Apples to Apples: You’re not a Cat, a Dog, or a Child

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British Alexander Technique teacher Marcus Sly recently published a blog titled Is Good Use Innate? in which he writes about the tendency of Alexander teachers to use examples from the animal kingdom to illustrate the kind of graceful co-ordination we should aspire to.

As he says, “Alexander teachers sure do like cats!”

And, let’s never forget, dogs!

But, as Marcus observes, we are not in fact cats, dogs, horses, nor (I would add) monkeys. Their developmental history and their environment are very different from ours.  Comparing the way they use themselves to ours, and wanting to emulate theirs, doesn’t really make much sense.

I highly recommend reading Marcus’ blog in full, but here are a couple of quotes from it that will give you some idea of his line of reasoning:

At some point humans started to consciously change their own behaviour and responses in order to learn how to do completely new things. I suggest that this change is not on a continuum with what animals do, but has taken us onto another continuum altogether. For us the direct, innate, link between our desires, needs and intentions, and the body’s response to those, is literally broken. We are no longer ‘hardwired’ in the way animals seem to be, which enables us to choose new ways of doing things.

…a large part of the instruction set for being a human is not innately held in our bodies, but rather is held in our culture. We need to learn how to use the body’s deep-level organising tendency to our advantage — and that learning is fundamental to being human. We are not like cats. Like the Garden of Eden, that particular gate is shut. As humans, we have, inevitably, to contend with doing, as well as not-doing. And that is not a problem, but the very essence of what being a human being is all about.

In addition to the excellent points made by Marcus, the fact is that human structure is perfectly designed to take full advantage of the natural forces (gravity and the strong force, for example*) operating on us when we’re more or less vertical. Cats and dogs and most other animals, on the other hand, have structures designed to work best when more or less horizontal.

My dog Maisie has an amazing ability to stand on her hind legs, but apart from spectacularly high leaps in her vain attempt to terrify squirrels, she can’t really do a lot of moving around on just two legs. Her standing time is measured in seconds, not minutes. She’s usually way more efficient in horizontal mode – she’s the fastest runner of any dog I’ve ever met.

We humans can “walk” on all fours, but it’s typically not a graceful spectacle.

Alexander Technique teachers don’t just love cats and dogs. They also like babies and young children and frequently post images showing their graceful coordination.  The Technique is frequently described as being a way to release harmful habits of posture and movement and bring us back to some sort of idyllic childhood state.

However, to paraphrase Marcus, this gate is also shut.

But for somewhat different reasons.

My friend and colleague John Macy, an Alexander Technique teacher and Physical Therapist up the road in Omaha, Nebraska has given a lot of thought to this very point and here’s a brief summary of his thoughts:

The comparison of children to adults for posture and movement ease is not a valid one for several reasons. The first reason is that they have very different nervous systems. From about the fifth month of fetal development till 40 months after birth the nervous system is becoming myelinated. This myelination enables the nerves to carry signals much faster which in turn means the motor control systems are processing data at faster speeds. More significantly, that data is processed differently in the brain as the brain tissue myelinates, a process in humans that is not completed until their second decade of life. The result is that the operating system (to make a computer analogy) is using Apple for one part of life and Microsoft for another. One is not better than the other but they accomplish basic functions differently in how processing and decision making lead to the observed behavior.

Secondly, the physics of the body are changing. The weight of the head in a 5-year-old child is over 75% of it’s adult weight, but the rest of the body mass is more in the range of 20-25%. Consequently, the physics of how to balance and coordinate the parts are different because mass distribution within the body is significantly different. Add to this that children are much closer to the ground with much less mass so falls have much less force. As a result a significant amount of the fear element over changing balance strategies is markedly reduced.

So, if we can’t move like animals and children, and need to stay in the realm of adult human role models, what are some examples we can aspire to?

My personal favorite is Fred Astaire, a Nebraskan by birth. I love watching his old movies, with the sound off so I won’t be distracted by the plot, and observing how effortlessly and gracefully he moves. The dance scenes are dramatic, but scenes in which he is talking, or walking, or getting in and out of a chair, and the like, are for me the most revealing.

What are your favorite human examples of easy upright posture and graceful human coordination? Please leave you answers below and/or on Facebook.

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* You can learn more about these forces and how they operate on us here: Gravity, Support and Freedom

Here’s a nice clip of Fred Astaire (at almost 50 years old!) showing his easy coordination in ordinary activities:

Apples Image Copyright : serezniy

 

Listen Up! Your Ears Have Something To Tell You

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In the beginning was the word – The Bible

The ear is the avenue to the heart – Voltaire

The ear builds, organizes and nourishes the nervous system – Dr. Alfred Tomatis

Tone, pitch, rhythm, harmony – these are among the many terms that can describe the condition of our bodies as well as the quality of sounds we make and hear. Our language is permeated with words and expressions that suggest a deep primal connection between sound and body.

