Alexander Basics: Head Forward and Up

Alexander Basics: Head Forward and Up

by Brooke Lieb

The instruction to allow your head to release “forward and up” is intended to improve the way your head balances on the top of your spine, to allow better distribution of weight through all the weight bearing structures of the body, adjusting for our position (standing, sitting, inclined, in extension, etc..)

Alexander observed that addressing this balance had a global effect on efficiency of muscles, reduced stress on joints, nerves and discs, improved coordination and better stamina for the tasks of posture, balance and movement.

These two videos show movement with the downward force of “back and down”, which is attributed to an over-shortening of voluntary muscles at the base of the skull; and how the same movement can be accomplished with more length in the neck.

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The Power of a Hug: Why Alexander hands-on work may be good for your health

The Power of a Hug: Why Alexander hands-on work may be good for your health

by Brooke Lieb

I ran into a college classmate the other day, who I had not seen in close to 40 years, although we “see” each other on Facebook. She lives in another state, so it was an extreme coincidence that she was crossing a busy intersection in Manhattan just as I was crossing the other direction. We both went in for a mutual embrace in the middle of the crosswalk, at which point I joined her to double back and walk a bit, so we could catch up. We were not that close during my short time at the same college, and don’t know each other that well, but I know she is a kind-hearted, loving person and the immediate availability, as well as the warmth of her embrace definitely lifted my mood.

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Seeking Enlightenment?: The Alexander Technique may help you get there, faster

by Brooke Lieb (originally published here)

Many years ago, I was teaching a first lesson to a young woman. Her first statement was “I am an Evangelical Christian.” Her first question was “Does the Alexander Technique promote any religious or spiritual ideology that will conflict with my beliefs?”

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I told her no, because the Alexander Technique is not a philosophy or a religion. It fails a key element of cults, in that Alexander Technique promotes the individual learning a process for assessing and revising belief systems through self-exploration. F. M. Alexander implored the teachers he trained to teach and innovate based on their own lived experience, not to copy him.

That being said, many people who study the Alexander Technique are also on a path that includes meditation, mindfulness or some spiritual practice. Sometimes, the Alexander Technique turns out to be the catalyst for getting on such a path.

I am a big fan of the Stephen Mitchell translation of the Tao Te Ching. I recognized in my early 20s that movement and dance were the most effective and direct way for me to reach a meditative state. I don’t study any particular philosophy, and enjoy learning from and experiencing many forms of mindfulness.

A dear friend recently (October 2019) gifted me Michael Singer’s book “The Untethered Soul” which draws on many spiritual and philosophical traditions, particularly Buddhism.

As I read the book, I was reminded of the stories of seekers spending years studying, meditating, going on retreat, all in search of spiritual enlightenment. I got the impression that this enlightenment required decades long practices, was elusive and required sacrifice and deep practice to have a lived experience.

I cannot speak to what is true or possible, but as I was reading Singer’s book, his choice of words and descriptions of non-attachment and enlightenment sounded an awful lot like my lived experiences of non-attachment, achieved through my Alexander Technique practice.

Singer talks about releasing an inner struggle, learning not to identify as my thoughts and feelings, even as I experience them. He writes about choosing happiness, as a point of view, and learning to reduce self-created suffering. At the same time, he acknowledges that we will experience the gamut of human emotion. It is our relationship to it that determines our degree of struggle and resistance in the face of the reality we are in.

This could seem lofty, elusive or grand, but in practice it’s down to earth for me. Since I started lessons 36 years ago, I have used the Alexander Technique to notice how I tighten, stiffen, react and resist life on every level (body/mind/spirit) and how to lessen those tendencies, without waiting for or needing the circumstances to change.

I’ve used my Alexander tools through health scares, the death of loved ones, economic uncertainty, relationship challenges, the common cold, injuries, pain, performance anxiety, panic attacks, celebrations, bouts of anxiety and depression, at parties and on and off throughout most every day.

