Tuesday, April 11, 1978

More involved with what your hand must tell the other person, and what your hand is picking up in that person.

Remember, asking questions won’t always get the answers. Some answers come from just plain working.

Again, head direction. Keeping from bearing down. A lot of this work will be experimental. Being willing to work without results.

Example: J. L.: “Get myself going, my own directions. Forward is a slight rotation of my wrist. The up is in my own directions.”

Width in the head: thinking of opening between the eyes. Use two fingers to suggest this.

My hands pick up whether there is something that is preventing the student from lengthening and widening.

Being able to sense the totality from the head.

If the primary control can be used fully and continued, the “corrections” or changes will take place. rather than thinking of changing the shape of the body, or correcting this part of the body or that.

Idelle Packer, MS, PT, mAmSAT, certified teacher of the Alexander Technique, has been creatively exploring its broad application for over 35 years. In her private practice, Body Sense, in Asheville, NC, she teaches the Alexander Technique in context of physical therapy assessment and rehabilitation. She authored the chapter on the Alexander Technique in Springer Publishers’ Encyclopedia of Complementary Health Practices (1999). Her current passion is Contact Improvisation, a somatic and athletic improvisation form, to which she has been joyfully integrating the principles of the Technique over the past fifteen years.