Correct Posture and Choice
“A correct position or posture indicates a fixed position, and a person held to a fixed position cannot grow, as we understand growth. The correct position today cannot be the correct position a week later for any person who is advancing in the work of reeducation and coordination. F.M. Alexander
During Alexander Technique lessons, people frequently sit up straight or move their head around and ask: Is this right?” I answer differently in different situations, but the real answer might be: No. I don’t say that because the person will then believe they are wrong. When it comes to the Alexander Technique right and wrong, good and bad won’t have the same significance we may be used to. Someone in a slump might not be wrong, especially if they’ve chosen to slump, plus sitting up straight with so called ‘good posture’ might not be any better.
One thing we’re going for in the course of Alexander Technique lessons is improvement. We’re not trying to get to a destination; we’re moving towards…. “Perfection is for heaven”, (as my friend and great Alexander Technique teacher Pearl Ausubel used to say.) Knowing that can really take the pressure off, if you let it. If you don’t have to worry about ‘getting it’, or ‘doing it right’, maybe you could just enjoy the journey. This doesn’t mean that progress is not happening, or you’ll always have that pain, or you’ll always have bad posture. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. On the Alexander Technique path all kinds of great things happen. It’s just that this technique is something no one masters, and that’s part of the beauty of it. You enter from where you are and you move in a certain direction, and with a certain direction. It’s fluid. It’s not rigid. It’s not fixed. It’s not a correct position, and there’s room to grow, there’s always more…
Mark Josefsberg-Alexander Technique NYC
269-POSTURE
or 917.709.4648
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Great post! I really love the quote of Alexander you’ve put on top of the article. “The correct position today cannot be the correct position a week later.” Or even a moment later, as the situations we are in are constantly changing.
Today many people believe there was a right way of doing things: timemanagement has to be this way, posture has to be that way, a good marriage has do be like this or that blabla and so on. If all this stuff would be working, then nobody would have problems!
But people do have problems!
I truely believe, that there are no “general” answers to what an individual experiences. Because of this, a technique like the Alexander Technique is so important in our world today, as it teaches us to think constructively about ourselves - every moment in a fresh and new way…
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