It was F. Matthias Alexander’s desire to improve his voice which led to the far reaching discoveries we now know as the Alexander Technique.

Some fifty years after Alexander’s pioneering work, a French medical doctor, Alfred Tomatis, began investigating the cause of hearing difficulties in his patients. His studies have led to a number of revolutionary new discoveries about previously unknown functions of the ear and the therapeutic effects of sound. He also developed a practical method of enhancing listening skills.

Both Alexander and Tomatis were initially interested in improving sound quality; one with its production, the other with its reception. Today, both the Alexander Technique and the Tomatis Method are recognized as having an extraordinarily wide range of beneficial effects – physical, mental and even spiritual – which extend well beyond the original motivation of their developers.

Their inherent transformation power springs in large measure from their being based on close, practical observations of our relationship with sound, one of the most fundamental aspects of our existence. We live in a veritable “sea of sound”, with our brain receiving far more stimuli, both external and internal, from our ears that from any other organ.

Dr. Tomatis believed the human ear’s primary function is to transform sound energy into an electrical cortical charge which the brain then distributes throughout the body, toning up the entire neuromuscular system.

His method consists of a sensory stimulation program in which the individual listens to electronically modified and filtered sounds through headsets. The content is either music (Mozart and Gregorian chants primarily), the mother’s voice, or the individual’s own voice. The sound is modified by a device called the Electronic Ear. By means of filters, amplifiers and a sophisticated gating mechanism the sound is reshaped and presented to the ears in rapidly alternating forms.

Dr. Tomatis’ early investigations led to the discovery that the human voice can only produce sounds which the ears can hear. The two organs are part of the same neurological loop and a change in the response of one shows up immediately in the other. This has been repeatedly verified by medical investigators and has been named the “Tomatis Effect” by the French Academy of Science and Medicine.

This discovery is very significant for teachers and students of the Alexander Technique because it suggests that Alexander’s work on himself in front of the mirror may have been at least as important in its effect on his capacity to listen as it was on his ability to speak.

Reinforcing this hypothesis is Dr. Tomatis’ finding that in order to hear very high pitched sounds, our body must adopt what he calls a “listening posture”. From my own experience with Tomatis’ work, and my observations of others who have been exposed to it, this corresponds precisely to the Alexander Technique concept of “good use” – neck free, head releasing forward and up with the whole body following.

Midway between the ears where your head rests on top of your spine – a location closely associated with Alexander’s idea of “primary control”. And of course ears have long been known for their importance in maintaining our balance. So it’s not surprising that the commonly reported benefits of the Tomatis Method include improvements in voice quality, posture, co-ordination, balance and general well being similar to some of those experienced by students of the Alexander Technique.

There are many other fascinating parallel between the Tomatis Method and the Alexander Technique. Both are well worth investigating by anyone interested in exploring the links between the mind and body.

If you’ve had experience with the Tomatis Method and the Alexander Technique, please leave your comments below and/or on Facebook.

Only a very brave mouse makes nest in a cat’s ear – Earl Derr Biggens

***

Here’s a nice podcast episode from the TED Radio Hour about the importance of learning how to listen: How Can We All Listen Better

You can listen to the episode here:

Image Copyright : woodoo007

Finding the Body

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Where are you?

How would you answer that question?

You might say something like: “I’m in a pretty good place at the moment.” Or “I’m living in wonderful community.” Or even: “I’m in love!”

But perhaps, especially if you’re a Country Music lover, something more like: “I’m in the doghouse now.”  Or “I used to be in Hillbilly Heaven, but now I’m stuck in Honky Tonk Hell.”  There’s often a clear sense that being in a bad place is something will go on forever: “I’ve been in prison 18 years and I still got life to go.”*

On the other hand, if you’re one of a growing group of neuroscientists who believe there is absolutely no evidence of any objective reality at all, and that everything you see, think, hear etc. is a product of your consciousness, then the answer might be: “I’m nowhere because there is no actual ‘place’ to be.”

And if you’re just an ordinary person, perhaps standing in line at the coffee shop waiting for your morning latte, you might say: “I’m 3 feet from the counter, reading this weird blog post about finding the body!”

If you’re a teacher or student of the Alexander Technique, your answer might involve location, but perhaps in an unorthodox way.  Jennifer Roig-Fraincoli, an Alexander teacher in Cincinnatti, finds it useful to think: “I’m at the center of the universe.”  This can bring forth some new ways of thinking designed to improve your posture and coordination. (You can listen to a podcast about her idea here.)

Many Alexander Technique people like to talk about the importance of “being in your body.”

But this raises an interesting question: “Where exactly are the outer surfaces of this body I want to be inside of?”  And equally important: “Where do I think they are located?”  And is there any possibility that I have those surfaces mapped incorrectly? Could I think they are somewhere they are not?

