Video: "F. Matthias Alexander and the Alexander Technique"

February 6, 2015 admin

by Witold Fitz-Simon Here is an interesting short film about F. M. Alexander culled from footage available on YouTube, and information from Wikipedia.

This video was posted to YouTube by Lisa Block.

[author] [author_image timthumb='on']http://www.acatnyc.org/main/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/After-crop1.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]WITOLD FITZ-SIMON has been a student of the Alexander Technique since 2007. He is certified to teach the Technique as a graduate of the American Center for the Alexander Technique’s 1,600-hour, three year training program. A student of yoga since 1993 and a teacher of yoga since 2000, Witold combines his extensive knowledge of the body and its use into intelligent and practical instruction designed to help his students free themselves of ineffective and damaging habits of body, mind and being. www.mindbodyandbeing.com[/author_info] [/author]

The Alexander Technique: A Technique About Nothing?

January 29, 2015 admin

by Jeffrey Glazer For those familiar with the popular Seinfeld show, there is an episode during which Jerry and George are thinking of ideas for a sitcom to pitch to NBC. George comes up with the idea to make it “a show about nothing”.

George: “Everybody’s doing something, we’ll do nothing.” Jerry: “So, we go into NBC, we tell them we’ve got an idea for a show about nothing.” George: “Exactly.” Jerry: “They say, “What’s your show about?” I say, “Nothing.” George: “There you go.” A moment passes… Jerry: “(Nodding) I think you may have something there.” (Source: “The Pitch.” Seinfeld Scripts.)

Most people, when trying to make a positive change in themselves, always want to know what to do. This is especially true for improving posture, body mechanics, and generally how they carry themselves. They want to be told what the “right thing” is, and they assume that is all they need to know to successfully make a change.

But how many times have you tried to “sit up straight”, only to give up because it feels like too much effort?

In the Alexander Technique, the idea of being told what to do gets flipped up on its head. In order to make a change, the first step is to do nothing. All this involves is taking a moment to pause so you can discover what you are already doing that isn’t necessary.

For example, when I find myself slumping at the computer, I don’t go to immediately hoist myself out of the slump. Rather, I pause and take a good look at what I am doing with myself. I may begin to notice that my neck is forward, my jaw clenched, and that I am actively pulling my body towards the screen. So, once I am aware of that tension, I can begin to let it go. As I do so, my body returns to a more natural upright state, and it’s the result of letting go rather than imposing a shape on myself. In other words, I don’t sit up so much as I stop pulling myself forward and down, I do less.

F.M. Alexander, the originator of the Alexander Technique, is quoted as saying the following:

“Everyone is always teaching one what to do, leaving us still doing the things we shouldn’t do.”
“Like a good fellow, stop the things that are wrong first.”

And in order to stop doing the things that are wrong, you must be aware that they exist. When you find that you are uncomfortable or in pain, see if you can really pause and take a moment to do nothing. You will be better able to find out what your tension habits really are. Once you recognize the habit, you can begin to let it go.

When I first took Alexander Technique lessons, I was struck by the fact that I had never stopped to be in the present moment to look at the reality of what I was doing. I realized I was looking for a solution to my chronic pain everywhere except in the most important place of all, myself.

I’d like to come back to Seinfeld for a moment. When Jerry and George make their pitch to NBC, George keeps insisting the show is about nothing. But Jerry says, “Well, maybe in philosophy. But, even nothing is something.” (“The Pitch.” Seinfeld Scripts.)

So, is the Alexander Technique really a technique about nothing? Even though the first step is to do nothing, it leads to a heightened awareness of self and the unnecessary tension habits that get in the way of effortless upright posture, breathing, and movement that is our birthright. The awareness of and ability to let go of unnecessary tension habits is not nothing, it is most indeed something quite valuable.

[author] [author_image timthumb='on']http://www.acatnyc.org/main/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/jeffrey.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]JEFFREY GLAZER is a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique. He found the Alexander Technique in 2008 after an exhaustive search for relief from chronic pain in his arms and neck. Long hours at the computer had made his pain debilitating, and he was forced to leave his job in finance. The remarkable results he achieved in managing and reducing his pain prompted him to become an instructor in order to help others. He received his teacher certification at the American Center for the Alexander Technique after completing their 3-year, 1600 hour training course in 2013. He also holds a BS in Finance and Marketing from Florida State University. www.nycalexandertechnique.com[/author_info] [/author]

My Powerful Learning Experience from an Alexander Technique Group Class

January 5, 2015 admin

by Jeffrey Glazer Group classes can be a great way to learn the Alexander Technique. I recall a vivid example of one group class when I discovered the power of the mind/body connection, and realized how much my thinking was affecting my body.

During this class we played a simple game. The students all stood in a circle, and the teacher introduced a soft, squishy ball to toss to each other. We were supposed to make eye contact with someone in the circle before we tossed the ball to them.

As we began, I didn’t notice much. Then the teacher asked us to tune into our bodies. It was then that I noticed a tightness in my neck, that I was clenching my jaw, and more or less holding my breath in anticipation of the ball being thrown to me.

Gaining a New Perspective

The teacher then pointed out that there were no penalties for dropping the ball or making an errant throw, no winners or losers, and no time limit. In fact, we could even let the ball drop in front of us instead of catching it. That’s when something clicked. I realized I was bringing the same attitude to this game that I brought to many other areas of life. Namely, that I was supposed to be right, good, and not mess up. I assumed the goal was to catch the ball, make accurate throws, and look good doing it.

I decided that the next time the ball was thrown to me, I would let it drop. But the instant the ball was thrown my way I found myself reacting and trying to catch it. It took a few times before I was able to stop reacting and let the ball drop. I had finally opened myself up to something different, a non-habitual reaction to a ball being thrown my way. Then I noticed my neck and jaw weren’t so tense anymore, and I had stopped holding my breath. The next time the ball was thrown to me I did catch it, but it was a choice rather than mandatory. The traveling of the ball through the air and into my hands seemed to happen in slow motion, and my movements were fluid and spontaneous.

Choosing How to Respond

I realized that my thinking really did affect my body, and not just in this game, but in all walks of life. I had learned that before reacting to something, I could decide how I wanted to respond. My habitual attitude of “catch it or else!”, only created fear in my nervous system, which I reacted to by clenching my jaw, tensing my neck, and holding my breath. Once I changed my thinking to allow for a choice, I was in a state of poise, so that during the times when I decided to catch the ball, I did so with greater ease. Most importantly, the chronic pain in my neck and arms began to dissipate as I let go of the tension in my neck and jaw, and stopped holding my breath.

What’s great about the Alexander Technique is that it paves the way to do something differently, with more ease and poise. Beginning this January, ACAT will be offering drop in group classes. Come for a class and experience for yourself how the Alexander Technique can help you.

Coughing and the Alexander Technique

December 11, 2014 admin

cigars-3-593689-m by Barbara Curialle Having spent Thanksgiving week coping with a case of bronchitis, I’ve come away with a few suggestions on dealing with the most irritating (in every sense) part of the problem—the coughing.

Bronchitis is an inflammation of the bronchial tubes, which bring air into, and carbon dioxide away from, the lungs. Among the symptoms are shortness of breath and coughing, the body’s means of getting rid of the excess phlegm that builds up. My loyally end-gaining body kept up the coughing to the point of exhaustion and even sore ribs (specifically, the oblique muscles). Rest, a course of antibiotics, cough medicine (the non-codeine kind), and herbal tea did help, but so did these Alexander tips. It takes some presence of mind to direct in the middle of a coughing fit, but what worked best was, as much as possible, to:

Allow my neck to be free and my head to balance at the top of my spine, my torso to widen and lengthen, and my legs to move away from my torso
Bend at the hips, knees, and ankles to go into monkey
In monkey, put a hand on one leg or on a table or other surface to become almost quadrupedal to support me and absorb the effort of coughing
Use the other arm to cover my nose and mouth
Unbend at the hips, knees, and ankles to return to the upright

Of course, remembering not to DO breathing but to allow the breath to enter my lungs helped me feel at least somewhat less congested, as did a whispered “ah” here and there. I won’t say I remembered to do this every time, but I found that even thinking to direct at various random moments did cheer me up, even if it didn’t cure me.

