking to see what they are doing and thinking and how that is creating the dysfunction. We are the creators, is the elephant in the cosmos.
Read moreNothing outweighs experience
by Cate McNider (originally published here)
Intellectualization often gets in the way of an experience. What we think we know about it, can get in the way of letting the experience speak for itself. This is a human habit.
Read moreGetting Lost Means Finding A New Way
I want to tell you a little story.
A student who’s been studying AT with me since 2019 (with the interruption of the 2020 lockdown plus some months after vaccinations), recently finished another package of nine lessons. The pattern is unfolding beautifully to reveal a resolution in the upper and lower body in process and more ease all around. She reported a very interesting incident after leaving the previous week’s lesson going to her next destination.
Read moreSpace is Joy -- Open to Lightness
The Alexander Technique’s benefits are more than postural, which sometimes gets lost in the process of the table and chair work, facing one’s physical imbalances, and that is, the negative mental tape habits that are parked inside that physical pattern.
Read moreCould un-learning be the best learning?
by Bette Chamberlin (originally published here)
Learning....
It's a noble process that feeds our soul and ego.
Learn a new skill to improve yourself, learn French, or add a checkmark to a long delayed To Do list.
But what if unlearning makes learning so much more efficient?
Read moreWe Are Humming Beings
A few months ago, I received an email asking me if I did “toning” in my voice classes. I responded by saying that what I teach is how to use one’s breath and body to essentially “hum” all the time, which, in my mind, is the essence of toning. Apparently, that was not a satisfactory answer. The person wanted something more mystical than, “When we are aligned internally through the muscles responsible for breath and voice, we resonate continually.” We are humming beings. We are invigorated and energized and we feel vibration move through our whole body and onto our lips and face.
Read moreHow Can I Lengthen My Spine?
by Bette Chamberlin (originally published here)
Maybe we've seen the devices designed to assist in elongating the spine - Posture Pump, Chirp Wheel, Spinal Decompression reliever, various Inversion benches and more. They are designed to help a healthy, well functioning spinal structure and their corresponding muscles to stretch out and assist in creating more space between the joints in the vertebrae.
Read moreThe issue is in the tissue
by Cate McNider
In my early 30s, like so many otherwise reasonable people, I kept making the same mistakes. I encountered a different face, but the same treatment. A healer I worked with, told me it was because early wounds of betrayal and abandonment were reflecting themselves in painful situations and people who represented those concepts. I would keep recreating those dynamics until I healed the pain I was holding in my body. The solution was within me, and it was up to me to heal and allow the changes. It twisted me into an S-curve, I simply couldn’t imagine living in that deep level of pain for the rest of my life. This didn’t just happen one day, and it wouldn’t get better overnight — the karma ran deep, and had to just play itself out through my 30’s, 40’s and finally in my 50’s many recognitions found their acceptances and understanding of the underlying contracts. Freedom is worth the work.
Read moreTraining Journal: Classes with Judith Leibowitz #13
January 17, 1978
“Don't get bored. You are on a spiral of change. “
“When working on hands, start by dealing with the totality, out of which you move the hand.”
Think of the hand as being open and free. It is one of your most precious tools. Be nice to them.
Stretching often uses tension. Allow it to release. Direct it to release. She [Judy] used the example of reaching an octave on the keyboard. First stretch to reach it. Then allow your hand to release to reach. Think of the hand as material that has no bones. Your hand can be full of energy. When placing it on something, allow the energy to “flow” to that.
Read moreHow the head rests on the top of the spine
In this video blog, Brooke Lieb shows the anatomy of the skull and how it rests on the top of the spine, and includes some details that people can overlook.
Read more
