I Allow My Neck To Be Free

by Cate McNider (originally published here)

Neck free: Some of my students, from hearing me say the directions, have been asking me what it means.

It’s nebulous for sure, but the statement basically means to not involve the neck in any action—let it be free to be itself, the upper part of the spine that supports the poised head. And the first pathway of the spinal cord from the brain, to the rest of the body, so it's very important.

The idea of letting the head release up and away from the spine, or forward and up, means the neck can decompress from the many layers of muscles in the back of the head: suboccipitals through the superficial muscle of the trapezius. The density is about two inches deep, and a lot (bad) habits are stored there—tension from anxiety, fear and bad use.

Through my years in the healing arts, I’ve noticed a persistent desire for those back-of-the-neck muscles to pull in and down, which I counter by allowing my head to go forward and up. I’ve seen that when I allow my neck to ‘be free,’ uncompressed by the head pressing down, that the rest of the spine is allowed to lengthen upwards and the back widens.

All this starts with the neck ‘being free.’ FM Alexander determined that direction comes first: You prevent the narrower pathway to the brain from being interfered with, and allow the head to release forward and up. Free is not a direct action; it’s more an awareness of not moving. Many people instinctively do something with the neck: tighten it, reach it forward, or pull it back and down. So a ‘free neck’ means consciously not doing anything with it, rather letting it ‘be free.’ This allows the whole spine to lengthen with that direction given: “I allow the spine to lengthen and the back to widen.”

Try it right now. Say it out loud or to yourself: “I allow my neck to be free to allow my head to go forward and up, to allow my spine to lengthen and my back to widen, to allow my legs to release away from the torso and the shoulders to widen.”

Now try: “I allow my spine to lengthen and my back to widen, to allow my head to go forward and up, to allow my legs to release away from the torso and the shoulders to widen.”

Do you find any difference? Does one message give you more lengthening than the other? If ‘neck free’ doesn’t do anything for you, go for choice #2. The neck is the upper part of the spine, so starting with that goes right to the core of Alexander Technique: lengthening of the spine.

It's advisable when you're beginning learning a technique to follow the creator's specifications, to discover that their years of study has a repeatable effect, then experiment. So, after a time of making the statement, "I allow my neck to be free", play around trying different arrangements at different times. It also might vary depending on where you are in the process of working with yourself, and what layers of habits you're getting down to, but most importantly, continue to allow the change, and be curious to experiment.

That’s what FM Alexander did for nine years in front of a three-way mirror, and that’s how he arrived at the three principles of awareness, inhibition and direction. He discovered that in order to get around his habit of his neck muscles pulling his head back and down when he was about to say a line of Shakespeare, he had to direct it to be ‘free’ first. Then the head going forward and up, then the back, then the legs and finishing with the shoulders.

I’m grateful he took the time to discover all that he did (I wouldn’t have had the patience to spend nine years in front of a three-way mirror). It has helped me solve my spinal problems, and the practice continues to deepen for me now into the realms of ‘invisible habits.’ I’ve been determined to straighten my scoliosis over the 46 last years, so by his yardstick of nine years, I guess I’ve been pretty determined too. I’ve employed many different techniques over the years, and Alexander Technique helped me uncover the habits that constrict a wholeness of bodymind.

So, whether you instruct your nervous system to ‘allow the neck to be free, to allow the head to go forward and up’ or ‘allow the spine to lengthen, to allow the head to go forward and up,’ it will respond. Let it happen. Saying the directions, is you getting out of the way to allow the freedom to happen. It takes time, but the rewards are worth it, and you realize your neck is free.

Cate McNider has been working with the bodymind and spirit for 29 years. Through every stage of her healing and working with others through different modalities, she now finds the Alexander Technique, most actively helps others address pain and stress. She is giving online classes during this time of 'social distancing'. President of The Listening Body® has spent three decades in the Healing Arts — spanning Massage Therapy, Reiki, Embodied Anatomy, Yoga, Body-Mind Centering®, Contact Improvisation, Deep Memory Process® and more — and has further sensitized her instrument through the process of Alexander Technique. Her AT training represents the culmination of a lifetime of work and study and a springboard for future creations. Cate is also a painter and published. www.catemcnider.com and www.bodymind.training.

Stillness as Growth

Sometimes getting still to shed a habit and let something new emerge seems fruitless.

We live in a time and space that emphasizes doing.

Waiting IS doing something.

When you plant a seed, many things happen that you don’t see before a shoot comes up from the soil.

You don’t see how the food you eat becomes fuel for your body and brain.

You don’t see how neurotransmitters create elegant, coordinated action.

Slowing down is under rated.

Give yourself some time and space.

Let the story you tell yourself fade into the background for a short time and find your breath.

Try being still with inner space and inner movement.

N. BROOKE LIEB, Director of Teacher Certification from 2008 until 2018, when ACAT ceased operations, 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

The Tao of Scoliosis

by Cate McNider (originally puplished here)

Scoliosis, the lateral asymmetric deviation of the spine, is idiopathic. That means doctors don’t yet know or fully understand it.

Experientially, we know the causes are as varied as the people that suffer from it. Here’s a synopsis: Muscles pull bones, stimulated by messages sent from the nervous systems motor pathway, to animate the muscle fibers to contract or release. The messaging can also be a suspension of movement, as in holding the diaphragm from inhaling or exhaling. Repetition of such an action or non-action, over time, creates a pathway in the nervous system messaging, which then becomes a habit, which develops into a pattern.