It’s an important line of self-questioning because if there is a mis-match between my belief about the location of the outer perimeter of my self and the reality of it’s location, it’s almost certain that the messages I give myself about how I stand, sit and move are producing posture and movement results that are inefficient, and potentially harmful.

My colleague John Macy, an Alexander Technique teacher and physical therapist in Omaha, Nebraska has been thinking about these sorts of questions a lot.  We’ve worked together to come up with simple ways of determining if you have a mis-match of the sort described above and, if so, some easy ways to correct it.

Another colleague, Imogen Ragone, an Alexander Technique teacher in Wilmington, Delaware kindly agreed to help me with a little YouTube video demonstrating some of these ways and how they can enhance the ease with which you go through life.

This video – seen below – is a bit of an experiment and we value your feedback, and accounts of your experiences using the ideas in the video.  If there is demand for it, we will produce other follow up videos.  Please leave your comments and suggestions on YouTube and/or below and on Facebook.

*Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast, The King of Tears, gives a fascinating analysis of this characteristic of country music. Here’s the actual song by Stonewall Jackson (no, not the Civil War general!) from which this particular example of pure, never ending, country music misery is taken:

Thanks to Anne Kennedy Rickover – my Blog Title Guru – for the title of this blog, and for the idea of using a detective image.

Detective Image Copyright : Andrea De Martin

For the Sake of Us All: Please don’t make an ASSumption out of Yourself

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I recently listened to an On Being podcast titled When the Market is Our Only Language in which Krista Tippitt interviewed Anand Giridharadas, a journalist and writer.  Here’s the official description of podcast:

We Americans revere the creation of wealth. Anand Giridharadas wants us to examine this and how it shapes our life together. This is a challenging conversation but a generative one: about the implicit moral equations behind a notion like “win-win” — and the moral compromises in a cultural consensus we’ve reached, without reflecting on it, about what and who can save us.

Anand has been a featured speaker at think tanks like the Aspen Institute, where the super-rich and super-powerful come together to, as he puts it,  “talk very sincerely about what was going on in the world today, how could you make a difference, how could you start a project to help….what we were doing in coming together in this way was genuinely trying to help, genuinely talking about these problems, genuinely creating action and programs and thousands of little initiatives to help people.”

But after spending a fair amount of time in that rarefied world, his perspective changed: “…in some deeper way, the whole thing, actually, I started to realize, was a conservative exercise in protecting the system that kept us on top.”

He had come to see that the problems these wealthy men and women sincerely wanted to solve were actually direct consequences of their own actions.  Because they, like many of us, were caught up in the process of maximizing income and wealth, they were not able to see that these maximizing decisions had harmful effects on other people, on vital institutions and indeed on the very future of our planet.

An obvious solution for them would be to stop creating those kinds of problems, but that’s not really the kind of thinking most of those people are willing to do.  As Anand says, “…the only acceptable forms of social change are the forms of social change that also kick something back upstairs — language like ‘doing well by doing good,’ which, again, is like, ‘The only conditions under which I’m willing to do good is under which I would also do well.'”

He also says: “Sometimes, on the darker corners of the internet, it’s imagined that rich people are all sitting in a room making these horrible, evil schemes. And part of what I found was that a lot of these folks are incredibly decent and upholding an incredibly indecent system. And the way you get from one side of the river to the other, from those decent people to the indecent system, is the bridge of faulty assumptions and weird myths and bad ideas that have managed to really rise to the fore and conquer a lot of our culture.”

My first reaction, as a former economist, was that what he was saying made perfect sense. And I was a little taken aback that I had never thought about it in those terms before.

My second reaction, this time as a teacher of the Alexander Technique, was that these good, rich and powerful people were clearly in the same sort of boat as the rest of us – although a much bigger one! The Alexander Technique is a process of learning how to become aware of habits of mind and body, and how to make useful changes in those habits. Anyone who has had experience with it knows that we often have our own “faulty assumptions and weird myths” about ourselves, and those faulty assumptions can cause harmful tensions in ourselves while doing basic activities like sitting, standing, speaking, and walking. They can also compromise the quality of our decision making process.

If the rich people at the Aspen Institute want to improve the world, but are really just repairing the deck chairs on the Titanic, we often try to improve our functioning by taking up some new activity – a yoga or exercise class for example – while ignoring dis-functional habits of posture, movement and thinking that are allowed to continue lurking in the background, undermining the quality of our lives and our efforts to improve it.

