Why We're Here

Reasons for learning the Alexander Technique vary significantly between people. It’s one of the most interesting, yet seemingly ‘woo woo’ things about the practice; people learn it to address so many different aspects of their lives.

Sometimes the reason is to get out of pain. Sometimes it’s looking for the edge in performance. Sometimes it’s curiosity. Sometimes it’s being encouraged (or forced) by a loving family member to fix your posture.

But what really matters for the student hoping make a change is not the reason for starting, but the reason to continue with their self-practice. For doing the honest observation to get clear on what you’re actually doing with yourself as you move in your life; for putting in the real work to build the skill necessary to integrate the practice into your movements, postures, and reactions; and for stepping up to make new choices for how you embody yourself and act in the world - over and over again.

Sometimes finding motivation to practice is easy because it gives you the immediate reward of feeling better or because it takes you away from pain. But sometimes to continue you practice can challenge your motivation - to become aware of what you’re doing, and to face it head on with new choices can be psychologically and physically (psychophysically) hard. To continue to make these new choices, away from old habits - towards where you want to go and where you want to grow - sometimes requires a deep level of drive.

Because of this, your reasons to continue your practice matter so much more that the one that brought your there in the first place.

Why we’re here:

Practice empowers us to help ourselves
It empowers us to be more responsible for aspects of ourselves that we can be more responsible for -
We can’t control everything in our lives (and the Alexander Technique is not a magic cure to address all our issues), but we can absolutely build so much more awareness and choice in how we embody ourselves and shape the actions and movements we do - especially those that ones limit us. And this often takes care of quite a lot.

Practice helps us connect to the big picture when our focus narrows down -
The Alexander Technique helps us organize our whole self in action; we learn to see how any one part (physical or mental) occurs within a larger overall pattern of your entire self in action. The practice of opening vs. narrowing our attention can positively influence many aspects of behaviour and action, our experience of the environment around us, and thus our lives; often addressing our specific issue along the way.

Practice gives us a way to stay more present in everyday life -
The Alexander Technique can only be practiced in the present moment - our health history and issues, and our concerns about what we think the future holds for us really aren't in question. In practice, those take us away from where we need our attention to be; which is using our moment by moment awareness and intention to figure out what we’re actually doing with ourselves, and to create something new right now.

Practice offers an endless source of new starts and a unlimited means to grow -
The Alexander Technique opens up the opportunity to use any single moment to develop and express more skilled awareness, choice, and enhanced coordination; to make new choices in line with a fuller expression of ourselves and abilities. Any moment becomes an opportunity for a new start, to advance your learning, and to tap into a never ending source of growth towards your fullest potential.

Habit Loops Part 1

Although there’s no magic pill to change habits, you can change your habit loops.

Different strategies to change your habit loops are usually related to the work of psychologist B.F. Skinner who described our behaviours as a series of responses to different stimuli. (*note: habit loops is only an informal or popular term helpful for practice, not a scientific!)

You can think of this as the simplest form of a habit loop:

STIMULUS -> RESPONSE

A stimulus happens (also know as a cue or trigger), which is followed by a response.

For example, by ringing a bell just before he fed his dogs, B.F Skinner created a connection (or habit loop) between the stimulus (ring a bell) and the response (dog salivates to get ready to eat). After a while this habit loop became established so that when he rung the bell (stimulus), the dogs would automatically salivate (response)…even without the food being there.

This model helps us to understand our automatic behaviours (habit loops), but to understand how this model connects to our movement let’s look at something called reflex theory.

Reflex Theory: Stimulus - Response and Movement

Way back in the late 1800s and early 1900s before B.F Skinner (when F.M Alexander was first developing his work) a neuroscientist named Charles Sherrington laid the foundation for a theory of motor control (of how we move) that later became know as Reflex Theory. Although outdated today, this theory became the popular way that Alexander Technique teachers explained their work pedagogically. Reflex theory gives you a way to think about how the stimulus - response model works with movement; and it goes something like this:

Our complex behaviours are built up of combinations (or chains) of reflexes that happen automatically in response to a stimuli. Once a stimulus happens to you, then a bunch of reflexes happen in a sequence. Together these reflexes act as the building blocks to create your movements and behaviours.

From the simplest reflex (i.e your leg kicks up when your doctor taps your knee with a hammer *this is still correct), the theory was extrapolated out to explain all complex behaviours we do. Today we know this is the full picture of how we function. The problem with reflex theory is that it doesn’t fully explain many of things we can do such as making very fast or voluntary movements (to name just one thing). Still, keeping it in mind can be a helpful pedagogical tool to simplify your Alexander self practice. Here’s how.

Pattern Interrupt: Creating a New Loop

One way to develop your Alexander Technique practice is to think of it as a game: Interrupt your old habit loops - and create a new loop.

For example:

Old Habit Loop:

1. Stimulus - Sit in the chair: Have little or no conscious awareness of the stimulus (action is on autopilot).

2. Response: Compress and tighten yourself as your lower into the chair (or whatever your specific habits are); end up sitting in a collapsed way.

