Getting 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 moreTrain Journal: Classes with Judith Leibowitz #21
February 22, 1978
Taking a leg up on the table: we are not lifting a leg. The teacher is moving through space and the leg comes along with us. The leg is an extension of ourselves and moves through space as we do.
Read moreTrain Journal: Classes with Judith Leibowitz #20
February 17th, 1978
A question came up about how one can be certain that he/she has really understood an idea or experience and can repeat it. Judy said that you cannot learn it by trying to hold onto it. The learning may not be possible to verbalize. Judy can get quick results because she is clear about objective: neck, head relationship, back, etc. She also sees before she touches. This cuts down time required to work period these skills are required over the years and they develop as you teach. First thing is to establish the primary control (poise of the head on the neck, and spine) then get on to the rest of the work. Judy says that she takes the student ahead of the previous experience and knowledge (a preview) to where the student will go, thus it will feel to the student that the use is “odd” or wrong.
Read moreTrain Journal: Classes with Judith Leibowitz #19
February 15th, 1978
Wait for [the] person to respond to your direction. Release the hand into direction. Don't put hand on with intention. Wait for impulse from a student. Anytime you feel like your direction stops, take hands off for a moment.
To correct one sidedness, though we are all one sided, direct into whatever side more clearly is your weak side. Look at your kinesthetic judgment and verify that both sides can support you.
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 moreTraining Journal: Classes with Judith Leibowitz #18
Focus. How we move out of focus. Eyes show where a person is at period closed eyes internalize the experience and separates us from life. Alexander technique should enhance your daily life. You bring it into your life.
Read moreTraining Journal: Classes with Judith Leibowitz #17
February 8, 1978
Judith Leibowitz: “In the exhalation, the diaphragm comes up, allowing the ribs to fall down. When back and up, we can get open breathing period when the back is narrow, it is hard to get that free movement. We don't exhale enough. CO2 level[s] in the blood determines our rhythm and breathing. It is a volume to volume exchange of gases. We are looking for an easy, rhythmical breath. We deal with those things in the body that don't allow a free breath to take place, such as a narrow back, also fixing in the throat and neck.
Read moreTraining Journal: Classes with Judith Leibowitz #15
Keeping the directions going. Being with oneself and touching another person. The feedback of a sophisticated person as a body is useful at this stage of the training. Keep the eyes open and be aware of what one is looking for. Be with yourself and everything around you.
Read moreTraining Journal: Classes with Judith Leibowitz #15
Beginning work on moving a head. Uncommitted hands on an uncommitted head.
Important to put hands on sensitive bodies in order to get valid feedback.
Read moreSTEP 4 and STEP 5
There are some subtle distinctions within Step 4, which leads into Step 5. What does it mean to make a fresh decisions even if you end up carrying out your original action? This is more about your attitude and how it will influence your physicality, than it is about discrete motor action.
Read moreStep 3: F. M. Alexander's 5-Step Process
STEP 3
"continue to project these directions until I believed I was sufficiently au fait with them to employ them for the purpose of gaining my end"
Read moreStep 2: Exploring F. M. Alexander's 5-Step Process
"Project in their sequence the directions for the primary control which I had reasoned out as being best for the purpose of bringing about the new and improved use of myself..."
Alexander applied this to speaking, I will continue to apply this to reaching to lift my cup. You can apply this to any activity you choose.
In practice, this part is the same regardless of your stimulus, although you may develop your own specific directions that assist with particular activities. For instance, I think more detailed directions when I am preparing for a fine motor task, like typing, than I do when I am walking.
Read moreStep 1: Exploring F. M. Alexander's 5-Step process
From the chapter Evolution of a Technique in Alexander’s third book Use of the Self
Supposing that the “end” I decided to work for was to speak a certain sentence, I would start in the same way as before and
1) inhibit any immediate response to the stimulus to speak the sentence,
2) project in their sequence the directions for the primary control which I had reasoned out as being best for the purpose of bringing about the new and improved use of myself in speaking, and
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 #14
January 19, 1978
We worked on the use of the self as a totality in movement, being attentive to the tendency to get fixed in the small of the back.
As a group, we looked at our mirror image face on…. Judy wants us to have a clearer image of our objectives, as we are in movement. The image of our spine hanging between our ears, pelvis suspended from the sacrum (lower spine; loose bones, loose muscles; all of the spine is hanging as we walk. Nothing is fixed. Length is making room for bones, front and back.
Read moreTraining Journal: Classes with Judith Leibowitz #12
January 12, 1978
Topic: Use of the arm in gesture. Begin with primary control. Use of the whole torso involved in direction. The arm gesture comes out of this. Think of air under the scapula. Think of air under the sternum. Release out of the neck. Support of the arms comes from the back of the torso which begins low in the deep area below the muscles of the [buttocks].
Read moreTraining Journal
Wednesday, January 11, 1978
We will begin working on ”the uncommitted hand”. As an Alexander teacher, the biggest asset is “the uncommitted hand”. Let them be free. No unnecessary tension in them. Touching another person is communication. The hand is listening to the other person. It is a double communication. Tension interferes in this communication.
Read more