I expect to continue to react, resist and tighten to life, but I know that living the principles of the Alexander Technique has transformed my experience, sometimes within moments, minutes, hours or mere months, depending on the situation. It doesn’t have to take forever to have a lived experience of non-attachment and to reduce the degree of struggle and suffering.

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N. BROOKE LIEB, Director of Teacher Certification since 2008, received her certification from ACAT in 1989, joined the faculty in 1992. Brooke has presented to 100s of people at numerous conferences, has taught at C. W. Post College, St. Rose College, Kutztown University, Pace University, The Actors Institute, The National Theatre Conservatory at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Dennison University, and Wagner College; and has made presentations for the Hospital for Special Surgery, the Scoliosis Foundation, and the Arthritis Foundation; Mercy College and Touro College, Departments of Physical Therapy; and Northern Westchester Hospital. Brooke maintains a teaching practice in NYC, specializing in working with people dealing with pain, back injuries and scoliosis; and performing artists. www.brookelieb.com




Training Teachers: Lesson/Session - The continuum of Alexander Technique

by Brooke Lieb (originally published at brookelieb.com)

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One hallmark of the Alexander Technique is that it is educational. People who study will be learning independent skills that they can use any time, any where. Autonomy and self-directed mastery are a main goal of the work. The method is a set of principles that inform skills of self-regulation, decision making and problem solving.

The “user” chooses the strata they wish to explore and how they want to apply the work. It can remain in a very physical realm addressing coordination, alignment, form and comfort. It can be used to improve performance in daily and specialized skills. It can also be used to observe and change belief systems, narrative, identity, emotional states and mental processing.

I have been teaching private students, and training teachers for over 30 years, and each individual I teach has her own set of values, goals, desires and reasons for learning and utilizing the Alexander Technique. As a teacher of the Alexander Technique, I am also a client, since my self-work is the frame inside of which I teach. Over the years, my own interests and those of my students have taken me on a journey that inspired me to learn about many disciplines, conditions, and topics I might never have been drawn to.

These days, I am fortunate to work with many teachers in my private practice. Providing ongoing support for my colleague’s professional development is an inspiring lens to view my own work.

Recently, I find myself starting lessons asking my student what they are working on, interested in, needing help with; and choosing how much “education” they want that day, and how much they’d like to work in a less linear, intellectual way.

For the most part, my students have been varied from lesson to lesson and within the lesson about what is relevant for them.

In some lessons, we explore swinging a golf club, or finding a more comfortable set up for working at the computer or sleeping. In other lessons, spontaneous conversations come up about life events, personal or work interactions.

It took my a decade or more of teaching to realize no one is looking over my shoulder grading me on my choices; and there is no Alexander quality control board who’s going to come and weigh in on my teaching choices and style. I came to recognize my own belief systems about whether I would meet with approval from some anonymous Alexander jury of peers and was able to free myself up to be more and more responsive and in service to the person standing in front of me.

I was inspired when I heard a teacher quoted as saying “I don’t teach the Alexander Technique, I teach people.” People literally put themselves in my hands, and I feel the best way I can assist them is to offer them support in the way that is most helpful in the moment. I offer instruction, or my mere presence, and everything in between.

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N. BROOKE LIEB, Director of Teacher Certification since 2008, received her certification from ACAT in 1989, joined the faculty in 1992. Brooke has presented to 100s of people at numerous conferences, has taught at C. W. Post College, St. Rose College, Kutztown University, Pace University, The Actors Institute, The National Theatre Conservatory at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Dennison University, and Wagner College; and has made presentations for the Hospital for Special Surgery, the Scoliosis Foundation, and the Arthritis Foundation; Mercy College and Touro College, Departments of Physical Therapy; and Northern Westchester Hospital. Brooke maintains a teaching practice in NYC, specializing in working with people dealing with pain, back injuries and scoliosis; and performing artists. www.brookelieb.com



Self-Care: It Feels Good and It’s Good For You!

