No more "auto pilot": Using Alexander Technique for Mindful Movement

No more "auto pilot": Using Alexander Technique for Mindful Movement

I remembered reading about John Pepper , who consciously retrained his movements to overcome foot drag and tremor, and became curious about how his conscious attending to his walking, typically an unconscious and habitual motor task, allowed him to perhaps create neural pathways that could compensate for or bypass the areas of his brain impacted by Parkinson’s.

Alexander Technique asks us to perform automatic tasks in a conscious and novel way.

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How are you doing?: Looking at how Allostatic Overload is Impacting Our Well-being

How are you doing?: Looking at how Allostatic Overload is Impacting Our Well-being

When I began my Alexander Technique teaching practice in 1989, my focus was on performing artists and helping people improve their posture and live with less pain.

Fast forward to 2020, when the Covid-19 Pandemic upended a way of life, and - perhaps for the first time- people who historically weren't so vulnerable to the ebbs and flows of resources and economies, found themselves part of the global trauma.

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Stillness as growth

Sometimes getting still to shed a habit and let something new emerge seems fruitless.

We live in a time and space that emphasizes doing.

Waiting IS doing something.

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When you plant a seed, many things happen that you don’t see before a shoot comes up from the soil.

You don’t see how the food you eat becomes fuel for your body and brain.

You don’t see how neurotransmitters create elegant, coordinated action.

Slowing down is under rated.

Give yourself some time and space.

Let the story you tell yourself fade into the background for a short time and find your breath.

Try being still with inner space and inner movement.

The Hidden Treasures I Found by Living The Alexander Technique

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I was initially drawn to the Alexander Technique because of my hope of having a life in the performing arts. I wanted to be a performer, but I didn’t think I had a stand out level of talent, and I didn’t want to risk living my life forever unfulfilled. I knew the Alexander Technique was part of many performing arts curriculum. I didn’t know what it was, but my good fortune and my instincts guided me to experience it first hand. I expected to teach performing artists, who make up a portion of my practice, but what I enjoy most about teaching the Alexander Technique is the personal interactions I have with all kinds of people.

My focus in my early years as a teacher was on how my skills could help my students. My trainers, teachers and mentors all echoed Alexander’s own experience, that applying my Alexander tools on my own behalf was the mechanism to teaching well.

I taught, as many people, groups and as often as I could. I came to have a deeper capacity for observing and providing more essential, accessible and practical tools to my students; recognizing and providing more teachable moments; and knowing how much was enough. These were all things I aspired to and watched for.

But there are hidden treasures that come from living the Alexander Technique, and no one could have predicted how I would mine the gifts that I have gotten. Some of those treasure might never had come to me without living through things I never wanted and hoped would never happen.

I’ve written about my experiences with anxiety and depression, which coincided with my response to the outcome of the 2016 Presidential Election here in the US.

What it’s been like for me since Covid-19 Lockdown and the 2020 Election

It’s coming up on a year since I began physically distancing, stopped teaching in person lessons - effectively shutting my practice - and watched a not unexpected pandemic and all its concomitant fallout play out.

I have had moments where I feared for my mental health over the course of the pandemic and the 2020 election. The Alexander Technique gave me the capacity to know I was experiencing trauma, and that I was in a precarious state, and it gave me a lifeline to get to the next safe harbor. I sought help, and returned to tools that helped me before. They helped me again.

For me, Alexander Technique isn’t about my alignment or physical posture, except to the degree that those are sign posts of how I am in myself. Being, not doing, is how I experience my life more with each passing year. F. M. Alexander’s understanding that one can’t separate mind from body from psyche - and my recognition that I wouldn’t want to if I could - is more of my lived experience with each passing day.

At various periods of my life, I have been drawn to the question: Would I be willing to give up everything in order to have everything? Getting nearer to that as my personal reality is more possible with the stillness I can reach for with my Alexander Technique tools. I can quiet the inner dialogue that revs my nervous system and generates dis-ease, emotional pain, fear, and discomfort.

I am learning to reach for inner or outer narratives that ease my suffering instead of compounding it. And I am keeping a close watch on how regret shows up for me. This pause or reset in how life shows up has placed me in the center of just how uncertain everything is. It can be overwhelming to be so present to that fact. And it can be thrilling.

