Alexander Technique Directions
I wish to free my neck … so that
My head can move forward and up…so that
My torso can lengthen and widen and…
My legs can move away from my torso and…
My shoulders can release out the sides.
Alexander Technique directions act as verbal, or neuro-linguistc cues. They tell us where we want to go, which is often upward, outward, into expansion. Up, down, and out. Head up, feet or sit bones down, shoulders out, legs away…

The Alexander Technique and meditation can be beautifully interwoven. Since the Alexander Technique is a ‘pre-technique’, using it before meditating can enhance your meditation practice. The Alexander Technique can help shorten the time it takes to get to the state or tone you want when you meditate, and help you stay in that place longer when you’re through. It can help make the line between meditating and not meditating more blurry. Your meditation practice is augmented…

The stresses and strains of modern living, combined with the ubiquity of the computer, cell phone, blackberry etc., seem to draw us in, collapsing us forward and down and giving us one version of bad posture . (Another version of bad posture would be sitting up rigidly straight. That doesn’t work because it won’t be maintained, and it’s not helpful to add extra tension. Sitting or standing up straight usually means military posture.)
So as not to smash our faces into the screen, desk, or floor…

A useful component in learning the Alexander Technique is the idea of oppositions. A few Alexander Technique oppositions include: head and torso opposing each other, arms and torso, legs and torso, sit bones down; torso and head up, shoulders opposing each other and more… We probably aren’t going to learn the Alexander Technique purely through observation but being aware combined with lessons…

I would recommend any patient try the technique before more invasive interventions; that is, patients with chronic or recurrent functional back pain…Dr. Paul Little, Professor of Primary Care Research.

In Man’s Supreme Inheritance by F.M.Alexander, (the ‘Alexander’ in the Alexander Technique) writes…”a human being functions as a whole and can only be functionally changed as a whole.” In my Alexander Technique teaching here in NYC this is illuminated countless times. People get the mistaken impression that their back pain has nothing to do with their neck, their neck pain has nothing to do with their jaw, their hand pain has nothing to do with their overall tension, and their shallow breathing has nothing to do with their job…

Have you noticed the pharmaceutical commercials where the list of potential side effects seems to go on and on? Many of them sound worse than the original condition the drugs are supposed to treat! I …

Give Me My Props

Although the Alexander Technique is concerned with the use of the self, (the title of one of F.M. Alexander’s books) if there are props around why not use them? If you need a …

Things Are Looking Up

Do you ever notice what you look at  when you’re walking outdoors?                                       …

As I was riding the subway on my way to teach some Alexander Technique lessons, an announcement was made over the PA system: Gr Grbrwr Kr gaggar.  Sometimes that’s what announcements sound like in the …