Our personal situation might seem trivial in scope compared to the actions of the super-rich who, after all, are making decisions that directly affect millions of people. However the harmful way we use ourselves has implications far greater than we imagine.  As John Dewey, America’s most famous philosopher and the “Father of American Education” – and a student of F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the Alexander Technique pointed out:

“In the present state of the world, it is evident that the control we have gained of physical energies, heat, light, electricity, etc., without having first secured control of our use of ourselves is a perilous affair. Without the control of our use of ourselves, our use of other things is blind; it may lead to anything. If there can be developed a technique which will enable individuals really to secure the right use of themselves, then the factor upon which depends the final use of all other forms of energy will be brought under control. Mr. Alexander has evolved this technique.” – From Dewey’s introduction to Use of the Self, Alexander’s third book, originally published in 1932)

Looking at the world today, it’s pretty clear that Dewey’s prediction nearly a hundred years ago has played out in some pretty terrible ways.

To me, the message here is that whether we’re super rich and powerful, or part of the other 99%, we have a responsibility to take as close, and as unbiased, look as possible at the assumptions that guide our life.  If we don’t, our actions may continue, in Dewey’s words,  “to lead to anything” and future “anythings” may be much worse than we could ever have imagined.

***

As it happens, while writing this blog, I stumbled onto an article about Ellwood, a small town 60 miles south of Chicago that has undergone dramatic changes in recent years. Because of it’s location, it was the perfect place to build gigantic warehouses and transportation connections to serve the country’s consumer economy. In just a few years the town has became the largest inland port in North America.

It all sounded good for the local economy at first, but in fact the traffic became a nightmare, roads needed constant maintenance, and the city government was plunged into a financial crisis, in part because it had agreed to tax incentives for the new facilities.

To add insult to injury, virtually no new local jobs were created within the town itself.  The article’s title, “How Ellwood, Illinois (population 2200) Became a Vital Hub of America’s Consumer Economy. And it’s Hell” says it all.

Ellwood represents a perfect example of what Anand was talking about. The people who attend the Aspen Institute might support projects that would help the kinds of problems faced by the people of Ellwood. But those problems were actually created by people like themselves, in their blind pursuit of wealth.

Image Copyright : Aleksandar Varbenov

Taming Your Inner Constrictor

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I’m always experimenting with new Alexander Technique self-directions and the other day I came up with this one: “I am not constricting myself” – a variant of the more frequently used “I am not compressing myself”.  Both of these are Negative Directions, and for both the Freedom Direction version could be “I am free”.

Alexander Technique directions, and the Technique more generally, provide a powerful way to avoid creating excess tension in response to external events.

You can learn more about Alexander Technique self-directions from this episode of the Alexander Technique Podcast:

Like other directions, this new direction can also be applied to specific parts or regions of your body.  For example: “I am not constricting my neck, or “….my face” or “…my feet” – the list of possibilities is limitless.

I decided to learn a little about the animal whose very name refers to constriction: the dreaded Boa Constrictor.  I discovered that contrary to popular belief, Boas are not usually dangerous for humans and they don’t actually squeeze so hard that their prey stops breathing right away.  Rather it kills by constricting it’s victim just enough to shut off blood flow to the brain and heart.

We humans sometimes act as though we were a self-constricting species. We’re prone to tighten our bodies in all sorts of harmful ways that interfere with our natural functioning.

This is nothing new.  Sure, there’s a lot going on in today’s high-stress situations, excessive use of video screens etc. that can be a stimulus to self-constrict.  But we’ve been doing it for thousands of years.  The Bible, for example, has many references to self-constricting: stiffening the neck, hardening the heart and so on. In one particularly scathing rebuke, God says: “I am planning such a misfortune against this clan that you will not be able to free your necks from it. You will not be able to walk erect.” – Micah 2, verse 3

Unlike the Boa’s victims, we don’t usually die from all this harmful self-inflicted tension. But it certainly gets in our way, and can lead to severe and chronic pain, poor posture and the like.

And unlike the Boa’s victims – rodents, lizards, mice and the like, who are painfully aware they are being constricted – we often have no idea that we are doing this to ourselves. The effects of our habits of self-constricting have become so deeply ingrained that they have often come to feel normal.

One of the reasons I sometimes prefer to use the word constricting instead of compressing in a self-direction is that, for me at least, it conveys more the idea of an action originating from within us that we’d like to stop.  I also like the word because those self-constricting patterns are often exceedingly complex and, again for me, the word compressing implies a little less complexity.

If you’d like, try some constricting directions for yourself and see how they compare to their compressing direction counterparts, or other Alexander directions you are using. Please let me know, below and on Facebook, what you discover.  And if you are not clear just how to use an Alexander direction effectively, this podcast, also from the Body Learning Podcast, may be helpful:

***

American Country Music dwells a lot on self-inflicted tension in its many forms. Here the Late Great Hank Williams learns that modern medicine is often powerless to help:

Boa image Copyright : 3quarks

The Alexander Technique: What Shelf Does It Go On?

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Years ago I had a good friend who whose job it was to visit bookstores on behalf of a major publisher and convince the owners to stock the publisher’s new books on their shelves.  This was in the 1980s and early 1990s – pre-Amazon. Amazing as it may seem now, back then lots of people actually read books, and would go to their local bookstore to explore the latest offerings!