I had no idea when I started lessons and then trained as an Alexander Teacher that I would discover AND build capacities for meeting life’s challenges as well as I have. So far I keep finding new reserves after waves of crushing realities rain down on me. It seems as though I keep waking up to the horror and the amazing beauty of humanity and life itself over and over again.

Some of the hidden treasures I found:

  • Resilience

  • Patience

  • The ability to self-sooth

  • Living my values more of the time

  • Not feeling defensive

  • Solving problems more easily and quickly

  • Feeling more empathy for myself and others

  • Leaving and avoiding unhealthy relationships

  • Better listening skills

  • Taking more pleasure in daily life

  • Greater creativity

  • Improved intellectual capacity

  • Seeing the bigger picture

  • Kinder self-talk

  • Better self-esteem

  • More satisfying and meaningful relationships with family, friends and others

  • Joy in movement

  • Appreciating what I have

Practical How To:

I go back to the step by step process I learned over 37 years ago. I pause, come to inner stillness, give myself time to find more inner space and wait for a shift inside. Sometimes the shift is significant, sometimes it’s barely noticeable, but something changes. I engage in this throughout my day, sometimes without such a systematic sequence, but just an awareness to expand.

Would I be willing to give up everything in order to have everything? More and less. How much of a choice do I have? It depends. When I have a choice, what do I choose?




On Teaching: "Speaking without words"

On Teaching: "Speaking without words"

by Brooke Lieb

Brooke: During our work together on the ACAT Teacher Certification Program, I remember you repeatedly sharing with me that you found lectures and the verbal component of hands-on turns virtually un-intelligible, and stressful. I was able to appreciate that auditory learning wasn’t particularly useful to you, but in retrospect, I know I didn’t have a meaningful understanding or appreciation of how unique sensory processing is from one person to another. I was also fascinated because I know how much you read and comprehend, and that you studied much more complex subjects than I ever have and are articulate and versed in those topics.

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For Alexander Teachers: Foundations of effective teaching

For Alexander Teachers: Foundations of effective teaching

There are many signposts of the progress during training.

One benchmark I monitor is the how hard the student is trying to “get it right”. Alexander used a term called end-gaining, which refers to a degree of habit and automaticity in carrying out an activity.

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Still Procrastinating, and making progress: AT in a technical crisis

Still Procrastinating, and making progress: AT in a technical crisis

My writer’s block is still with me. I have written down notes and titles for 12 or more topics, but just can’t seem to find the inspiration to sit and get the writing done.

In the meantime, necessity is the mother of invention. I somehow managed to delete every email in my inbox on my desktop computer. 14,000+ to be exact. I only keep the last week’s worth of messages on my web-based server. 11 years deleted.

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Problem Solving

Problem Solving

Alexander didn't have a teacher to help him solve his vocal problems.  He had no one telling him where to begin or how to approach finding a solution, so he began with simple observation and then experimented on a trial and error basis.

One of Alexander's observations and concerns, as he worked for over 60 years teaching people from all walks of life, was the lack of critical reasoning people brought to problem solving.

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An Approach to Training Teachers: start with Alexander's means-whereby

An Approach to Training Teachers: start with Alexander's means-whereby

This week, a student on the ACAT training course (trainee) commented that there didn't seem to be specific instruction on the nuts and bolts of teaching: where to put hands, what to say, and the sequence in which to do things.

Within the ACAT curriculum, those types of specifics do get covered, in a fair bit of detail, as the terms progress. However, before that level of specificity is introduced, I want to give the trainee an understanding of Alexander's means-whereby for using the hands.

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7 Tips for Bringing Alexander Technique Awareness into Everyday Life

7 Tips for Bringing Alexander Technique Awareness into Everyday Life

Private lessons are a great way to understand your own habits and how Alexander Technique tools can help you find greater ease in daily activities, and specialized skills. We refer to our clients as students because we are teaching skills that offer independence outside of sessions.

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Back in the Studio: Applying Alexander Technique in my return to dance

Back in the Studio: Applying Alexander Technique in my return to dance

For many years, I found myself unable to find the motivation to exercise, whether it was yoga, strength training or cardio. I had also been thinking about revisiting modern jazz dance classes, in the SImonson Technique, which I had studied in high school and college. Within the past 5 or 6 years, I had even gone online and located beginning classes. For some reason, I couldn't overcome inertia so never got to a class.

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