Please Release Me.
Alexander Technique core directions include letting your neck muscles release, so that your head will go up, with a slight forward rotation. Take that step before you take a step.
Freeing your neck is like releasing the emergency brake, and neck freeing before and during any action is primary.
F.M. Alexander, Meet Dr. Seuss.
Once you’ve taken the emergency brake off by releasing your neck, what part of you moves forward first?
It’s not your nose, and it’s not your toes. It’s not your thighs and it’s not your eyes. It’s not your hips and it’s not your lips. Though it’s no law, don’t lead with your jaw, and may I suggest not to start with your chest?
People Who Kneed People.
The knee moves forward first.
After releasing your neck, peel your foot off the floor as your knee moves forward and your head moves up.
Step, and let the heel touch the ground.
The weight is transferred to the ball of the foot and then the toes. Let the toes have their time on the ground. Allow a full rolling of the foot—heel, ball-toes…heel, ball-toes.
It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing.
Let your arms swing. We commonly hold tension in our neck, upper torso and upper arms. This prevents a natural arm swing.
Your entire torso spirals as you walk; the right shoulder with the left knee, and the left shoulder with the right knee.
Your arms will swing; you don’t have to swing them. If your torso is spiraling naturally and you leave your arms alone, they will swing. The contralateral, swinging rhythm of your arms and torso is a dance.
Walk This Way.
A man walks over to a clerk in a drug store and asks for the talcum powder. The clerk says “Sure. Walk this way.” The man says: “If I could walk that way I wouldn’t need the talcum powder.”
Mark Josefsberg-Alexander Technique NYC
(917) 709-4648
Image Courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net-“Portrait Of Fashion Model” by imagerymajestic
Great post Mark, thank you for sharing.
Thank you, Stella!
Is it really the knee that moves first?
To me it is my intention to move! and in sublte ways the body inclines foreward, and the last thing happening is letting the foot find th floor again, just a bit more foreward from where it was before!
Hi Carsten,
Thanks! I did say the knee moves forward first. And, before that, to free your neck, etc. I guess you could say your intention moves forward first, but that seems a little confusing to me. I definitely agree that it’s your intention to walk that starts the process. After that, perhaps awareness, then inhibition, then direction. I have trouble getting all that into a post, though that is a goal. If you incline forward and the last thing that happens is that your foot finds the floor, it seems a little like falling down and catching yourself, rather than ‘falling up’ as Walter Carrington describes. I think we all agree that what we don’t want is “the body continuously falling forward and you are just putting out a foot to check the fall”.(From thinking Aloud) I kind of like his idea about walking, “the head and the knees go forward and the hips go back.” Perhaps the idea of the knee going forward first is preventive. what do you think? Thanks for the discussion!
I think I understand the line of thougth that you are proposing, as I am familiar with the ‘classical concepts’. But I just doubt if it is really what is happening!
It all comes down to from where ones observation comes from offcourse, from the beginning.
To me moving the knee foreward first, resembles stiff marching, as I should keep my hips back, and I can hardly imagine getting anywhere around with that approach, even though I know that I am exaggerating my interpretation of the concept!
To me it starts at a diffrent level, namely first of all at the basic bodily security one gets from the ground support. This support is always in the front of any action, since it gives the background security, and ‘bodily knowing’of any attempt to do or not do anything. If that support at any point is at stake, one will need to contract the neck muscles in order to gain security, though at a much lower level than of what we are capable of.
So my suggestion in my previous post, is not to be understood as ‘a falling foreward’. Rather it should be understood as a continuation of the assurance of the ground support.
Seen from the inside (to mee!), the fact that knees are going foreward, is because that I am initiating a ‘new assurance’ from the ground, as I am approaching whatever object that initiated my movement.
That is what I mean with subtle changings in the body. And rather than struggeling with keeping myself ‘Up’, I believe that by being assured,(by my basic bodily existence is felt safe by the ground support) I dont need to ‘go down’.
So to walk lighter, and more up, one needs to discover the possiblity of being safe, -a deep bodily felt state. And thereby not having to interfere with all kinds of strange muscular patterns.
🙂
Hi Carsten,
I really like what you wrote here. I like “a continuation of the assurance of the ground support.” i’m going to play around with that idea. I have a feeling that if I saw you or your students walk, I wouldn’t get the feeling that you were “falling forward”. And, if you saw me or my students walk, you wouldn’t think of ‘marching’. It seems like parts of the Alexander Technique, like walking, are hard to describe in a short post. Very tricky stuff! But, you’ve got me thinking, re-thinking my ideas. In fact, my next post might be about exactly that!
Thanks again.
Ooooo… I like this. Knee forward first? Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes it’s another bit. It all depends on my intention, what I want to communicate. As long as it’s all free, any part can lead.
Thanks Victoria! All depends on intention for sure.
Mark:
One of your most creative expressions and clearly it gives us several viable images. Thank-you for representing this to your ‘reader’. So value your words. Wishing someday to re-visit NYC ad find your offices.
Thanks, Diane!