The diaphragm is the nexus of the deviation for the upper and lower side of the spine to be pulled to the right or left in opposition. It’s a powerful trampoline-like muscle that encircles the base of the ribs, creating a boundary from respiratory and digestive systems, massaging both with each action, acting like a pump of sorts. It has anchors, tendons into the spine, the longer of the two on the right side. Over time, that right side anchor has more leverage to pull the upper body into a twist to the right. The lower body, meanwhile, seeks to balance the developing imbalance by pulling back, creating the S-curve. (I’ve found a C-curve to be more common—only one side majorly deviates the spine, usually the upper and again to the right.)

The body’s innate intelligence makes the best of a bad situation, ever attempting to maintain balance, especially to counter strong forces. The mind is the arbiter in shaping the body—how someone accepts a stimulus, or misunderstands a stimulus due to youth and inexperience, begins to shape how they see the world, and in turn shapes or misshapes the body. A force strong enough in an instant, or repeated over time, has the power to imprint itself on a growing spine into pulling it in opposing directions.

And that gets us to the shape of Tao: the light spot in the dark and the dark spot in the light. The spine is the divider of the duality of light and dark; apply a stimulus strong enough to deviate it from an upward balance of the two, and you have expressed a division of mind against itself. Beliefs taken literally by the body have colored the reality of what is true—they warp the frame of the skeleton receiving opposing messages.

There is a naturalness we all are born with, which is colored by our interpretations of our environments, family, culture, language and customs. We are not exactly a blank slate; we bring with us in our spirit knowledge that we will need for this life’s journey, and as we have to learn about where we find ourselves, because we don’t know yet, we make incorrect assumptions, and internalize messages that become the positions from where we act and speak, shaping our minds and thus our bodies. While nature provides all creatures with defensive attributes—the skunk’s pungent scent, the tiger’s sharp claws, the snake’s venom—we humans mostly have our minds to navigate the world and defend ourselves.

We feel before we have language. In our movement, synapses are made between the brain and the body. Our eyes lead us through developmental patterns, homologous, homolateral and contralateral into standing out of curiosity; our world expands and we expand upon our reflexes, into pushing, pulling and reaching. We have all five senses that inform us of our environment, plus the native and primary receptor of vibration, which is feeling. We all felt a situation before we had the language to understand it fully. We felt safe or unsafe. We were hungry or not hungry. We were cold or hot, wet or dry.

In these early years, the feeling groundwork is laid for later complexity. One person may perceive a stimulus as no big deal, but for another person it’s a pivotal event. That pivot, that moment of hinging is in the nexus of the length of the spine or its compression, and the width of the diaphragm or its contraction. This is the center line defining yin and yang, the left side being the feminine and the right being the masculine. Feminine is receptive, masculine is projective. Feminine is space and masculine is form; ergo, there is form in space and space in form. We breathe space (air) into us, drawn in by the diaphragm and pushed out by the diaphragm. Suspend this natural process with a shock and then repeatedly out of fear, and it can become an unconscious habit of withholding the inhale or exhale. Add the effect of the stimuli on the heart and you can have an emotional shutdown; the spine deviates from its support of the heart.

Our strengths and weaknesses are readily perceptible to one who sees and understands the language of the bodymindspirit. Yes, I mean that as one word. We are Tao, the whole circle, but when we swing from yin to yang, pulling ourselves apart by giving the mind power beyond our conscious control, it can become a switchback trail that we must retrace, undoing the misunderstandings, letting the spine untwist itself with every recognition.

For example, I was about 7 or 8 when my father said to me that "thinking is superior to feeling.” Whether he meant it as an order, a threat or a suggestion, it’s how I took it that created my future reality. I was standing at the top of the stairs, up from the front door, on the new white carpet, my hands on the railing, poised to make a decision that energetically would become a base of how I would interact in the family. I made a decision in that moment (I didn’t want to be ‘inferior,’ whatever that meant, since I was already competing with two older brothers) to follow what I thought he meant, which energetically resulted in evacuating my solar plexus, to my brain. Subsequent events further affected me and my body, which having shut down my feeling center could not support me and the forces were greater than my mind could process. The incoming information went out another pathway and was stored in the body’s tissue. Many other defining moments are what I have allowed for decades to unwind, returning my spine to an upward length and width, to wholeness.

If we take the time to understand this relationship of the mind and the body, we can significantly rewrite what will become our future. Understanding the past that has written itself on our body, we can undo the wires that unevenly hold the muscles in opposition. The muscles that are being held by the information messaged by the nervous system can also be messaged to unhold the information.

It’s a choice: Do you want to create yourself after a Picasso or a Modigliani, or do you want to be free to be you? Who is you? (That's not a grammatical error.) Are you in balanced opposition to gravity or are you suffering under the weight of your thoughts about what you think about reality? Remember, you create your body and your reality! Do you want to keep swinging back and forth on the Coney Island ride of suffering, or do you want to undo the lies you accepted so long ago, and discover how you really feel?! Allowing is the new doing.

(These mindbody truths hold whether you have developed scoliosis or not.)

Cate McNider has been working with the bodymind and spirit for 29 years. Through every stage of her healing and working with others through different modalities, she now finds the Alexander Technique, most actively helps others address pain and stress. She is giving online classes during this time of 'social distancing'. President of The Listening Body® has spent three decades in the Healing Arts — spanning Massage Therapy, Reiki, Embodied Anatomy, Yoga, Body-Mind Centering®, Contact Improvisation, Deep Memory Process® and more — and has further sensitized her instrument through the process of Alexander Technique. Her AT training represents the culmination of a lifetime of work and study and a springboard for future creations. Cate is also a painter and published. www.catemcnider.com and www.bodymind.training.