by Freedom in Action | Sep 12, 2018 | Tips
If we wish to improve habits of posture, movement, or breathing we can not rely exclusively on sensation! Sensation on its own is a dead end. If you think about it, it is clear that your habitual way of inhabiting yourself feels normal. Yet your characteristic norm may encompass compensatory (mal)adaptations to old injuries, or other on-going (mal)adjustments, that generate pain, strain or even injury, ie mis-use. This is normal – we each end up with our own quite individual way of using ourselves, and this is what each of us works with. Yet, despite the fact that our particular pattern is ours alone and is some sort of development from our Use as young children, and that it feels normal, any Alexander Technique teacher can demonsrate that it probably represents something of a departure from what is natural, easy or strain-free. In other words there is a gap between what you think you are doing and what you are actually doing.
The sensation or experience of yourself associated with your habitual “normal” way of using your self is thus suspect – we all become completely habituated to our habitual way of being in ourselves – even when it is demonstrably strained or distorted or tense etc. It still feels “normal”! So relying on our sensation is the same as relying on a measure which is calibrated to a norm which we don’t want! I.e. it is not reliable.
So what do we use as a guide, if our sense register is not to be relied upon? We use as clear a picture as we can create, of where we want to be. This means using a concept of what is possible, a wish, an intent, a desire. It means deliberately seeing yourself releasing your neck and allowing length and space as you reach for the salt or answer the phone. Your Alexander directions are an expression of an intent and a possibility.
You are unlikely to avoid sensation and this would be a mistake. You can use sensation incidentally, in a detached, disinterested way. I.e. you don’t want to be attached to a particular sensation, or to getting a particular sensation. This would be limiting of further development and would mean that you are no longer in the zone of open possibilities – you would not be giving your directions, but rather trying to feel something out. So rather than feeling stuff out, work with your directions in a detached way, observe any sensation in a detached way, but not actively rummaging for sensation. If you are rummaging, you are not in the zone of potential change, but rather stuck in unproductive sensing.
by Freedom in Action | Sep 10, 2018 | Sound Files
A guide to keeping track of yourself, as you go about your daily activities – mindfulness in activity.
Anyone using these audio guides should benefit, if they take time and a thoughtful approach. For those who are having, or have had lessons in the Alexander Technique, these tracks may help them to develop the skills to further their quality of inner integration and ease of movement, which characterizses good “Use of the Self”.
You cannot learn the Alexander Technique from sound files! Good teaching plus time are needed to bring not only the benefits in functioning that are possible, but also a sufficient grasp of how these improvements have been made, in order
to be able to continue to maintain and develop benefits independently of a teacher.
by Freedom in Action | Sep 10, 2018 | Articles
Would you like to be able to perform your choice of exercise with efficiency and grace?
Would you like to ensure good “form” whether in the gym, jogging, swimming, stretching, walking or even in martial art forms?
Would you like to avoid strain on joints or other tissue when you exercise?
What have summer and winter Olympic athletes, marathon runners, hammer throwers, elite equestrians including Australian Olympian Mary Hannah and the entire British team, multi-disciplinarian Daley Thomson and many others in common?
They have all used the Alexander Technique to improve some aspect of the way that they function – breathing, freedom or efficiency of movement, balance, dealing with stress, aches and pains or injuries.
In the early l950s, Percy Cerutty, the celebrated and sometimes controversial athletics coach, wrote in a letter to his Alexander teacher, “Alexander is a “must” for all competing athletes. You have taught me a lot of interesting material about the correct use of the body which I have passed on in my training with marked results eliminating bad use.”
The Alexander Technique is being increasingly adopted by recreational and competitive Sports people. Athletes involved in sports as diverse as long-distance running, dressage, swimming, X-C skiing and hammer-throwing recognise the benefits that come with a training in the Alexander Technique. For Sports people these can be divided in to three categories:
- General fitness (how to avoid wasting energy);
- Technique (ensuring that you’re actually doing what you think you’re doing); and
- Avoidance of or recovery from injury (not using yourself in a way which imposes unnecessary stresses on joints or other tissue).
Economy of effort
The Technique is particularly relevant because it is directly concerned with the working of the “postural reflexes”, i.e. the mechanisms that enable us to support and balance our bodies against the ever present pull of gravity while we go about our daily activities. It addresses how to move with an economy of effort and maximise poise and balance.
How hard are you making it?