Later my friend became a Feldenkrais Practitioner and we would often discuss the challenges we faced in promoting our type of work – I had already become a teacher of the Alexander Technique – given it’s unique nature.

My friend told me that one of the lessons she learned during her publisher representative days was that she should always be able to answer this question from a store owner about a book: “What shelf would it go on?”

For many new books, the answer was obvious. Shelves had titles like History, Art, Fiction (which had sub-categories like Westerns, Science Fiction etc), Travel, Biographies and the like which were easy fits for many books.

But if she didn’t have a good answer for a book whose shelf wasn’t obvious, the owner or buyer would pass it up no matter how interesting it might seem.  Space was limited and with limited shelf space, a book that couldn’t easily be categorized was too risky.

As she went about marketing her Feldenkrais work, she took that lesson to heart and made sure she had some possible “shelf” categories to describe her work.

I think you can guess where I’m going with this.  The Alexander Technique isn’t likely to have its own shelf in one of the few remaining bookstores, although it might be at home in the the Self-Help or Personal Development shelves.  It does have its own “shelf” on the web – as does everything and everyone – but a very small and obscure one, facing a huge amount of competition.

In recent years, it’s become so small, as a proportion of all web activity, that Google no longer bothers to provide analytics for it.*

If a typical bookstore back in the day was too small for the Technique, today’s web is way too big!

On the other hand, as Alexander teacher Niall Kelley has pointed on several occasions (twice at American Society of the Alexander Technique meetings) there are categories that have a large and growing “shelf” on Google. He argues that these are all categories we can legitimately attach ourselves to.**

The categories suggested by Niall include Mindfulness, Back Pain, Posture and Stress, among others. The Technique can certainly be considered a specific form of mindfulness. It has a long track record and several medical and scientific studies showing it can help with back pain.  And a lot of teachers and students see it as a way to improve posture and reduce stress.***

Needless to say the shelf size of categories like Reaction to Stimuli, Primary Control and Use have an even smaller shelf than Alexander Technique.  From a purely marketing point of view, there’s not much point attaching to them!

If you’re an Alexander Technique teacher, what categories have you attached yourself to, and why?

If you’re an Alexander Technique student, did a particular category lead you you to take Alexander lessons?

If you’re hearing about the Alexander Technique for the first time, what category is most likely to get you to learn more about it and perhaps even take a lesson?

I’d love to hear your answers. Please post your answers below and/or on Facebook.

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*Alexander Technique searches have declined sharply as a share of total searches. In absolute numbers, after growing sharply in the early days of the web, for the past 15 plus years the number of Alexander searches has grown very slowly.

** Click here to download Niall’s presentation.  Click here to download the slideshow that goes with it.

*** How can you attach yourself to these categories? The easiest way is to mention them by name on your website, blog posts etc.  Google will find and remember these listings almost instantly and it then becomes more likely that people interested in them will discover the Alexander Technique when they do a search for those topics.

There is one Alexander teacher who makes it a point to declare that the Alexander Technique is not about posture. Many teachers, myself included, believe he is incorrect but oddly enough his mention of “posture” actually increases the interconnection!  Google is fantastic at finding and connecting, not so great at understanding!

Image Copyright 123rf.com: donatas1205

When You’re Your Own Worst Enemy

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Emmet Fox was was a New Thought spiritual leader of the early 20th century and is well known for the insightful stories he told to illustrate important spiritual concepts. Here’s one that resonates nicely with basic Alexander Technique principles:

A little girl was watering her garden flowers when suddenly the flow of water stopped.  She called out to her father, who was also working in the garden, saying “The hose isn’t working anymore!  Come fix it.”

He walked over to her and gently lifted her up a bit and the flow of water instantly resumed. “Always make sure you’re not standing on the hose when you’re watering in the garden” he said and all was well after that.

Emmet Fox was of course using this to illustrate the important spiritual principle that you’re not going to get what you want, no matter how much you pray, if you’re blocking the very channel that would bring the good to you.

Anyone familiar with the Alexander Technique will immediately recognize the Alexander parallel: You can’t become freer if you persist in tightening yourself.  Put another way: You have to stop doing what’s getting in the way of change if you actually want to change. Or, to use a bit of  Alexander jargon, you have to inhibit your old way of doing things if you want to do them differently.

All of this seems pretty obvious when you read it.  But again anyone who has explored the Technique will tell you that it can be quite a challenge to implement. And not because of its complexity.

As the late Alexander teacher Marjorie Barstow used to say to groups she was teaching, “You people won’t believe how simple this work is.” She also would say: “It’s so simple it’s shocking.”

Simple and easy aren’t always the same.  We humans sometimes like to make simple processes complex, and thereby ineffective.