[author] [author_image timthumb='on']http://www.acatnyc.org/main/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Curialle.jpeg[/author_image] [author_info]BARBARA CURIALLE, a graduate of ACAT, has been a nationally certified Alexander Technique teacher since 2009. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in music and social science from Fordham University and a Bachelor of Music (piano) from Manhattan School of Music. In 2011, she underwent spinal-fusion surgery and credits the Alexander Technique with a very directed recovery. She maintains a teaching practice on the Upper West Side and feels at her best when applying the Alexander Technique to physical activities such as walking, running, strength training, yoga, and swimming. She can be found at barbaracurialle.com[/author_info] [/author]

The Alexander Technique: It's Not Just About Standing Up Straight

December 5, 2014 admin

by Brooke Lieb When people hear that I teach Alexander Technique, they often comment "Oh, that's about standing up straight", or say something apologetic or sarcastic. Then they inevitably pull themselves up into their version of "Good Posture".

The good news is that gravity is not what's getting you down. It's actually your own muscles, over contracting, working inefficiently and pulling you down. When you learn to allow lengthening to occur throughout your musculature, weight falls more efficiently through bones and joints, leaving you more balanced on your skeleton.

Hours spent sitting at a computer, studying, driving a car and other such sedentary activities contribute to being habitually shortened through the muscles on the front of the body. Because we are so used to this shortening, it doesn't register in your feeling sense as active muscle work. In fact, it probably feels effortless and maybe even comfortable. Fortunately, when you learn to release this excess effort, the natural outcome is more evenly distributed muscle tone, lengthening and more upright alignment through your spine. You can get better results with less effort when it comes to posture.

I have a couple who've studied with me since Fall of 2000. He reported gaining a full inch in height at his last check up; and she went from a 1/4" to a 1/8" correction in her orthotics for a leg length discrepancy.

Studying the Alexander Technique can help you look taller and feel lighter and easier in upright posture.

I leave you with this quote:

"I am putting into gear the muscles that hold you up, and you are putting them out of gear and then making a tremendous effort to hold yourself up, with the result that, when you ease that effort, you slump down worse than ever." F. M. Alexander

[author] [author_image timthumb='on']http://www.acatnyc.org/main/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Brooke1web.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]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[/author_info] [/author]

“Text-Neck”: a Modern Epidemic and its Elegant Solution, The Alexander Technique

November 21, 2014 admin

by Witold Fitz-Simon The internet has been a-buzz this week with the publication of a new study by surgeon Kenneth Hansraj, M. D. Using computer modeling, he was able to determine how much stress we are actually doing to ourselves when we drop our heads and collapse to look at our cell phones.

An adult human head weighs anywhere between 10 and 12 pounds. When posture is good, with the top of the spine in a neutral position relative to the rest of the body, and the head poised in balance on the top vertebra, that weight is safely and effectively transferred down through the spine to the feet and the floor (or to your ischial tuberosities—your sitting bones—and to your chair if you are seated). If you take the head and the top of the spine forward by 15°, so Dr. Hansraj has determined, that weight effectively becomes 27 pounds. At 30° it becomes 40 pounds, at 45° 49 pounds, and at 60° it becomes 60 pounds. If you spend any amount of time with your head dropped forward, it’s as if you are carrying the equivalent of several large bags of groceries around at the top of your neck. Dr. Hanraj estimates that people spend an average of 700 to 1400 hours a year with the head stooped like this, and speculates that the average High School student might spend 5,000 hours a year like this.

Fixing a problem like this might seem simple. All you have to do is not drop your head. The reality of this is quite different. Dropping your head to look at your cell phone can be such an ingrained habit that you don’t even realize when you’re doing it. And when you do, just pulling your head back is not going to be the best solution. If you do that, you will have taken the tension in your neck from having your head forward and and added to it the tension of pulling your head back. A better solution is to learn how to free your neck and allow your head to remain poised on the top of your spine while you negotiate your phone in the first place. Luckily, the Alexander Technique can help you do just that in a simple and effective way.

The America Center for the Alexander Technique has a 50-year tradition of excellence in training Alexander Technique teachers. If you would like to find out more about the Technique, find one of our affiliated teachers here.

A Delicate Balance?

November 15, 2014 admin

Balance photo by Karen Krueger

I recently heard the phrase "a delicate balance" twice in 24 hours: first, when a friend mentioned he had recently seen the current Broadway revival of Edward Albee's play of that name, and second, when I happened to hear an Alexander Technique teacher use it about the poise of the head. I was reminded of how often I have heard Alexander Technique teachers say that we are aiming for "a delicate balance" of the head on the top of the spine.

I have never liked this wording, and I don't use it with my students. But hearing the phrase twice in such a short period of time prompted me to wonder why. What is it about the word "delicate" that bothers me?

Here's the definition of the word given by my American Heritage Dictionary:

1. Exquisitely or pleasingly fine. 2. Frail in constitution or health. 3. Easily broken or damaged. 4. Requiring tasteful and tactful treatment. 5. Keen in sense discrimination or perception. 6. Manifesting sensitivity and attentiveness to the proprieties. 7. Regardful of the feelings of others. 8. Keenly accurate in response or reaction. 9. Soft or gentle in touch or skill. 10. Very subtle in difference or distinction. --See Synonyms at fragile.

Here's what the synonym list at "fragile" has to say:

Delicate ... suggests lack of durability or susceptibility to injury.

Reading these entries helped clarify for me why I don't want to think of my head balance as delicate: I don't like the idea of its being frail and injury-prone, as per definitions 2 and 3. In fact, I have found that a well-managed poise of the head releases a great deal of energy in the whole system.

The other definitions seem to me to describe the Alexander Technique in general, and the skills it teaches, rather than head balance in particular. Of all the many shades of meaning in this one word, the only one that seems at all relevant to my understanding of how the head balances on the top of the spine is the last of the ten definitions--"very subtle in difference or distinction."

It has definitely been my experience that subtle changes in head balance can have profound effects on the entire system--which is what I believe Alexander meant by "primary control." However, the experience of my head, neck and back that results is not delicate at all, but rather strong and powerful.

Probably those teachers who talk about the "delicate balance" of the head do not intend to say that this balance is frail or weak; it is my mind and my way of thinking that add that meaning. So this is an interesting illustration of the confounding power of vocabulary. Our language is simply not precise enough to ensure that we will all understand the same thing from the same words.

I believe our choice of words is worth examining because it can reflect and thus illuminate our priorities and values. Perhaps those who favor the phrase "a delicate balance" may seek, in their Alexander Technique work, to evoke a certain quality of being that might be called "delicate." One of the differences that I have discovered among Alexander Technique teachers is the degree to which they value and seek to elicit lightness, releasing and letting go, on the one hand, or energy and strength on the other hand. Of course, all of these qualities can happily co-exist, but many teachers seem to prioritize one or the other.

Despite my issue with this one phrase, I value both approaches for myself and for my students. Indeed, I seek a balance between the two--but a strong and energetic balance rather than a delicate one!

