About The Alexander Technique
What is it?
The Alexander Technique
is a paradigm shift in how you view your movements. It is not a series of exercises. It's a process to be used in the middle of doing everything else you do in life, enabling you to do what you're doing with more ease, control and effectiveness.
In its simplicity, it is a method of learning how to undo harmful tension and how to re-direct your movement habits in everyday activities. It is an obvious, practical procedure that improves many things. The technique can be applied to any activity, whether mundane or complex, including sitting, standing, walking, performing a task, resting or speaking and it will improve how you feel and your ability to do the activity.
Who is it for?
People of all ages and all walks of life use this technique to improve how they feel, react, and perform.
People with health conditions such as carpal tunnel, fibromyalgia, arthritis, or scoliosis have found The Alexander Technique valuable as a tool for improvement and freedom from pain. The Alexander Technique especially attracts actors, singers, musicians, dancers, speakers, athletes, equestrians, golfers, chronic pain sufferers, and anyone who wants to prevent injury, release tension and improve their level of skill and performance.
It is extremely helpful for those who must perform or work in limited positions and with refined skill such as dentist and surgeons and for those who must sit all day such as computer users.
The Israeli Air Force employs its technique, and it is required learning in many of the great performance schools, such as the Juilliard School of Performing Arts in New York, The Royal College of Music in London, and The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.
Just a few of the many prominent individuals who have experienced positive benefits are: Authors: George Bernard Shaw, Roald Dahl, and Jane Brody; Actors: Paul Newman, Jamie Lee Curtis, Robin Williams, Keanu Reeves, Kevin Kline, and Hillary Swank; Musicians: Paul McCartney, Sting, and James Galway.
What are the results?
- The ability to use less effort for greater results.
- More body awareness and skill when engaged in performance activities.
- Increased speed, accuracy, and stamina in sports.
- Reduced pressure on nerves, discs, joints, and enhanced range of motion.
- Valuable self-observation rather than self-consciousness or self-criticism.
- Expanded attention
- Calm self awareness without self-consciousness or self-criticism
How does it differ from other therapies, methods and techniques?
The Technique is the only method that gives you a presence and an unselfconscious awareness of how you are using your body in everything you do. This consciousness is the essence of ease and grace.
It is also the only method that teaches you how to undo harmful or limiting physical habits when you are in the middle of doing any activity resulting in immediate improvement of the performance of that activity, no matter how complex or mundane. In order words, it's a method that can be used to effectively improve whatever you are doing, while you are doing it.
Through the Technique you:
- Learn to utilize the fundamental principles of human coordination.
- Stop compressing, holding yourself down, stiffening yourself up or holding yourself in a fixed posture and regain your natural poise.
The Alexander Technique has been described as a "way of being" in the world, combining freedom of movement and consciousness to allow access to our natural grace and coordination. It brings in a presence and ease rarely seen in the bustle of daily life. It is not a meditation, yet it helps with meditation. It is not an exercise program, yet it makes exercise more effective. It is not a therapy, yet it offers a route out of unwanted habits. It is not a massage, yet leaves you feeling better than after a message. It is not an effortful sitting or standing up straight to correct posture, yet it naturally brings about perfect carriage. At its core is a physical sense of lessened effort and lightness of being, that brings a mental clarity and emotional lightness as well.