The tensions and distortions that most of us, over the years, build into our habitual way of being and which have thus slipped below the level of our conscious awareness, provide an on-going restriction to the working of these natural postural mechanisms. This restriction renders movement more effortful and less efficient than necessary and can predispose us to injury. In our sporting activities, we are coping not only with these on-going interferences, which give us our “base line” of tension, but also often with further interferences engendered by the situation, e.g. the challenges involved in learning a new skill or the pressure of competition.
In other words, we’re making hard work out of simply standing upright, before complicating things with moving.
“My brain knows what to do but my body won’t do it”
In training or competition this is often more so, at exactly the time when economy of action and an absence of tension would be most desirable. This interferes not only with our poise and coordination, but also with our perception both of our inner environment, for example failing to notice that we are tensing our shoulders or holding our breath, and of our outer circumstances, so that for example, distances seem greater, or it feels as if we have insufficient time.
Enhancing kinaesthetic awareness (awareness of one’s inner environment), and learning greater control of one’s mechanisms of balance and coordination are an enormous help in any activity.
It is not just the elite who can learn to optimise their way of working with themselves to gain that competitive edge. Sports people who have trouble improving beyond a certain level can also gain. Technical imperfections can easily be unwittingly established as part of one’s basic modus operandi, limiting further improvement. Who at some time has not said to themselves, “My brain knows what to do but my body won’t do it”?
Discovering that not trying so hard can mean moving further, faster and with less effort, often comes as a pleasant surprise to many people.
The Alexander Technique gives us some simple ground rules through which we can observe ourselves, in order to achieve a gradual general improvement in poise and coordination, as well as simultaneously supplying ourselves with conditions most conducive to the development of a skill and reducing the risk of injury.
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by Freedom in Action | Aug 21, 2018 | Articles
“It’s great! It helps me keep working” B.L. – middle manager
“It helps me to think more clearly” W.G. – senior public servant
“I can control stress levels. It’s an immediate stress management technique” M.T. – mother and consultant
What creates stress in us is the way we respond to a situation, not the situation itself. Stress involves a loss of poise. Our response to a stressful situation can disturb our own balance and distort our perceptions so that problems assume greater proportions and available time appears to shrink.
How to keep a level head
The Alexander Technique provides us with a way of being conscious of our reactions and choosing when, where and how to give expression to them without being at their mercy. This enhanced awareness can help us to choose to behave differently at the moment of response to a situation. It helps us to maintain distance and perspective on a situation.
Balance, posture, muscular tension and awareness
Relationships between balance, posture, muscular tension and awareness, aspects not usually recognised as interrelated, are taken into account in The Alexander Technique.
It embodies a three-pronged approach.
It works first through the muscular system by recognising that there is a primary control of muscular tension throughout the whole body. This obviates the necessity for the individual to come to relaxation and stillness by trying to progressively and laboriously relax every muscle in turn. Then, by understanding how to make use of the “primary control” of muscular tension and releasing physical tension, one frees energy and attention. Finally, practising the Alexander Technique involves schooling one’s attention. The discipline of this centering (in the central axis of the body) helps to keep attention in the here-and-now. Furthermore, centred body awareness cues us in to when we are going off balance. The Alexander Technique offers the possibility of control in process, rather than a palliative measure in dealing with stress build-up after the event.
“You translate everything, whether physical or mental or spiritual, into muscular tension” F.M. Alexander
“People are not disturbed by events, but by their reactions to events” Epictetus, 1st Century A.D. Rome.
© Michael Stenning
by Freedom in Action | Aug 21, 2018 | Articles
Desk height, screen height, chair height, seat-tilt, back-rest, arms, mouse left or right, “ergonomic” keyboard, wrist support, lumbar support ….
The variables go on and on. How do you get comfortable and stay functional and productive?
Lets start from the beginning …
If you can be comfortable, then you are more able to concentrate and be productive. Avoiding physical discomfort, also avoids a source of stress, since discomfort-tension demands energy and attention.
What makes it easy to sit comfortably in such a way that you remain functional and productive? We know that we operate best when we are relaxed yet alert, poised, ready for action, without being tense. Ergonomic considerations such as desk and screen height etc. flow perfectly logically when we understand how to remain easily upright, how to sit without strain or unnecessary effort.
Balance of the head is important.