[author] [author_image timthumb='on']http://www.acatnyc.org/main/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Kreuger.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]KAREN G. KRUEGER became a teacher of the Alexander Technique after 25 years of practicing law at two major New York law firms, receiving her teaching certificate from the American Center for the Alexander Technique in December 2010. Her students include lawyers, business executives, IT professionals and others interested in living with greater ease and skill. Find her at her website: http://kgk-llc.com. [/author_info] [/author]

"Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life" by Marshall Rosenberg

November 6, 2014 admin

by Tim Tucker Note: The ACAT Faculty began working with NVC to meet our need for effective and empathic ways of communicating with our teachers-in-training. Alexander's work asks us to address our use on every level. Many of us found NVC supported that desire in the areas of perceiving, listening and speaking in ways that inhibited end-gaining and allowed us to support ourselves and our students in accessing a non-defensive and thoughtful internal state in which to learn how to teach the Alexander Technique. We added the book to our required reading so our teachers-in-training were introduced to NVC while on the course. All of our students are asked to write a response paper to a number of texts, including NVC, as part of their certification requirements. The following is Tim Tucker's response paper. —Brooke Lieb, Director, Teacher Certification Program

When I arrived at ACAT and reviewed the list of books we would be reading, I was pleased to note the inclusion of Marshall Rosenberg’s “Nonviolent Communication” among the titles. My Zen teacher had already introduced me to Rosenberg’s work, but my knowledge of NVC remained quite superficial and I was pleased to have an opportunity to deepen my understanding of how it works and what it has to offer.

“Nonviolent Communication” is not a long book (212 pages) but the concepts explored in it seem so novel and the information is so dense in its presentation that it took quite a lot of time and effort to read the book. This is probably because I have labored, like so many other people, under a significant degree of confusion about my perceptions and behavior. I was (and often still am) in the habit of inappropriately melding things that ought to be looked at separately, while simultaneously separating things that need to be considered together. Consider the following basic schemas:

Neutrally observe

↓

Identify Feelings

↓

Identify Needs

↓

Make a request of the other person

The NVC model above, which is grounded in vulnerability, compassion and the ability to offer empathy (as opposed to giving advice or reassurance), stands in striking contrast to the way I, and many others, have typically operated:

Judge

↓

React

↓

Blame/Criticize

↓

Spin in self-validated feelings

↓

Try to change the other person

It’s fairly obvious when two alternative behavioral models are laid out this clearly which one will likely lead to better results. Yet NVC, which appears to be a much more direct route for people to get their needs met, is hardly the norm in our society. Analysis, assessment, criticism, diagnosis, evaluation, interpretation and judgment take the place of neutral observation without our even being aware of it. We don’t even see our own behavior, or that the “pain engendered by damaging cultural conditioning is such an integral part of our lives that we can no longer distinguish its presence.” (p. 165) In this state of near-unconsciousness, hypnotized by our habits and conditioning, it’s very easy to never examine feelings or to reflexively attribute them to other people who in our eyes are inevitably at fault and need to change whenever they fail to act in accord with our values and preferences.

I am very interested in why I and so many other people frequently exhibit the self-defeating patterns of communication delineated by Rosenberg, but the book does not delve much into that fascinating question. What exactly is this “damaging cultural conditioning” alluded to by Rosenberg, and why does it happen in the first place? Early in the text, Rosenberg says “I find that my cultural conditioning leads me to focus attention on places where I am unlikely to get what I want.” (p. 4) In the chapter “Expressing Anger Fully,” he comments on a Swedish prisoner’s confusion of the stimulus triggering his anger (external) with the actual cause of his anger (internal), “By equating stimulus and cause, he had tricked himself…This is an easy habit to acquire in a culture that uses guilt as a means of controlling people. In such cultures, it becomes important to trick people into thinking that we can make others feel a certain way.” (p. 136). As for what Rosenberg thinks causes these unhelpful behaviors, a pretty clear indication is given on p. 23:

Most of us grew up speaking a language that encourages us to label, compare, demand and pronounce judgments rather than to be aware of what we are feeling and needing. I believe life-alienating communication is rooted in views of human nature that have exerted their influence for several centuries. These views stress our innate evil and deficiency, and a need for education to control our inherently undesirable nature. Such education often leaves us questioning whether there is something wrong with whatever feelings and needs we may be experiencing. We learn early to cut ourselves off from what’s going on within ourselves. Life-alienating communication both stems from and supports hierarchical societies, the functioning of which depends upon large numbers of docile, subservient citizens. When we are in contact with our feelings and needs, we humans no longer make good slaves and underlings.”

Thus, Rosenberg thinks that our communication and behavioral problems actually serve the interest of those in power in our society. He is effectively saying that the dysfunction and pain so prevalent among the mass of people and so vividly displayed in their misguided, violent communication sustains the dominance of the elites who control most of the wealth and resources. Simply put, the proletariat is voluntarily colluding with their oppressors in big business and government without even being aware of it, and on an extremely intimate level.

Whether Rosenberg is correct or not in his view on the genesis of life-alienating communication, it clearly is a conditioned behavior; life-alienating communication is the NVC equivalent of F.M. Alexander putting his head back and down and gasping for breath when he wanted to recite Shakespeare. And just as we find in our practice of Alexander, breaking our habit of life-alienating communication in NVC requires us to rein in conditioned, habitual, reflexive behavior by stopping and thinking before engaging in an activity – in this case, before speaking. This stopping, by definition, requires us to slow down and take more time to do whatever we’re doing.

Consider the following passage from “Nonviolent Communication,” which strongly echoes Walter Carrington’s “Thinking Aloud”:

“Probably the most important part of learning how to live the process that we have been discussing is to take our time. We may feel awkward deviating from the habitual behaviors that our conditioning has rendered automatic, but if our intention is to live life in harmony with our values, then we’ll want to take our time.” (p. 146)

Carrington’s version of this way of thinking is:

“I always say to people, ‘Think about time. Realize how much time is a personal thing, how much time is an individual possession….you’re the only person who can give yourself time. Nobody else can give you time. You’ve got to take the time. You’ve got to be prepared to take the time it takes.” Thinking Aloud, pp. 130-131.

NVC and Alexander Technique both provide lenses for people to look at how they unconsciously and habitually harm themselves, and tools for people to learn to stop and apply the “new, correct messages” that can return them to a more natural and healthy way of being and relating. Both AT and NVC require that we slow down and apply a great deal of scrutiny to how we perform a host of deceptively simple activities we formerly took for granted (and often still take for granted). By slowing down and paying careful attention to ourselves and our behavior, we practitioners of these remarkable disciplines are swimming against the tide of our cultural conditioning. Although the tide of cultural conditioning can seem overwhelming it will, through diligent self-work, be overwhelmed. Put another way, if everyone in our society were to suddenly begin to diligently practice these disciplines, the entire machinery of our frenzied, addictive, commercial culture would quite simply collapse.

[author][author_info]TIM TUCKER, a fourth-term teacher trainee at ACAT, was drawn to the Alexander Technique because of its strong affinity with his Zen Buddhist practice. A former stock market analyst and artist, Tim is very interested in studying culturally promoted patterns of addiction, violence and waste in American society.[/author_info] [/author]

The Alexander Technique and Back Care

October 30, 2014 admin

by Witold Fitz-Simon In 2008, the British Medical Journal published the results of their randomized controlled trial of Alexander Technique lessons, exercise, and massage for chronic and recurrent back pain. This is not exactly news for those in the Alexander Technique community, as word of favorable scientific studies travel fast. The results were so positive in favor of the Technique, however, that it is worth giving them another look.

579 patients with chronic or recurring back pain were selected from 64 general practices in the United Kingdom. 144 people were given normal care for back pain that you might receive from any general practitioner. 147 were given six sessions of massage. 144 were given six Alexander Technique lessons. 144 were given 24 Alexander technique lessons. Half of the people in each of these groups were also given an exercise program.

The participants in the study were interviewed three months after their interventions were given, and again after twelve months. As you might expect, the control group showed no improvement after three months or beyond. Of the other groups, all showed some improvement. What is remarkable is what was found at the one-year mark. Those who had received massage reported they still experienced around 21 days of pain in the previous four weeks, whereas those who had taken six lessons in the Alexander Technique reported around 11 days of pain. Those who had taken 24 lessons in the Technique that ended a year previously reported only around 3 days of pain in the prior 4 weeks!

Here is the video that the BMJ produced explaining their study:

http://youtu.be/3GbwzqT9piU

http://youtu.be/BXmimtk381U

The American Center for the Alexander technique has a 50-year tradition of excellence in training teachers of the Alexander Technique. Click here to find a teacher near you.