In the case of Emmet Fox’s little girl, had she actually paid attention to what the soles of her feet were trying to tell her, instead of putting all her mental energy on the flowers, she would quickly have solved her problem all by herself.

With us, it’s a bit trickier because the things we have to learn how to notice are often deep-rooted habits that are so much a part of us that they have blended into the background of our consciousness in a way which makes noticing them them a challenge.

Often our feeling sense has become, as F. M. Alexander, the founder of the Technique, liked to say, debauched.  A strong but accurate way of describing the situation.

Here’s a little experiment, inspired by Emmet Fox’s story, you can do yourself to explore the Alexander approach to making a useful change in how you function:

As you’re standing or walking, gently say to yourself: “I’m free to notice how the soles of my feet contact the ground.”  You can test the usefulness of this strategy by alternating that thought with a nonsense one like: “I’m green” and notice what happens when you shift back and forth.

You may notice a difference – but only if you keep things very simple. No extra thoughts or hopes or anticipations or judgments or analyzing of any kind!

Be aware.

Keep it simple.

I’d love to hear how this example of Alexander Technique self-directing works for you, below or as a comment or on Facebook.

***

Country music has always understood the dynamic of self-inflicted pain.  Indeed it lies at the core of the genre.  Here’s a nice example by the greatest of the Late Greats, Hank Williams:

Image Copyright 123RF: maximkabb

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

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My friend and colleague, John Macy, has thought a lot about the two functions of muscles: movement and stabilization. John is an Alexander Technique teacher, a physical therapist and the owner of a Pilates Studio in Omaha, Nebraska. These are some of his insights, posted here as a guest blog.

Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?
Stability and Mobility in Movement and Life

by John Macy

When I was in training to teach Pilates, I was struck by how different the activities were from the  standard exercises I had been taught in sports or physical therapy.

The difference was that the Pilates activities often required me to change which part of me was moving and which stayed stable, with a strong emphasis on being able to truly maintain the stability as the main focus of the activity.

If there was a choice between moving through space with some muscles while losing the stabilizing contraction or staying stable and not moving any further, the latter was always the correct answer. No real surprise given that Josef Pilates called his work Contrology, learning to control your body and mind. What I realized, however, is that the function of stability and the interplay with mobility is often overlooked in movement training.

I have found in my practice with clients that understanding this idea can greatly increase a person’s exercise or movement ability.

First, let’s define a few terms in the context of human movement.

Stability is the ability to maintain the relationship of body parts to each other. There is static stability, as when you do a plank and hold the whole body still, and there is dynamic stability in which you keep some parts in the same relationship while other parts are moving. An example is when you keep your torso stable and aimed forward and upright when you walk across a side hill.

Mobility is the ability to change the relationships of body parts, such as when you lift your arm above your head when you reach up to get a mug from the top shelf.

Notice that you can, and often are, doing some of both when you move; some parts stay stable while others are moving.

All skeletal muscles can either hold things together or move things relative to each other (stabilize or mobilize) depending on the position you are in and how you want to move. Because of their position and connections, most muscles PRIMARILY stabilize or PRIMARILY mobilize. The ones that mainly stabilize are generally closer into the midline or center of the body or deep around the large joints to add control to how the contact surfaces of the joints come together. The ones that mainly mobilize are closer to the surface of the body and out in the limbs.

Generally speaking (some would argue too generally, but I like to think big), the muscles whose PRIMARY function is to stabilize in daily movement can be considered the core. There is debate on exactly what constitutes the core group, ,,but to my thinking that means all the way from the inside of your big toe (adductor hallicus), up the medial leg to the pelvic floor and on up the abdominals and paraspinal muscles to the deep muscles of the neck at the cranial base along with the deep muscle of the hips and shoulders.

So how does this interplay of mobility and stability play out in real life?

Think about walking for a minute. You swing the right leg forward and set your foot on the ground. Now the foot needs to stay there and not slide because you are about to put all your weight on it to swing the other leg past. Once your foot lands, you have to keep it in place on the ground using ankle muscles, the knee stays straight, and the hip has to come forward and stack the femur on the knee. The muscles have to make the leg a stable post (no change in bone relationships at the joints) so you can put your weight onto it. Now you swing the left leg past and place it on the ground in front and it’s time for the right leg to pick up and move. This means you have to pick up the foot, bend the knee and swing the hip, mobilizing (changing the bone relationships at the joints) of the various parts of the leg. But it’s not the same muscles in the leg that stabilized it that will now move the leg. Within the leg, the various muscles have different jobs, some mainly stabilizing, some mainly mobilizing, and some do a bit of both.

This variety of muscle functions is true not just in the leg but throughout the entire body. It is the constant shift of stabilizing and mobilizing that enables us to move in a controlled fashion. It follows that if we improve our control of that shifting and our ability to use our muscles for the job they are best suited for (stabilizing or mobilizing) we can improve performance.