Your head weighs about 5.5 kilograms. If it is habitually held too far back, or too far forward, there is an immediate demand for muscular compensation from the rest of your balancing processes. Compensation takes the form of tightening something somewhere else and the net effect is more effort and less ease. If you organise your chair, desk and screen height on the basis of this less-than-optimal balance, then you commit yourself to maintaining it. This strongly pre-disposes you to discomfort and possible injury.
Contact with the chair is also important.
Why do we slouch in a soft armchair or sofa? Why is it an effort to run in soft sand? Same reason. Our nervous system needs the information it gets from the surface we rest on, to switch on all the postural processes that straighten us out and hold us up. On a soft or shifting surface we do not get the quality of information that makes the job of being upright easy or sustainable.
A firm seat makes the job much easier.
Have you ever noticed how you sit up, at first at least, before you tire, when you sit on a hard bench or kitchen chair? If the seat of your chair is not very firm (more than 20mm padding) it may feel comfortable initially. However it will also contribute to your getting tired more quickly. It makes it more difficult to stay comfortable over about an hour. It makes doing your job harder.
So, how much energy are you putting into balancing on your chair, that is misplaced and actually makes being there harder than necessary? How much energy is going into keeping yourself still, and therefore making movement (breathing, keying, writing, reading, telephoning etc) more effortful than it need be? If you haven’t considered the balance of your head, or the firmness of your chair, it may be that you could achieve some major personal efficiency dividends. It could maker you fitter for the long haul.
Need more help?
Arrange a one-on-one consultation covering chair adjustment, the broader ergonomics of your workstation, and instruction in how to approach sitting comfortably upright. Click here.
© M Stenning, Canberra 1997
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by Freedom in Action | Aug 21, 2018 | Articles
We all know about the desirability of good posture, of flexibility, relaxation, and the absence of tension. Yet, despite the considerable attention given to the externals, ergonomic chairs, stretching exercises, “correct” posture, stress management techniques, etc., we are still tense and uncomfortable in our bodies, susceptible to stress, and often suffer miscellaneous aches and pains. The statistics make very clear that the “externally applied” measures do not work for everybody.
How much is strain costing you?
What is needed is a method of self-management which gives us the self-knowledge we need in order to implement our good intentions. The Alexander Technique is such a method. It is simple, effective and it is used all over the world. The Alexander Technique allows you to optimise the way that you perform or function. It provides ground rules for reducing the risk of injury or stress-related problems. About 100 years ago, Alexander introduced the idea that the way you use yourself affects the way that you function – Use affects Functioning . He demonstrated that there are basically two ways of using yourself; either your tendency over time is to contract, shortening and tightening; or, it is to release and expand. Some of us have occasional glimpses of the latter as when, for example, everything goes right on the tennis court, always being seemingly in the right place and with plenty of time to hit the ball; or that perfectly balanced, flowing ski run; or doing the perfect interview. Yet how often do we experience this “on form” quality in everyday life?
Most of us are more familiar with the weight, effort and discomfort of the “contracting” tendency. In sitting, for example, we all know the daily yo-yo between slouching and “sitting up straight”. The endless attempts to get the posture “right” need to go on because they don’t change the underlying conditions. Our co-ordination, that pattern of muscular pulls which is peculiarly ours, is in place whether slouching or “holding ourselves up”, driving a car or driving a computer. It is what we use to support ourselves against the ever present pull of gravity. It forms the basis of the “How” of everything that we do, including “sitting up straight” or the performance of exercises or even relaxing. Our pattern of muscular pulls provides our posture and our overall orientation in the way that we respond to our world. It is a suit of clothes which we never take off; it is there all the time and if we are aware of it at all, we tend to take it for granted, as a fixed given, even when it hurts or malfunctions in some other way.
Simply knowing just what your co-ordination consists of, why it is, for example, that you are not falling over as you read these words, can be a tremendous tool in the on-going business of taking care of yourself and avoiding problems.
The rule of habit
If somebody suggested that you should daily practice tightening your neck and shoulders, say, 200 times, you would think their advice misguided. Yet half an hour with an Alexander teacher may reveal that this may be almost exactly what you do, albeit unconsciously. The teacher’s role is to make you aware of the subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle, habits of contraction whose effects, multiplied by days and months and years, make themselves felt sooner or later. Tightening up, slouching down or any of a thousand variations on a theme of compression and distortion, predispose us to a host of musculo-skeletal ailments. They also constitute a “pre-stressing” of yourself, so that margins for coping with the day-to-day external stresses are narrower. They are almost always implicated in any sort of overuse injury. Becoming aware of what your familiar “norm” consists of, discovering previously unnoticed “holding patterns”, provides a choice and a way out of the monkey-trap of habit.