The Alexander Technique as a Tool for Dealing With Trauma

October 23, 2014 admin

by Brooke Lieb [*Please note, I am fully healed and my love of dogs is fully intact!]

The Sunday before Father’s Day in 2005, I was bitten on my right leg in three places by a bulldog in the home of someone I knew. I had met the dog before a number of times over the years, and had entered the home of her owner without waiting for the woman to come to the door without incident many times.

After the dog released me and her owner pulled her away and closed her up in a room, I noticed my habitual reaction was to immediately focus on the idea that “everything is fine.” My parents were there, having arrived before me, and they and the dog’s owner seemed ready to join me in my habit. I was able to stand and walk on the leg. I saw a long scratch down the inside of my calf, which was bleeding; and evidence of bite marks on my calf and the outside of my thigh, which was swelling slightly, beginning to turn red as bruising began; and what seemed like bleeding under the skin where there were obvious teeth marks.

As moments passed, my assessment of the situation was that I had to pursue proper treatment for myself. Those around me were already soothing themselves with the idea that I was walking and the skin was not broken, so I was OK. I first suggested that I go to the hospital, as I imagined a tetanus shot was in order. The others seemed hesitant to take me there, as the wounds didn’t seem serious enough. The owner said she didn’t think I needed to go to the hospital or that there was any worry, as the dog was up to date on her shots and the skin was not broken. (In fact, on later inspection when I got home, I discovered the skin had been broken in five places.)

I did not want to go to the hospital, but I knew that was my habit of minimizing things. I pursued the subject, insisting that I should consult with a medical professional to determine the proper course of treatment. The owner offered to try to reach her doctor on the phone. She called and I thought the line didn’t answer. My mother later told me she believed there was a recorded message with further instructions and another number to call in an emergency, but the dog’s owner didn’t pursue the course beyond her first call. I suggested I call my own doctor, who was out of town. The doctor covering for her called me back after about 15 minutes and determined that the dog and I were up to date on our shots and my concern was infection. He didn’t tell me to go to a hospital, but did tell me how to clean the wounds and what to watch for that would indicate infection.

The owner had provided me with a bottle of betadine and paper towels to clean the wounds. I asked her for some ice as I saw there was swelling, and at first she told me in which drawer I’d find a plastic bag to put the ice in before she stepped in and did it for me.

I noticed throughout that I was in mild shock. My hands were shaking, and I had lost my appetite, even though I had been hungry when I arrived. I felt an energy of wanting to move, to get away from this environment, even though I stayed where I was. I was also acutely aware that I found the behavior of my parents and the dog’s owner contributed to my discomfort. I felt a distinct attitude coming from them that the event was over and all was fine now, while I was still very shaken. I felt unsafe in their presence and that any display of upset or fear would be met with a non-reaction.

When I arrived home a couple of hours later, my husband expressed what felt like an appropriate level of horror and concern and outrage that this had happened. I knew his response had an accurate level of energy and urgency to it. It took me a couple of days to feel the full intensity of my physical and psychic disturbance, and all the while, I had to keep recognizing my habit to minimize the events, my feelings, my thoughts and use my Alexander principles of awareness and direction to keep myself in the reality of the situation. My parents also woke from their somewhat numbed reaction and became more upset upon seeing my injuries in full color, and in response to how the dog’s owner had minimized the seriousness of the events.

For a few days, whenever I thought about the actual attack, I could feel the pain of the dog’s jaw biting my leg vividly. I could feel my fear and shock setting in as I struggled on the floor, calling for help and trying to scramble away from the dog. I wondered if I would have flashbacks and residual stress from the event. That didn’t happen and I believe it was because I sought out contact with people who would express the outrage, and empathize with me, whether or not they saw the actual wounds or had ever been bitten by a dog themselves.

Acting against my habit in this case has had many benefits. I have been much more proactive in dealing with many different circumstances that I would habitually avoid or let go un-addressed at the expense of my own comfort and well-being.

About a month later, on July 7, 2005, I was watching a film clip of a man injured in the subway bombings in London. As I watched the police help him walk and saw the cuts on his face and his bandages, I recalled the shock and mild trauma that I had experienced from the bite, and felt I could empathize much more fully with the pain, fear, and shock he must be feeling. I could touch into those feelings, while not re-living the moment as real or losing my present self in the memory. I fully credit my skill in the principle of the Alexander Technique with my ability to feel more fully and know I was safe.

Alexander Technique Shown to Benefit Business

September 26, 2014 admin

by Witold Fitz-Simon In a study conducted in 2011, Alexander Technique teacher Mireia Mora Griso undertook a study of large companies who gave their employees training in the Alexander Technique. If you have studied the Alexander Technique, the results are, perhaps not surprising, but for the business world at large, they should be a wake-up call to Big Business of the power of the Technique to improve productivity and cut health-care costs.

Griso’s research protocol whittled down her subjects to ten major companies:

Victorinox (Swiss knife company)
Unicible (an IT company)
Siemens AG (an electrical engineering company)
Treuhand GmbH (an accountancy practice)
Ville de Lausanne (a town services organization)
D. E. V. K. (an insurance company)
Steuerberaterverban Schleswig-Holstein (a tax consultancy company)
Alliance Insurance Corporation (an insurance company)
Chevron-Texaco (an energy company)
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (a hospital)

In each of these companies, more than 50 people were given significant training in the Technique (more than just an introductory session). In each of the companies, the training was given substantial support as an important part of policy over, at minimum, a three-year period. The Alexander Technique teachers conducting the training all reported that the people they worked with recognized the need to improve their quality of life in the workplace and, despite initial resistance in some cases, the majority of people became positive about the work.

The study produced a fascinating list of benefits of the Technique reported by the participants:

Physical Benefits

Reduced pain and disability
Improved muscle tone
Postural coordination and balance

Psychological Benefits

Stress management
Improvements in self-esteem
Improvements in public speaking
Improvements in creativity
Improvements in conentration
Improvements in team work

Business Benefits

Reduced work hours lost to illness
Reduced accidents
Reduced employment insurance costs
Improved cost-profits relationship
Improved work performance

To read about the study in “TalkBack” the quarterly magazine off BackCare, the U. k.’s National Back Pain Association, go here.

The Shoulders: To Rest or Not to Rest?

September 11, 2014 admin

by John Austin Finding neutral for the shoulders is one of the most challenging things one can do in terms of the use of the self in my experience. Add a complex activity that requires a certain level of ease in the shoulder girdle on top and you’ve got a recipe for paradox and frustration.

Let’s begin with the basic anatomy of the shoulder girdle. When I refer to the “shoulder girdle” I mean the hands & arms, shoulder blades, and collar bone. You may be surprised to learn that the only jointed (bone to bone) connection of the shoulder girdle to the rest of the skeleton is in the front of the torso at the top of the sternum.

Find your collar-bone (clavicle) by palpating the bone and follow it toward the mid-line until find two roundish protrusions at either side of the top of chest bone (sternum). You are on top of the sternoclavicular joint(s) where the shoulder girdle meets the rest of the skeleton.

If you follow the collar bone out from the mid-line toward the arm until it reaches the furthest bony protrusion you’ve found the point where the clavicle meets the shoulder blade (scapula), the acromioclavicular joint. It’s called the acromioclavicular joint because it is where the clavicle and the point of the scapula furthest from the mid-line, called the acromion process (processes are protrusions that allow for muscle and ligament attachment), meet. This should not be confused with the glenohumeral joint where the upper arm attaches to the shoulder blade; there is no direct bone to bone attachment of the upper arm to the collarbone.