3. Result: Old habit loop is completed and you get what you always got.

New Loop:

1. Stimulus - Sit in the chair: Step one is you have to become aware of the stimulus - enough to catch it in the act.

2. Pattern Interrupt: Stop off your old response before it gets you in a knot; and instead use inhibition/ direction to influence yourself to go UP (to un-compress or expand from head to toe).

3. Response: Continue to give the new intentions to open UP as you lower into the chair.

4. Result: Experience yourself moving and sitting in a new (often more poised) way.

The practice is to run this pattern interrupt game over and over until your conscious awareness and intention for the new loop to occur is skilled enough to move beyond the tremendous force of habit (your old loop) - to thus consciously shape your coordination and self in a new direction.

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Summary

• Although there’s no magic pill for habits, you can change your habit loops.

• Most habit change models are based on the stimulus - response loop

• Reflex Theory says our behaviours are made up of a whole stack of reflexes that happen in response to a stimulus. This model is limited because it doesn’t explain voluntary movement, but has some practical use as a way to practically explore the connection between our habits of movement and posture and the stimuli in our lives.

• One way to develop your Alexander Technique practice is to play a game in which you interrupt your old habit loops - and create a new ‘loop’.

• Every new movement, every new stimulus you encounter, every action you do is another opportunity to break your old habit loop and to develop the skill of your new loop - and to shape a new you in the process.

Sensorimotor Habits

Habits are largely unconscious automated behaviours that our brain uses to help us navigate life.

They’re shortcuts that have (at some point) helped us, and now run in a loop - sometimes helping us, sometimes limiting us from something better.

Of course we all like to feel in control, but the reality is that unconscious habits shape us more so much more than we are aware of. Habits direct much of our lives, and we have much less choice in the matter than we’d be comfortable to admit.

The Alexander Technique fundamentally deals with habit change; with increasing our ability to choose. Or perhaps more accurately, to exert more influence over ourselves - to direct us towards where we want to go while simultaneously directing us away from where we don’t want to go (the previous habit).

Sensorimotor Habits

At it’s core the Alexander Technique doesn’t aim to teach you how to improve broad habits such of flossing your teeth or not eating that cookie every time you see the bag on your counter. Instead, it deals with what we can call sensorimotor habits.

Our sensorimotor system processes sensory messages (such as vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch, vestibular, and proprioception) and produces responses (motor outputs - such as making goal directed movements or adjusting postural tone to maintain balance).

Sensorimotor habits relate to how we integrate our sensations and movements.

These habits are the unique ways we move, balance ourselves, perform skills and actions, manage our attention and awareness, and experience and integrate sensations of ourselves and the environments around us. Through this they’re fundamentally connected to all your other broader habits.

Sensorimotor habits can be thought of as how you embody yourself in action: A keystone or core group of habits that make up all our actions. Because of this they are part of everything you do - exercising, performing on stage, washing the dishes, sitting at the computer, meeting new people at a party…everything.

Just One Habit

One way to simplify your Alexander Technique practice is to make progress on just one habit: The unconscious habit of compressing yourself (or pulling yourself down) as you move and do your activities.

One single habit, that we’re consistently unaware of, done in very personal ways, in pretty much everything we do.

Sure there are countless variations (different environments, balance, awareness, unique way of embodying ourselves, etc..) but keeping it simple can still be a great place to start.

For example, the simple act of drinking coffee:

We compress the torso onto itself and collapse forwards; compress the head backwards onto the spine which compresses the full length of your spine; squeeze our shoulders upwards and into the body as we bring the cup towards us to take a sip; and pull/ compress your neck forwards and downwards as we take a sip.

The opposite is un-compressing, expanding, or tapping into the opening upwards with gravity response - cultivating dynamic postural tone and balance in yourself in any movement or activity:

Un-compress the torso and open upwards from your points of balance; undo the squeeze of your head from the top of your spine as you reach for the cup; let your shoulder rest to the side and remain easeful as you bring the cup towards you to take a sip; allow your neck to lengthen upwards in space away from your base of support as you take a sip. Savour and enjoy.

This is a simple, but challenging practice. Real progress is made through the accumulation of many small 1% changes each day in this single habit: 1% less unconscious compression, 1% more awareness in activity, and 1% more conscious un-compression or expansion; small changes that become exponential over time.

From Parts To Whole

USE…was Alexander’s term to describe how your entire self acts as an integrated whole in any activity. Any specific part occurs as part of the pattern of activity of your entire self (whole body balance, cognitive/ mental aspects, body or physical responses etc..).

For example, say you want to move your arm to reach in front of you to grab something. To do so requires changes in balance and tensions throughout your whole self; all integrated and executed as mental processes by your brain and nervous system; all overlaid with previous learning and experiences of doing it before in environments like the one you’re in; and all to a greater or lesser degree influenced by your current emotional state etc..