A desk-bound worker is highly likely to be placing demands on their arms and shoulders. But how much are they tightening elsewhere at the same time? Are they, for example, tightening their legs in such a way that their lower back is obliged to clench, thus affecting support and strength for the arms and shoulders? Might they be tightening around the ribcage, constricting the breathing and similarly unintentionally withdrawing support and strength from the shoulders and arms? Are they holding their head off-balance and then requiring compensatory tension elsewhere, or even using some muscles to pull it down whilst trying to “sit up straight”? Exhausting stuff! Sound silly? It is silly. It is also a tremendous waste of effort and a virtually guaranteed route to injury.
The Alexander Technique can add another dimension to our understanding of how we work. By paying attention to the small but significant things which you can influence right now, you bring the bigger picture and the longer-term picture under control. Learning greater control of that inner, muscular environment provides an on-going tool for life. Improving your use of yourself, raising the standard of your “norm”, your pattern of muscular pulls, can allow injuries a chance to heal and prevent their recurrence.
© M Stenning, Canberra 1997
by Freedom in Action | Aug 2, 2018 | Articles
The connections and interdependence of parts related to the voice are complex and multi-layered. The larynx is suspended from the skull in a cat’s cradle of muscle and ligament. Thus head balance may affect the larynx, while the skull finds a balance on top of the occipital condyles, potentially affected by a multiplicity of forces: The collar bones are attached to the back of the skull (via sternocleidomastoid) and also to the ribs which in turn can be pulled upon prodigiously from below, indirectly pulling on the skull and also influencing the action of the diaphragm via the ribs. This again implicates head balance and the relationship of head and trunk. The tongue, attached to the hyoid bone, is also influenced by this relationship, as is the jaw. Even the way the shoulders rest (or not) upon the ribs again influences the neck, and the balance of the skull, which directly affects the suspension of the larynx as well as the responsiveness of the ribs to the need for air. Any particular part exists as an element in a complex ecology of balance and coordination. It is easy for things to go wrong.
How to take care of this complexity? How to know where to start?
From the outside it may all look like “posture”. But posture also relates to balance and to muscular tension. Everyone has an idea of “good posture” but usually admit that they don’t maintain it. Posture itself is judged from the inside, highly subjectively. We hold ourselves and move in ways that can be highly idiosyncratic, yet they feel completely “normal”. “Normal” may include regular pain, accepted as “normal”, breathing restrictions which go unnoticed because they are “normal”, postural issues – “that’s just the way I stand…”, even hoarseness and loss of voice under certain circumstances. Again a question: how can I get perspective on my “normal”?
The Alexander Technique is often associated with posture, but it is often forgotten that it all started with F M Alexander’s vocal difficulties. His teaching career began in the 1890’s with actors who had seen and heard Alexander on stage, wanting to improve their vocal production and breathing. Then they began to notice other, unexpected benefits.
If we do not misuse what we have, it tends to work fine. Misuse (of ourselves) can make the difference between a performer with vocal limitations or even damage, and one without. What Alexander discovered was how to regain the simplicity and uncomplicatedness in “posture” that we had as infants. Posture is perhaps an inadequate term, since we are talking about attitude of our bodies and relationships between parts of bodies as we move through our day. It can be useful to think about this in terms of how we support ourselves against gravity, as we move through all of our activities. We each develop a characteristic way of moving and supporting ourselves against gravity. We tend to acquire layers of misuse over the years, unconsciously creating interference with what is easy and natural. It can be seen in our posture, how we move, how we breathe and even how we sound. It can levy a hidden strain on everything we do and create apparent limits to good technique in any activity.
It is recognised that “good posture” is a good idea and that posture affects breathing and sound. What is not so deeply understood is the relationship between postural support, breathing and movement. The Alexander Technique of neuro-muscular re-education gives us a sophisticated means of unravelling and re-connecting these; gradually acquiring our maximum height with a minimum of effort (no effortful “standing up straight”), which allows us to move freely and allows our breathing to be entirely responsive to the demands placed on it (rather than being something separate or special that we do). Under these circumstances of easy length and space with the absence of unnecessary tension, freedom and support for the vocal apparatus is a natural and inevitable part of the package.