Now, palpate your way back to toward the mid-line from the acromion, this time following the shoulder blade until it reaches what will feel like the corner of a triangle. You are feeling the “spine” of the scapula. Depending on your muscle build you may have to press quite firmly and the scapula may seemingly disappear into muscle. The strong muscles of the back are what support and stabilize the shoulder girdle as there are no bone to bone attachments in the back. The structure of the shoulder girdle, while providing extreme freedom of movement, also brings an ambiguousness when looking for a neutral position for the shoulders and arms.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that how we use ourselves in our daily activities has a profound effect on the resting lengths of our muscles. It is this phenomenon that we are observing when we see pianists and people who spend hours at the computer still in the shape they work from when walking, eating, watching TV, etc. In the case of the shoulder girdle this can be quite extreme. Because of the lack of bony structural support, the resting position of our shoulders is almost completely determined by the resting lengths of our muscles. If we overstretch our muscles in daily activity, we run the risk of deteriorating the support that allows the shoulders to find a comfortable resting position.

johnnorest Along the way to becoming a “serious” violist, I was told to keep my shoulders relaxed. So I went about figuring out how to do that. I am meticulous in the practice room and before long I had discovered that I could relax my left shoulder while playing although my right didn’t really follow suit. The static nature of the left shoulder in violin & viola playing allows for a certain amount of relaxation (release of all/most muscle tone) while the larger more dynamic movements of the bow require the arm muscles which originate in the back to be active for movement to occur. The left shoulder can relax even more if you use a shoulder rest as you then virtually never have to move your shoulder.

On the surface you’d think that one less thing to worry about (moving the shoulder to balance the instrument) and a little less muscular effort would be good; so for years I ignorantly thought, “I’m raising my right shoulder, that’s not good.” Yet, after hours of playing it was not my right shoulder that cracked and popped, it was my left. Even after years of receiving praise for my tone which of course comes primarily from the bow, I thought, “But my left is down so it must be better than my right,” and went about trying to lower my right. Needless to say I was unsuccessful.

It wasn’t until years of Alexander work that I realized what I was actually doing was relaxing my left shoulder to the point that it was resting on my rib cage. This was the grinding bone on bone I felt in the form of constant cracking and popping when I moved my arm. I was robbing my shoulder girdle of it’s muscular support by relaxing it and then dragging it across my rib cage.

It turns out that the last thing we want to do when doing any activity is rest. The word activity even contains active! To remedy my issue, I had to relearn to play the viola without the shoulder rest. I found that every little shift was a welcome opportunity for movement in my shoulder girdle. Rather than trying to hold myself still or relax into a blob I was free to move and the movement had an organizing effect on my shoulder girdle which helped remind my shoulder blades where neutral was. I had been taught that raising my shoulder was off limits movement-wise on the viola. How ridiculous a notion it was to make a movement off limits when all of the great violinists and even Primrose himself did this subtle lift of the shoulder.

This rule I assume was a reaction to the common problem of violists & violinists clamping down on the instrument between their necks and shoulders, which isn’t much better. Although, too much tension is less likely to destabilize your shoulder girdle. In my case, relaxing has left me not being able to let my left shoulder be in it’s neutral resting place without pain. I’ve over-stretched the muscles and they now rest on bone and nerves. It takes subtle conscious direction of my shoulder for the pain to subside, which is annoying to say the least.

I’m not sure if it is laziness, bad teaching, or what exactly is at the root of the shoulder rest debate in the string playing world. I’ve already written about the laziness possibility here. String teachers having a very small part of the body of knowledge necessary is possible, pun very much intended. It could just come down to the fact that playing the viola is extremely difficult and the shoulder rest is a seductive little crutch that can allow us to avoid having to learn how to properly use our shoulder girdle in the process of playing the viola, which is not simple and takes a long time to do.

Once again the most healthy option seems to be to stop trying to gain our end without reasoning out a means whereby to attain it; not to mention means that at the very least don’t leave us physically and mentally destroyed and/or with a mediocre end: the music which we care so dearly about.

This post originally appeared on John Austin's blog.

[author] [author_image timthumb='on']http://www.acatnyc.org/main/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/headshot.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]JOHN AUSTIN started pondering and pontificating on the probable and possible reasons for the tragic loss of joy in himself and his fellow musicians as he approached his breaking point in a music conservatory. In fact, he was nearly a casualty of the music “busi-ness" when he stumbled on the Alexander Technique. Since then he's been inspired by his training at the American Center for the Alexander Technique to write in an attempt to better understand what was happening to himself and others. Mr. Austin has an active performing career, blog, and teaching studio in West Harlem, Manhattan.[/author_info] [/author]

Bedbugs, Lead Paint, and Neck Pain: a Case Study of Alexander Technique NYC

August 7, 2014 admin

by Dan Cayer In 7 memorable months, my family was visited by 2 of New York City’s dreaded housing plagues: lead paint and bedbugs. If you count hardhearted, greedy landlords, then we had that plague, too. Twice, we packed up all our stuff, tried to keep normalcy for Ruby, and twice we were disappointed (crushed, really) to find out that we could not live safely in the apartments we had moved into.

In the first apartment, our landlord evicted us after Ruby tested high for lead in her blood rather than deal with the lead. We were living on a month-to-month lease since things had been previously very friendly between us. He also blamed all the lead exposure on a single bookshelf we attached to a wall. In our next apartment, my wife had two allergic reactions to bug bites before we happened to catch a bedbug scampering across our bed at 3 AM. Ruby and I soon started getting bit as well. Our landlord had lied to us about bedbugs in the building – the previous tenants lasted only three months.

We weighed our strategies: court, rent strike, living in plastic biohazard suits, but ultimately, though we were deceived both times, we had little recourse but to walk and take our revenge fantasies with us.

The feelings of powerlessness, rage, and worry were having a field day on my body. I’d walk around during the day, thinking of how unfair it was and hating my landlord. It felt as if someone were drilling my head down into my body. My neck and shoulders were hardening into concrete. Adrenaline was pumping all day long; it began production early in the morning, waking me up around 4:30 or 5.

Each time I thought about the unfairness of our plight, I could feel a wave of tightening seize my body. My wife and I were paralyzed with how to proceed. How do we fight to get back our security deposit? What were our rights when we were clearly not at fault?

It wasn’t until I checked in with my body that one decision became clear. When I thought about staying and fighting and going to court, my body contracted into a fist. When I imagined just leaving – money be damned – I felt the fist relax and enjoyment seemed possible again. At that moment, and many others throughout the 7 months, my training in the Alexander Technique helped me find a place, as Rumi wrote, “Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”

Steering myself over and over from the hypothetical, from rehashing the past or recounting our injustices, to the present experience of living in my mind and body was tremendously healing. It not only kept me moored to sanity (mostly), I was training for how I want to deal with hard times in my life. I don’t want to be driven mad with fear or completely lost when life becomes unstable. I want to be embodied enough to breathe and to think. In the revenge fantasies and fearful projecting into the future, I was always having to fend for myself. Coming back to my body and mind also meant returning to my family and the humor and love we still managed to improvise, picnicking on top of our plastic bins with Thai takeout. Soon, it would be time to move again and leave the plastic bags behind. By returning faithfully to the present moment, I could really leave it all behind.

This post was originally published at dancayerfluidmovement.com

[author] [author_image timthumb='on']http://www.acatnyc.org/main/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Dan-Head-Shot-13.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]DAN CAYER is a nationally certified teacher of the Alexander Technique. After a serious injury left him unable to work or even carry out household tasks, he began studying the technique. His return to health, as well as his experience with the physical, mental, and emotional aspects of pain, inspired him to help others. He now teaches his innovative approach in Union Square, Carroll Gardens and in Park Slope, Brooklyn. He also teaches adults to swim with greater ease and confidence by applying Alexander principles. You can find his next workshop or schedule a private lesson at www.dancayerfluidmovement.com.[/author_info] [/author]

Why What "Feels Right" Can Be The Wrong Thing To Do

August 1, 2014 admin

by Witold Fitz-Simon Every one of us has a "sixth sense." Unfortunately, it's nothing fancy. It's not telepathy, or the ability to see ghosts, or anything supernatural like that. It is pretty cool, in its own way, even though most of us take it completely for granted most of the time. Our sixth sense is a "feeling" sense made up of information we get from our bodies.