Many of the injuries and problems I see in people related to exercise and training stem from problems in assigning the right jobs to their muscles. Going back to the walking example- think of what happens when it is time to get the weight off the back leg and onto the front one. You can use the large gluteals (buttocks) with their connections from the pelvis to the hip to push the weight forward as the lower leg pushes off the ground while you keep the vertebrae and pelvic floor stable. Alternatively, you can thrust the stomach forward, arch the back and compress the discs as you throw the pelvis to fall forward off the rear leg which you just use like a pole vaulter’s pole. Both will get your weight forward.

However, the first one is using mobilizers as mobilizers and stabilizers as stabilizers while the other has reversed the roles. If your reason for walking is to strengthen your legs for dynamic activity like lifting and squatting, then which pattern is going to achieve that goal? Clearly, using the gluteals and leg muscles to move your weight forward puts you on track for that goal.

But if you want to compress your discs and strain the pelvic floor muscles and overstretch the hip ligaments, the latter is a much more effective choice. You get to decide!

The concept of stability and mobility and the interchange and control of them is what I consider one of the primary concepts in understanding how to learn and enhance movement in ourselves and our clients.

Next time you exercise try experimenting with these questions:

    • What has to move and what doesn’t?
    • How stable you can be?
    • What are the fewest muscles you can use to do a motion?
    • Can you remain stable in an area while something else moves?

 

This type of self-discovery and analysis, where you ask what really needs to move and should or could remain stable in any activity, is a means to really tune in on how to adapt and change your movements and exercise patterns and keep things interesting. It lets you train the body and the brain at the same time. Neural and muscular training, two for the price of one! Who doesn’t like a deal like that?

Movement is life – have some fun!

Image from 123rtf.com Copyright: Duncan Andison

Tuning Into FM: Have You Read Your Alexander Lately?

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My friend and colleague, John Macy, attended the recent Alexander Technique Congress and chose that venue to do a little research about which of F. M. Alexander’s books teachers had read, when when they read them.  In addition to being an Alexander Technique teacher himself, John is a physical therapist and the owner of a Pilates studio in Omaha, Nebraska. Here are his findings, posted below as a guest blog.  (If you would like to weigh in on this, or any other topic relevant to the Alexander Technique with a guest blog of your own, let me know.  You can contact me here.)

Tuning Into FM: Have You Read Your Alexander Lately?

by John Macy

I recently wrote a blog in this space, Why Study and Teach the Alexander Technique?, about the questions I asked teachers and trainees at the International Congress in Chicago. This time I want to address another question I asked teachers: “Have you read Alexander’s books?”, and “When was the last time you read them?”

The most common answer was “I’ve read some of them, just parts of several.” The second was “We read through them in my training but I don’t remember much and I have not read them since.” Usually people also mentioned that they found them difficult to read due to the language and the concepts. Often people had read other books or articles about the Alexander Technique that were more modern, but not F.M. Alexander’s writings. Even people who were doing research on the Technique told me they had not read all his books.

As a professional with experience in medicine, archeology, and astronomy I find this to be very odd in a group of people whose careers are based around teaching the discoveries of one man. In other areas it is common, in fact expected, that one will to go to the source material as some point during training but also to return to it later, particularly if you intend to do research or teaching. A standard part of science research in any field is to go back and look at the first paper(s) written about the thing you are researching as well as any others that may have bearing on the topic. In this way the researcher can see the total evolution of thought on a topic and prevent wasting resources on reinventing the wheel. It also can illuminate new paths of inquiry based on ideas of people who have already analyzed the topic.

For example: In astronomy researchers and teachers are expected by their peers to understand what Einstein discovered and his arguments (equations) for his view of the universe because they are the source material for how we understand the cosmos today. This leads to new ideas in how to search and understand the universes. In medicine, any researcher of infectious disease would certainly know well the story of John Snow and his role in the London cholera epidemic of 1854. His was the first study of its kind using epidemiological information to find the source of a disease outbreak.

It is expected in the sciences that a researcher or teacher is familiar with the source materials – the first writings – as part of knowing the complete data set on the topic. So why aren’t Alexander Technique teachers doing this?

I think one part of the problem is that in many teacher training programs students are not taught to see themselves as researchers, or even teachers, at first. But they are. Every time they work with each other, every time they give a talk or demonstration they are seeing what happens when they interact and apply the Technique. Over time their teaching style, language, and methodology changes based on their research. Just as F. M. Alexande’sr did.

Which brings me to what I think is the second reason Alexander teachers don’t read his books. Most teachers had their one and only attempt at them while they were training to teach. However, Alexander wrote his books after hundreds and thousands of hours of experience – depending on the book. He wrote about overarching issues and ideas on human perception and learning derived from his observations and he makes sociological arguments about the ramifications of his theories. The student, on the other hand, is just beginning to see some of the individual data points Alexander draws from.