The Alexander Technique is taught in leading Performing Arts institutions around the world as a way of both cultivating vocal skills and of ongoing care of the professional voice. Singers and actors as diverse as Emma Kirkby, Sting, Paul McCartney, Hugh Jackman, Judi Dench and Mara have found that lessons in the Alexander Technique have helped them either to recover from vocal difficulties or else to maintain their performing edge.
The Alexander Technique provides a basis in good (body-)use, ie integrated whole-body coordination, to encourage a system that does not get in its own way, allowing the possibility to better acquire or use vocal skills. It is a proven basis for vocal health in everyday life and for care of the professional voice.
The Australian Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique (AUSTAT) is the largest professional organization of teachers of the Alexander Technique in Australia. AUSTAT-certified teachers have completed a minimum three-year full-time training. Email: [email protected] Phone: 1300 788 540
Michael Stenning, [email protected]
© Canberra 2013
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by Freedom in Action | Jul 3, 2018 | Case studies
I want to talk to you about graceful ageing, and active, healthy living.
Applying good form to exercise and sport makes it fun and more enjoyable, and you can keep getting better. The AT helps you to do stuff better. I have been giving Alexander lessons to a man in his fifties called Nigel, a long-time practitioner of various Martial Arts. He is very strong and centred, but was having a few hip pain issues. These have fallen away as he has learnt to reorient and redirect unnecessary tension into poise, ease and grace. In his lessons, we worked on his becoming aware of the subtle bracing around his hips as he adopted his basic pose. As he paid attention to reducing this bracing, his Tai Chi became even smoother. He is physically more comfortable than he was. Best of all, the principles which he has learnt can be applied to any of the everyday things we all do. Nigel’s hip-bracing habit is a common one, acquired in the quest for grounded stability, and arises as a confusion between groundedness and downward-pulling tension.
Rachel, also in her fifties, visits the gym regularly to do circuits, weights and stretching. By paying attention to her breathing, and by approaching both the strength work and the stretches a little more gently, she found she was looser, less sore, yet still getting all the aerobic and strength benefits of her workouts.
Michael is in his mid-50’s, and had an absolute ball competing in a 42 km XC ski race at Fall’s Ck in August. He did a personal best and moved up the comparative rankings from previous years. Training is important, but even more important is good form – ie well-coordinated movement. (You should expect nothing less from a teacher of the Alexander Technique!)
The underlying theme here in Alexanderspeak is “Good Use”. The Alexander Technique gives us a generic definition of good form, and the means to acquire it. The AT is there to apply anywhere, doing anything. Applying good form in everyday living reduces unnecessary strain and it looks better! It helps you to live better for longer.
by Freedom in Action | Jul 3, 2018 | Case studies
John G, a senior public servant in his 50’s, had chronic back pain. He had been to his GP, an orthopedic specialist, two physiotherapists and a Chinese-trained doctor. A cat scan had revealed two prolapsed discs. John had been particularly diligent with an exercise/stretching program, and with trying hard to maintain “good posture”. While previous treatments had resulted in some improvement, particularly in regard to flexibility, there was still lots of low back and hip pain; on walking, sitting or standing, in each case within minutes. As it turned out, a great deal of John’s pain stemmed from the excessive effort required to maintain his overly rigid “good posture”. John’s concept of “correct posture” involved lots of tension and rigidity.
Initially the Technique brought: (1) release from pain, and (2) a feeling of well being. John also noticed a looseness/freedom in the limbs which was new. John learned how to be upright (i.e. good posture) without excessive tension or “holding up”. This meant he was in less pain, and movement was freer.
There was a positive reaction from others to both his general well being and the fact that his posture had so clearly improved. “I now play tennis 2-3 times a week and ride my bike – these are activities which I haven’t done for 10 years, which I had been told I would never be able to do again. I couldn’t contemplate being able to do these activities even 3 months ago.”
by Freedom in Action | Jul 3, 2018 | Case studies
Forty-six year-old Debra C started Alexander Technique lessons to see if it would help her chronic neck pain. She had bulging discs in her neck, and tenosynovitis extending back over three years.
Debra learned to make links between her (controllable) habits of use of herself, and the functioning which they affect. She was able to progressively reduce the vice-like grip her muscles had held on her neck, allowing it to find a less strained position. Neck pain, a constant companion for the preceding 3 years, gradually disappeared. Her arms became significantly less painful. She was able to sit comfortably for longer and able to write more freely. An unexpected further benefit was a very noticeable increase in energy, as she learned to not invest energy in unproductive and pain-inducing tension.
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