Kinesthesia and Proprioception

This feeling sense, called either proprioception or kinesthesia, works a little differently than our other five senses. Each of the traditional five senses, has its own sense organ: sight has the eyes, sound has the ears, etc. The feeling sense is different.

Instead of getting all its information from one source, your brain takes information from organs in different parts of your body and knits it together into one sense. It compiles information from your muscles, joints, tendons and your inner ear to give you an awareness of movement, effort and the position of your joints and limbs. This awareness, your proprioceptive sense, becomes the foundation for the way you sit, stand, walk around or work at the computer. It informs everything you do.

Why it "Feels Right"

Last week on the blog we looked at habits and how hard they are to break. In an nutshell, this is because our brains take complex behaviors and reduce all the different parts that make them up into a single behavioral chunk. This chunk then gets imprinted into our brains with a positive reinforcement mechanism that includes the chemical dopamine. The way we use our bodies, and the proprioceptive memory associated with that use, is part of that chunked behavior. As a result, it feels good or "feels right" to do the habit in a particular way.

Why "Feeling Right" Can Lead You Wrong

Just because a way of doing something has that feeling of "rightness" to it, that doesn't mean it is necessarily your best choice in any given moment. Your proprioceptive or kinesthetic sense often feeds you bad information. The sense receptors in your muscles, tendons and joints register change. If you raise your arm, for example, they tell you that the position of your arm has changed from one place to another. They tell you that the muscular effort expended by the muscles in your shoulder has changed from one amount to another, as well as the rate at which that change took place. After a while, if there is no more change happening, they reset themselves to this new state. They no longer send information to your brain.

This can lead to two problems. If you do the same thing wrong the same way over and over, after a while your proprioceptive sense will no longer register it. Say you tense your neck all the time you are sitting at your computer, your proprioceptive sense will begin to tune it out. This will begin to carry over into other activities. The misuse will get folded in with all your other behavioral patterns and will begin to feel right. You will only be reinforcing the bad habit.

This, then, leads us to the second problem. In order for your sense receptors to pick up any new information, you will have to create change. If you try and "feel out" a part of your body, perhaps to learn more about it or fix it, you will most likely be adding more effort to that place.

Do the Right Thing

So what's the solution to this awkward situation? Change your relationship to your proprioceptive/kinesthetic sense. Rather than getting caught up in the sensations of your body, open your awareness out to include the space around you as well as the information you get about yourself. Rely on that visual and spatial awareness instead. Staying connected to your other senses and the space around you will give your system the message to be a little less compressed, a little less effortful, a little more expansive.

Better still, try taking an Alexander Technique lesson with a certified teacher. They can show you a whole new way to relate to your body that will help you identify and release your bad habits. They will show you how to repattern the way you use yourself to a more efficient and easeful standard.

Why Are Habits So Hard To Break?

July 25, 2014 admin

by Witold Fitz-Simon A recent cover story in Scientific American revealed how the brain creates habits and why they are so hard to break. In their article, researchers Ann Gaybriel (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Kyle S. Smith (Dartmouth College) outline three stages to laying down a habit:

Explore a new behavior
Form a habit
Imprint it into the brain

Exploring New Behaviors

As you explore a new behavior, three parts of your brain—the prefrontal cortex, the striatum and the midbrain—communicate together to form positive feedback loops that help you determine whether nor not the behavior helps you achieve your goals.

Let’s take as an example, reaching down to pick up and put on your shoes. When you first learn to do this, you might make the choice, consciously or not, to counterbalance as you reach forward to pick the shoes up by allowing your head to drop back and down. To reach your shoes, you are extending your arm out quite a way beyond the stable support of your mid-line and your center of gravity, and taking the weight of your head back creates a feeling of stability. It may not be the best way to do this, but it works in the moment and, anyway, you are more concerned with getting your shoes on than you are with anything else.

The next time you put your shoes on, your brain remembers the sequence of behaviors you performed to fulfill your goal and sets up an expectation of success or failure. You put your shoes on the same way you did before. It works again. The brain makes a note that this sequence of behaviors is an effective way of achieving the goal. This process is repeated every time you put your shoes on, reinforced each time.

Forming a Habit

A habit, from the perspective of the brain, is a sequence of actions or behaviors that get lumped together into one single unit: a chunk of brain activity. When you are first exploring the action, the brain acts with deliberation. It has no expectations and needs to make conscious choices. Let’s take our example of putting on your shoes. The sequence of deliberate choices to get your shoes might look like this:

You see your shoes.
You reach out and down to pick them up and drop your head back to counterbalance the reach of your arm.
With your head thrown off balance, your back gets stiff as you bend down to get to your shoes, so you support yourself by putting your other hand on your thigh.
You sit down with a plop and slump forward to pick your shoes up and put them on.
You try and stand up from your slumped position with your head back and down and need to push off the chair to get up.

As I said, these might not be the most efficient or elegant set of choices you could make, but your goal is to put your shoes on and not necessarily to bother with the details. After this has happened enough times, the process gets simplified in your brain to this:

You see your shoes
You put them on

Your brain takes all those different choices and lumps them together into one behavioral package.

Imprinting The Habit

Once you have repeated the behavior enough for it have become combined into one single chunk of neurological activity, the infralimbic cortex and the striatum work together to make it semi-permamanent in the brain. When you need to put your shoes on, you use the habitual chunk. As the chunk is in there semi-permanently in your behavioral repertoire, your brain won’t necessarily distinguish between your shoes and a wet towel on the bathroom floor, or anything else that you need to pick up from below your current level, so it uses the same chunk.

What Makes A Habit So Hard To Break?

Once the habit is “chunked” and imprinted like this, very little neurological activity is required to use it. In an experiment, rats were trained to run down a maze and turn left or right when they heard a particular sound to receive a reward. When they were first being trained, activity in the brain was very high. As they started to learn how to respond to the signals they were being given, brain activity got less, except for when they had to make a decision. Once they were fully trained, there was high brain activity at the beginning of the run and at the end, but while they were performing the habitual behavior, brain activity was significantly lower. To say when we do something habitually, we are doing it “without much thought” is a fair description of what is actually happening in the brain. Sometimes, when we do things habitually, we are barely conscious of them at all, let alone capable of breaking down the habit into the successive choices that make it up.

How The Alexander Technique Can Help You Break Your Habits

The Alexander Technique teaches how to think in activity, rather than be at the mercy of habitual "chunks" of behavior. It gives you a framework within which to observe the habits as they arise. It teaches you how to let go of the habitual behavior and how to replace it with deliberate, conscious alternatives. To find a certified Alexander Technique teacher near you, click here.

To read the article in Scientific American click here. (You will need to purchase a copy of the issue to read the full article.)

To read an interview with Ann Gaybriel, click here.

To read a technical article on the research, click here.

How To Sleep Better

July 17, 2014 admin

by Jessica Santascoy

Many people ask me if the Alexander Technique (AT) can help with insomnia and getting a better night’s sleep. Yes, AT can help!

My sleep ritual is inspired by AT principles and strategies, and it’s one of the most effective I’ve ever used. This ritual requires very little effort and it can be done before bed, in bed, or if you wake up in the middle of the night. Also, the order of the steps isn’t important - you can do them in any order you like.

1. Say your AT Directions

“I allow my neck to be free, so my head may balance delicately at the top of the spine, to allow my whole torso to lengthen and widen.”

Wish your directions without searching for a release and without doing anything like stretching. Trust that over time your thinking will help you move into more ease and less tightening.

I like to think of how a cat, dog, or a baby sleeps - there is no unnecessary tension.

2. Soften your vision

About an hour before you go to sleep, begin to soften your vision. What does this mean? In a nutshell, this means not over-focusing or straining your eyes.

The verbs “look” and “see” imply we do something, we work, in order to see. To soften your vision, allow what you are seeing to come to you. It’s a passive seeing, imagining that what you see is coming into your sight, rather than actively looking.