Self-Care: It Feels Good and It’s Good For You!

I was working with a client who had originally come to study with me years ago to help her with her singing. She recently returned to lessons, this time to manage a diagnosis of bursitis in her hip joint. No longer working in music, she was now in the world of Not-For-Profits and business. She’d had PT, and was taking Pilates, and something her Pilates instructor said reminded her that Alexander would be a good tool in her toolbox for self-care and healing.

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Alexander jargon: using language in a non-habitual way

Alexander jargon: using language in a non-habitual way

There are many folks who are critical of the jargon* we use in the Alexander Technique. I understand their point. Semantics (the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning) can muddy communication. Our terminology can be confusing, de-legitimizing, off putting and inaccessible.

However, consider the definition of jargon: * “special words or expressions that are used by a particular profession or group and are difficult for others to understand”. Alexander students gain skill from the process one goes through to understand the jargon.

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"Take a breath and count to 10..." and other life skills

"Take a breath and count to 10..." and other life skills

by Brooke Lieb (originally published here)

The Alexander Technique is a well-developed method for managing your response to life. It combines many capacities we have to regulate how we respond to life. The tools Alexander combined are not unique to his work and we all have concrete experiences that relate to the main concepts used: awareness, inhibition and direction. This post with focus on inhibition.

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Training Teachers: "Looking Under The Hood"

Training Teachers: "Looking Under The Hood"

For the majority of students of the Alexander Technique, the value comes in gaining the skill to apply their “Alexander” tools to the task of living. Most drivers don’t need or choose to understand the engineering and mechanics of their cars, they focus on learning to drive. Similarly, exploring and understanding the underlying mechanisms that produce the positive benefits of applying Alexander Technique is far less relevant for students.

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Easing Fear through the Alexander Technique

Easing Fear through the Alexander Technique

One of the biggest benefits I gained from my years of study and teaching the Alexander Technique is a process to manage my fears when they start to spike.

Alexander Technique tools include a concept called inhibition, which is a conscious skill in managing the intellectual and physical manifestations of fear. It involves multiple ways to increase the influence of the parasympathetic nervous system (sometimes called the rest and digest system, the parasympathetic system conserves energy as it slows the heart rate, increases intestinal and gland activity, and relaxes sphincter muscles in the gastrointestinal tract) when one is experiencing hyper-arousal due to increased activity in the sympathetic nervous system (The sympathetic nervous system's primary process is to stimulate the body's fight-flight-or-freeze response. It is, however, constantly active at a basic level to maintain homeostasis homeodynamics).

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Transform Times

Transform Times

We live in times of turmoil: the need for awareness about how humanity treats humanity in the natural world is greater than ever.

Finishing up with a student the other day, chatting in the hallway, we talked about how the world is in the Age of Aquarius, having left the Age of Pisces. It’s the the Age of ‘Breakdown of Order’. We are in a healing crisis — we can either transform to more enlightened societies or default into tyranny. I’m working towards the former!

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Our Own Climate Change

Our Own Climate Change by Bette Chamberlin

It has been a brutally hot summer. I can’t go out most days after 8:30am.

On days off, If I think that I can dilly-dally and wait until 9:30 am, the temperature has often risen 5 degrees. I can’t. Heat is intrusive and the brain and body resists adapting to the onslaught.

Our weather is different now. There has been a distinct major upwards change in in temperature in the last 50 years. Starting in 1895, it looked like the earth was getting cooler and it did until 1970. Then the average temperature starting in each 5 year time frame was reduced from the period before. Not so starting in 1970. In 1970 we started to see more dramatic upticks in temperature. Since then, there have been NO temperature changes down, only up.

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On Training Teachers: Choreography and Improvisation

On Training Teachers: Choreography and Improvisation

When I trained to be an Alexander Teacher at the American Center for the Alexander Technique from 1987 to 1989, I was fortunate to benefit from the wisdom of a large faculty of teachers with all levels of experience. Our Senior Trainers had anywhere from 6 to 30 years of experience teaching and training teachers. They each had a distinctive approach to the art of teaching. Alongside them, we were also taught by associate faculty, recent graduates and classmates who were at all levels of training.