Trainees are busy learning how to do things like use themselves in a lesson and organize their time and run a practice. In short, students don’t yet have the experience to understand much of why Alexander says the things he does. The student must struggle to follow F.M.’s argument from the ground up every time because they have not seen enough to say, “Oh, yes. people do that a lot in my teaching so I understand easily what Mr. Alexander is basing his generalization and conclusions on.”  Teacher trainees are learning to identify trees and Alexander is talking about the forest ecosystem.

I have read Alexander’s books several times since I began studying the Technique and each time they become more useful to me. A few years ago, I read all of them over a summer in preparation for writing a chapter on Alexander Technique for a physical therapy textbook.* As I read I realized how much deeper I understood his ideas (and disagreed with some) since the last complete reading, five years before, because of my experiences in teaching and working with people in those intervening years. And, as it has every time I read the books through, it made a significant, positive change in how I understood the work and how I taught.

As to the argument that the books are too difficult to read I must ask: If we apply the concepts of the Technique, such as using our conscious reasoning to determine our actions, then why would we let who we were several years or decades ago decide what we are capable of comprehending today? At the very least, why not run the experiment today to see if you view these books differently after years of experiences teaching and observing, just as Alexander had before he wrote these books?

I submit that reading F.M. Alexander’s books at least several times over a career is a reasonable expectation of ourselves as professionals and educators. These books are the source materials for our field of inquiry. Alexander has been dead for over 60 years, and there are few people alive who met, let alone studied with him.  Alexander’s writings are the primary sources that we have, and are our best source for understanding what he discovered, thought, taught and envisioned for the future of his work. It is the glue that binds us all together in this field of study.

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It’s Robert again.  We’d love to know what you think of this.  Please post your comments below and/or on Facebook.

*Here’s a podcast interview I did with John some years ago titled “The value of reading all Four of Alexander’s Books”:

And here’s my experience with the books: Alexander in his own Write
Image Copyright : Elena Kozlova

The Alexander Antidote to Terror

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I was having an Alexander Technique lesson with the late Walter Carrington, a well-known and highly respected teacher in London in the early 1980s and somehow the subject of the civil war then raging in Lebanon came up.

I had recently become certified to teach the Technique and having been immersed for three years on my Alexander training course, I naively believed that pretty much everybody should avail themselves of this wonderful method. I said to Walter, “Well it’s too bad they don’t have any Alexander teachers there.  They could certainly use it.”

There was a long pause, and then Walter said something I’ll never forget.  This is not an exact quote, but essentially he said: “Well, you know Robert, we have it pretty easy here in London compared to what’s going on in Beirut.”  Another long pause, and then: “The real test of one’s mastery of the Technique is: Can you apply it when your house is burning down?”

Walter had an elliptical – to put it mildly! – manner of speaking and it wasn’t until I was on the Tube (the subway in American) going home that I realized he was gently chastising me for having such an arrogant view of something I still knew so little about.

A couple of times since then, I’ve had the opportunity to experience first-hand my own limitations in using the Technique for myself when the going got rough.  Both involved severe pain and in both cases, particularly the first, that pain overwhelmed me to the extent that I was unable to mobilize my Alexander constructive thinking to help myself until the pain subsided to a more tolerable level.

I suspect many other Alexander Technique teachers have had this sort of experience themselves and have seen it with their students. Often the work-around is to simply lie in the Constructive Rest position, or in the case of students, work with them on the table for all or most of the lesson.

In my own experience, continual practice of Alexander Technique self-directing over a period of many years has enabled me to make better use of the work in stressful circumstances.  I think in large part because self-directing has become second nature and over time I’m better able to let go of my tendency to subtly and unconsciously do the directions.  I would also credit new developments in Alexander Technique directions that are easier to use and more effective than earlier ones – you can learn about them here: New Directions in Alexander Technique Directing

Still, unexpected stress remains a challenge and so I was particularly impressed by Gary Ramsey’s account of his sudden, and totally unexpected, brush with death and how he was able to use the Technique almost right away when his doctor unexpectedly told him he had an extremely serious condition and that he could die at any moment.  And how he continued to use it as he explored alternatives and eventually had a full recovery.

You read his account in his book, available at Amazon: Bliss: One Hero’s Journey.

You can also listen to his account, “How the Alexander Technique Helped Overcome a Deadly Predicament” here:

 

Have you, as an Alexander teacher or student, had experience of successfully using Alexander’s principles in a dangerous or particularly stressful situation?  Please post your story below and/or on Facebook.

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Country Music has always been at the cutting edge of danger and heartbreak – imminent death by execution, spousal betrayal, car wrecks, the sinking of the Titanic – the list goes on and on. This song by Carl Rutherford is a prime example – and was featured in a recent episode of Better Call Saul!

Image Copyright: studiostoks / 123RF Stock Photo