Begin to include your peripheral vision. It’s common to over-focus on objects and people during the day, such as on a laptop or a mobile device screen.

But now, you want to direct your vision to be easy and soft, and including the peripheral vision is a good way to help you do so.

3. Notice your breathing

Don’t try to change it, just simply notice it.

No need to try to deepen your breathing by emptying your lungs completely or sucking in air when you inhale.

Simply allow the breath to move in and out.

You could put one hand on your ribs and another on your abdomen. Notice how your torso changes shape as you breathe. If you like, you can gently place your attention on the out breath.

When I’m having a lot of trouble sleeping, I do constructive rest. So add constructive rest into my ritual above, and take practical steps to sleep better (less caffeine, turn off your mobile device/computer an hour before bed), and see how that works.

What are your favorite ways to get yourself to sleep and have a restful night?

[author] [author_image timthumb='on']http://www.acatnyc.org/main/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/santascoy.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]JESSICA SANTASCOY is an Alexander Technique teacher specializing in the change of inefficient habitual thought and movement patterns to lessen pain, stress, anxiety, and stage fright. She effectively employs a calm and gentle approach, understanding how fear and pain short circuit the body and productivity. Her clients include high level executives, software engineers, designers, and actors. Jessica graduated from the American Center for the Alexander Technique, holds a BA in Psychology, and an MA in Media Studies. She teaches in New York City and San Francisco. Connect with Jessica via email or on Twitter @jessicasuzette.[/author_info] [/author]

Fishing For Our Body's Wisdom

June 26, 2014 admin

by Dan Cayer

I can remember trying to ‘feel’ the swampy mess of bodily sensations and emotions I felt trapped inside me. What were these squeezings in my chest and throat, this panicked gripping in my abdomen? I knew there was wisdom in the body and that if I could relate with it, I might feel less stuck in my life and more able to make decisions. Yogis and meditators had written luminously about the wisdom we have inside us.

So I sat very silently and very still. Like a fisherman with my line in the water, waiting and listening for something to surface. I sat and bent my ear low, trying to divine the meeting of every little stirring. Is this anxious squeezing in my throat related to my childhood? To creativity? Yet like a deer at the edge of a meadow, the more I approached, the more these sensations retreated or froze up.

The framework of me needing to intellectually understand physical-emotional pockets proved to be stifling. Too much to ask for. It was best to see what bubbled up on its own, bringing its unconventional intelligence to the situation at hand.

Over years, I’ve come to relax my judgments, analysis, and pressure on the body to hand over all its secrets. Now it’s more like relating joyfully with my 19 month old daughter – genuine communication that doesn’t require language or agenda. There are simply waves of presence going back and forth between us.

I see now that the bodily feelings – wise, scared, and finicky – are always transmitting. They may not meet my expectations of solving problems or telling me what I should do with some difficult choice. Nonetheless, what my body offers is beautiful, wet and real; the fish jumping into my boat before I even can prepare the line.

This post was originally published at dancayerfluidmovement.com

Could the Alexander Technique Have Prevented The Great Recession?

June 12, 2014 admin

By Karen G. Krueger

"If we understand how a person's body influences risk taking, we can learn how to better manage risk takers. We can also recognize that mistakes governments have made have contributed to massive risk taking."

These striking assertions are from a recent opinion piece in the New York Times (Sunday Week in Review, June 8, 2014) by John Coates, a research fellow at Cambridge and a former derivatives trader at Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.

I was particularly pleased to see this mainstream media piece acknowledge the unity of mind and body:

"Many neuroscientists now believe our brain is designed primarily to plan and execute movement."

"We do not process information as a computer does, dispassionately; we react to it physically."

These statements, and the neuroscience that underpins them, confirm my own experiences in learning and teaching the Alexander Technique. A century ago, F.M. Alexander used observation, reasoning and experimentation to examine and change his own stress response, and then to teach others to do the same.

The stress response that prompted Alexander's inquiry was a form of performance anxiety: he was an actor plagued by chronic hoarseness when on stage. Coates is interested in the responses of traders and investors to financial uncertainty. Unlike Alexander, Coates does not deal (at least in this article) with the possibility that individuals could change how they react to stress. Rather, he recommends that financial regulators use an understanding of human beings' automatic physical responses to novelty and uncertainty to manipulate the behavior of other players in the financial system.

Coates emphasizes the hormonal changes of the stress response: adrenaline, cortisone testosterone and dopamine all make an appearance. He also describes the related changes in heart rate, breathing and blood pressure. Oddly, he doesn't mention the most obvious physical reaction to stress: tense muscles in the neck, shoulders and back. You don't need a functional MRI or a blood test to detect that reaction to stress!

Like all Alexander Technique teachers, I work with my students on noticing how their neuromuscular systems react to stimuli of all kinds, and using Alexander's simple process of thoughtful practice to change those reactions that interefere with efficient, healthy functioning of body and mind. My students usually begin with straightforward goals: they want to learn to sit, stand and move with better posture and less tension, so that their necks, backs or arms will stop hurting. In the process, they discover that learning to change their physical habits has broader beneficial effects, including a greater capacity to choose to remain calm and thoughtful in situations that previously provoked anxiety.

So I couldn't help wondering as I read Coates' piece what would happen if a critical mass of individual participants in the financial system were to take Alexander Technique lessons. Imagine whole trading desks of traders who were able, in the face of financial panic, to stop tensing their necks, calm down their breathing, and take time to think about how to respond. Could they avoid being swept up into the mass unreasoned reactions that Coates describes, and minimize the damage to their own health in the process?

If you are a day trader who would like to stop allowing your hormones to drive your decisions—or just an average stressed-out New Yorker who would like to feel more in control of your life—find out more about the Alexander Technique:

Attend a free introduction at the American Center for the Alexander Technique.
Try a lesson one-on-one with a certified Alexander Technique teacher.

[author] [author_image timthumb='on']http://www.acatnyc.org/main/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Kreuger.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]KAREN G. KREUGER became a teacher of the Alexander Technique after 25 years of practicing law at two major New York law firms, receiving her teaching certificate from the American Center for the Alexander Technique in December 2010. Her students include lawyers, business executives, IT professionals and others interested in living with greater ease and skill. Find her at her website: http://kgk-llc.com. [/author_info] [/author]

5 Reasons Why Six-Pack Abs Are A Terrible Idea

May 29, 2014 admin

by Witold Fitz-Simon I’ve been noticing over the past few weeks how a few of my Facebook friends have signed up to be part of an event for the month of June: "30 Day Ab Challenge for those who need some motivation like me.” I clicked over to the event page and was surprised that 1.9 MILLION Facebook users have said they are going to take part. I work both as an Alexander Technique teacher and a Yoga teacher, so I spend a certain amount of my working week in gyms. I understand the pressure to look trim and have a slim waist, and I see the effort people put in to the goal of hard abs. I also see the harmful effects this can have on them. Tight abs can be really bad for the body, and here are five reasons why:

1. Six-pack abs contribute to bad posture and put strain on your neck

Good posture arises out of a delicate balance of forces in the body. The flexor muscles of the front of your body are there to act as a balance to the extensor muscles of your back body, which are the true “anti-gravity” muscles that hold you up off the floor. Your extensor muscles are intrinsically stronger, when taken as a whole, than your flexors. When everything is going well, the 15-or-so pounds of your head are lifted up off the top of your spine by your extensors. If they over-work and your head gets pulled back too much, your flexors are there to counter-balance. Whereas the tone of your non-fatiguable extensor muscle is continuous whenever you are upright, the tone required of your fatiguable flexor muscles to do their job, is smaller and only needed intermittently. To work your abdominals until they are so contracted that they are perpetually tight means you are setting up a constant downward pull against which your postural muscles have to work in addition to the downward pull of gravity. This means that your neck has to struggle to keep your heavy head, filled with your very important brain, upright and away from the very hard ground.