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On Teaching: "Speaking without words"

On Teaching: "Speaking without words"

by Brooke Lieb

Brooke: During our work together on the ACAT Teacher Certification Program, I remember you repeatedly sharing with me that you found lectures and the verbal component of hands-on turns virtually un-intellligible, and stressful. I was able to appreciate that auditory learning wasn’t particularly useful to you, but in retrospect, I know I didn’t have a meaningful understanding or appreciation of how unique sensory processing is from one person to another. I was also fascinated because I know how much you read and comprehend, and that you studied much more complex subjects than I ever have and are articulate and versed in those topics.

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Now in eBook: Back Trouble by Deborah Caplan

Now in eBook: Back Trouble

“Keep It Simple”: The legacy of Deborah Caplan

My strongest recollections of Debby’s teaching was how elegantly simple and practical she was. The clarity of her teaching is evident in these video clips (Debby training third year teachers and teaching a first lesson).

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The Pitfalls of the Knitter’s Craft

by Witold Fitz-Simon

Five years ago I discovered knitting, and it quickly became one of my favorite pastimes. Working with needles and yarn is a deeply satisfying experience on many levels. The color and texture of the yarn running through your fingers, the rhythm of the needles slipping and sliding away in your hands, the satisfaction of seeing the project develop bit by bit, all build into an experience that is visceral, addictive, and deeply calming.

What if the aches and pains, the limitations and injuries that you experience as a result of your everyday life were not a result of the flawed workings of a crude machine, but were instead the result of all the things you do in a day that interfere with that complex coordination? What if, in order to stand tall and have good posture, to be grounded on your feet and light on your feet all at the same time, all you had to do was do less or let go of all the pushing and pulling, compressing and collapsing you do to yourself all day and allow that underlying coordination to reassert itself?

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Training Journal: Classes with Judith Leibowitz #7

Training Journal: Classes with Judith Leibowitz #7

November 29, 1977 : On teaching

You cannot do something to someone, unless you have it in yourself. You will become more and more able to help someone when you help yourself.. You cannot give someone direction unless you give direction to yourself.

When you do something new, you don’t have to worry about feeling it. This also helps people become less self involved.

You can use something above the head to look up and bring the head to move forward (student is sitting) on the hip joint is a good exercise in inhibition. Looking in the mirror you are not going forward as much as you are seeing your head go up. The torso will go up if the head goes up.

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Working with Rhythm: Smoother movement for better coordination

Working with Rhythm: Smoother movement for better coordination

As an Alexander Teacher, I have been trained to observe and analyze my students’ movements and behaviors, so that I can teach them tools to maximize their efficiency while minimizing physical and mental stress.

One measure I use to that end is movement quality. I use a couple different scales, one of which is the range from smooth to jerky.

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Learning the Alexander Technique can reduce your degree of head forward posture, and most students enjoy their lessons

Learning the Alexander Technique can reduce your degree of head forward posture, and most students enjoy their lessons

by Brooke Lieb

A simple google search with the term “effects of head forward posture” yields results that show a possible correlation between degree of forward displacement and pain in computer users; increased time spent sitting at a desk increasing instances of neck pain; and a decrease in respiratory efficiency. Read more here.

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For Alexander Teachers: Foundations of effective teaching

For Alexander Teachers: Foundations of effective teaching

Training teachers and offering post graduate lessons and classes has been one of my passions during my 30 year career as an Alexander teacher. It has informed my studies, how I interpret Alexander’s writings, and is the area I focus my continued learning and development.

One consistent standard I see across all approaches to training is to emphasize that the teacher’s application of Alexander principles to the act of teaching is the foundation of teaching. Before working hands on with another, a level of self-organization is vital.

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