2. Six-pack abs contribute to lower back pain, rather than help it

Generally speaking, lower back pain comes from the discs and nerves of your spinal column being compressed in some way. Vertebra become displaced or crack, discs get ruptured or start to degenerate, and the nerves that come out of your spinal column in the spaces between your vertebrae are pressed on, which causes pain. Whereas, it is true that increased stability will help keep the structures of the lower back well-positioned so that the pressures and movements that are causing the struggle don’t happen, this stability needs to come from lengthening and widening, rather than adding more compression to a system that is already struggling under the effects of too much of it. The constant extra tone that hard abs have will only contribute to the problem.

3. Six-pack abs make it harder to breath

In order for your breath to flow freely, all the different parts of your breathing mechanism—diaphragm, ribs, lungs, accessory breathing muscles—need to be able to slide and glide around each other freely and with ease. Your six-pack muscles attach to the front of your ribcage. If you have developed them so that they are excessively toned all the time, this means that they are exerting a constant pull on the front of your rib cage and will prevent you from being able to breathe freely.

4. Six-pack abs make it harder to move

Moving well—with stability, balance, ease and power—comes from all the different muscles of the body being able to move freely and in coordination with each other. Those same tight abdominal muscles that are preventing you from breathing freely are also preventing all your other muscles from moving freely. Every time you reach your arm out, or take a step with one leg, or turn your torso, you will have one thick, unmoving muscle at the center of your body pulling back and restricting your movement, making every movement you do require that much more energy to execute.

5. Six-pack abs limit the function of your internal organs

Your muscles and bones are not the only thing that move as you breathe and make your way through the world. Your internal organs do as well. All your internal organs function by having your various fluids move through them. Fluid goes in at one end of the organ, gets processed in some way as it moves through it, and is moved out the other end to allow more fluid to enter. The only internal organ of the body that has its own pump to do this is the heart. Whereas blood pressure is a key factor to the internal functioning of the body, it can’t do all the work on its own. Your organs are moved around and massaged by the movements of your breath and the movements that you make during your daily life. To limit those movements is to deprive your organs of some of the inner flow that they rely on to keep functioning.

I’m not saying don’t exercise. Some form of daily exercise is important to keeping healthy and happy. What I am saying is: let your exercise be balanced and mindful, so that you use yourself consciously, intelligently and discerningly. Use your body in such a way that you are contributing to your overall health and wellbeing, rather than detracting from it.

And you know what is a great way to learn how to do that? The Alexander Technique. The Alexander Technique can offer you simple and effective tools to move better, with more strength, more integration, and more ease. It will teach you to identify ways in which you create more difficulty for yourself and will show you how to make better choices in everything you do. If you’re interested in learning how to strengthen your belly without creating all the above problems for yourself, you might try dropping in on one of ACAT’s free monthly lecture/demos, or find a certified Alexander Technique teacher near you.

Fast and Loose: Protecting Those Hip Joints

May 22, 2014 admin

by Joan Arnold

Yoga Alert

Women! Beware of yoga! So said a November, 2013 article in the New York Times by William Broad, a science writer whose provocative articles have challenged America's current love affair with yoga.* He cited serious injuries women have sustained in extreme yoga postures, concluding that yoga's emphasis on flexibility causes severe hip joint strain among women.

Speaking as a yoga teacher and a middle-aged woman with hip joints, I know that, in the practice and teaching of yoga, generalities don't help. Some women have loose joints, and some don’t. Some yoga forms put practitioners into exaggerated poses, others don’t. As a teacher of the Alexander Technique, I help people – yogic and otherwise – recover from hip replacements by helping them unravel habits developed before or after surgery, and helping them learn how to move well in their daily lives. For prevention or rehabilitation, the most important focus is you how you move. How you walk and sit or perform yoga postures will create strain or harmony in that crucial center of the body. It’s all in how you do it.

Use or Genetics?

Any movement teacher worth his or her salt should know the pitfalls of stiffness and hyper-mobility. Some of our students are tightly strung, others loosely strung. Some are women and some are men.

One aspect of flexibility comes from muscle – muscle fibers’ resting length and the quality of the connective tissue that surrounds each fiber and muscle group. When we stretch to become more flexible, the best approach is to do so gently, increasing that resting length gradually. Another aspect of flexibility is inherited, determined by the length of our ligaments, the connectors binding bone to bone that stabilize the skeleton. Once a ligament is stretched, it stays that way. That's why we need to be clear about what we're stretching and why. When you stretch, your primary sensation should be in the muscle, not in the joint.

Those we call double-jointed are born with longer ligaments. The advantage is that they are naturally flexible, and yoga’s full range of postures come more easily to them. The disadvantage is that their joints are less stable. They need to avoid hanging on their joints – something that can feel good and stretchy – and learn how to more fully engage their muscles to stabilize this genetic laxity. I have one yoga student, a builder who swings a hammer, lifts and climbs all day long, who is hyper-mobile. I coach him to engage his muscles, not to hang in down dog but to lift up, fully engage the shoulders to spare his joints from the over-extension that, to him, comes naturally.

Those with shorter ligaments have the benefit of greater joint stability. Though they’d like to be looser, initially they may hate stretching. In the current culture of yoga, dramatic flexibility is over-emphasized, as is performance over process. These folks may envy those flexier types, but it’s best when they work with their own body gradually, learning how to release muscles and fascia, to make fuller joint movement available.

Do you know your body type? Your muscles may be tight or loose, but it’s good to know whether your joints—your ligaments—are close-knit or loose. A good teacher or physical therapist can tell you, but you can test yourself. Extend one arm out in front of you. If your elbow goes beyond straight, so it rises above the forearm, you’re on the flexible side. If it’s hard to straighten your arm fully, your ligaments probably tend to be short.

Structure & Habit

I’ve had beautiful, accomplished yoginis come to my class, dropping into their shoulder joints in down dog – adho mukha svanasana – or too low in the forward lunge Anjaneyasana, pushing down into the ribs and waist, putting pressure on the hip joints and lower back. In down dog, I help them allow their ribs to come back and up, to spare their shoulders and hips. In lunge, I teach them to come up from the bottom of the pelvis rather than hang on those available joints. Using the Alexander Technique’s idea of lightness at the top of the spine helps them engage their torso’s natural buoyancy. With a gentle hands-on suggestion, I encourage them to stop pushing down and guide the pelvis to tilt up and away from the front leg. Rather than exerting repetitive pressure and misaligning the upper thigh (the femur in the socket of the acetabulum, if you want to get technical), they can spare those delicate feminine hip joints. The result is freedom and lightness as they breathe more fully and build strength with balance.

As teachers, we can determine how a student's habits and genetics interact and what each one needs to learn. Though awareness is considered a priority in yoga, "listening to your own body” may mean that you indulge your preferences and perpetuate unconscious habits that do not further your practice. An insightful teacher can suggest shifts that initially may feel unfamiliar or wrong, but can lead you toward a deeper understanding of your body’s unique needs and a more intelligent practice of the subtle, complex art we call yoga.

* The first, an excerpt from Broad’s book "The Science of Yoga," was a sensational New York Times magazine cover story in January, 2012, entitled How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body. That piece highlighted the prevalence and seriousness of yoga injuries, and has sparked an ongoing and worthy conversation. Here are two among many responses:

"How Yoga Can Free Your Body" by Joan Arnold "Does Yoga Kill?" by Timothy McCall

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[author] [author_image timthumb='on']http://www.acatnyc.org/main/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Joan.Arnold.png[/author_image] [author_info]JOAN ARNOLD has been a movement educator for over 30 years, teaching dance, exercise, yoga and Alexander Technique. She has a private practice in NYC, Brooklyn and the Hudson Valley and has been quoted as an expert in Fit Yoga, O magazine and Timothy McCall’s 2007 book, Yoga as Medicine. Her articles on health, education and bodywork have appeared in national magazines and online in Elephant Journal. Joan teaches at Jaya Yoga Center in Park Slope, Brooklyn. In July 2014, she returns to Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health to reprise her week-long workshop on Yoga & the Alexander Technique. [/author_info] [/author]