In other words, the use of any one part of you occurs within a larger overall pattern of your entire self in action.

Learning to understand (kinaesthetically) how any single action you make is integrated into a larger pattern of how you use your entire self is real shift: From parts thinking, to whole thinking.

It’s About The How

The Alexander Technique can be hard to describe because it’s not about what you do, it’s about how you do it.

Although it informs, the Alexander Technique leaves the choice of activity (or response) up to you.

It doesn’t have mandatory movements, patterns, or physical exercises. Instead, the Alexander Technique brings practical intelligence to the things you choose to do; to include more skilled use of yourself in activity - and to grow through the process.

But should I exercise? What about Tai chi? Bodyweight Training? Dance? Meditation? Etc.. Are these in line with the Alexander Technique?

Yes.

Because it deals with balance, posture, movement, and awareness of how thought and physical responses interact it can be applied to a surprising number of things. Most activities you choose can become a framework for your practice.

These things might include work tasks, performance, exercise, communication and social interaction, or everyday activities and movements.

The difference from how you normally do these activities is that instead of doing them unconsciously - you practice placing just enough attention on yourself in activity (in particular to your neck-head-back in relation to your ground) to foster the whole body response as you do these things.

This practice acts like a flashlight to your awareness to help you discover the personal ways you may be limiting yourself through overly compressing/ collapsing/ or tensing yourself in these actions. To discover how you get in the way of your full stature, and to influence a change in the pattern of your movements and action through conscious attention (to encourage the whole self to respond with length and expansion) is the game.

Going ‘UP’

Going ‘Up’ is a fundamental experience of the Alexander Technique.

Cultivating this ‘whole body response’ is a central aim of both the Alexander Technique lesson and of a personal Alexander Technique practice; and how to tap into this response during your everyday life is a real skill.

To describe the experience with words always falls short, but it’s helpful to work towards a shared understanding. John Nichols, an Alexander Technique teacher in New York describes it as,

” ….this natural, whole body response to gravity so that from the contact of your feet on the ground you’re opening up all the way through. You have this springy dynamic that takes you up through your spine and opens you through the thorax, the back of the shoulders, the hips, everything is coming up and out in response to the contact of the feet on the surface of the planet.”

Going ‘Up’ can also seem elusive in that you can’t get directly. Instead, the response shows up (or emerges) when your attention and attitude, biomechanics and muscle tone, inhibition and activation of various aspects of our motor commands and movement, all come together together with just the right timing in just the right way.

But once you consciously set up the conditions to tap into this whole body response - you go ‘Up’.

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Here are a few more things people notice about it

• It often comes with a feeling (kinaesthetic perception) of lightness; as if you’re lighter in weight or ‘floating’ in your movement.

• The experience is of it happening to you, with you, or through you - as opposed to you doing it. It seems to be an unconscious process, which can be cultivated by conscious processes.

• It makes you more, rather than less ready for movement and response.

• You lighten upwards instead of pulling up.

• It leads to a state of being more open and responsive to yourself and the environment as a single unified experience.

• The experience is sometimes described as opening up, unravelling, getting taller without pushing, or blooming like a flower

• It’s expanding the self vs. compressing the self; as in expanding into the space around you (height, width, and depth).

• Under touch, the person ‘going up’ feels lighter and easier to guide or move - like a responsive dancer as opposed to a collapsed or overly tight dance partner.

• It often occurs with state of open focus as opposed to a narrowed focus

• It’s clearly not yet communicated to others well without direct raw experience, nor accessed easily enough by students without significant skill

• For most students it is a self-reinforcing experience; it feels good so you want more of it, or want the feeling to remain. Sometime the experience is so unique in sensation that the simple judgment of good or bad simply doesn’t match what students feel.

• It can stay through further change and growth, but once you try to hold onto and keep it the same you loose it

• It can feel like a reflex because it can ‘happen’ in a sudden moment - but through reflexes may play a part, it’s not just a reflex, it’s more that!

• It can occur in a huge range of positions and movements - that includes standing up, ying down, and everything in between.

• It’s opposite includes all the various forms of compression (through pulling down or collapse, or tightening/ constriction in movement, posture, and reaction etc..).

• Once you’ve had the experience of ‘going up’, it becomes much easier to talk about the Alexander Technique, to read an Alexander Technique book and know what in the world the author is getting at, and to articulate at least one clear result of the practice.

• Going ‘UP’ is not exclusive to the Alexander Technique.

Pause the Prediction

Perception is our belief of what happened.

It’s the combination of the unconscious prediction of our movements and the world around us, with our self observations*.

When our prediction and our observation combine to create and determine a perception, we generally feel we know what happened. But what happens when we pause the prediction?

Given that prediction in movement is involuntary, this likely isn’t possible. But what if we simply remove the whole idea of the act from our minds before (and as) we act?

Talking but not talking…

Walking but not walking…

Playing the piano but not playing the piano…

This concept seems totally crazy… until it happens. Artists, athletes, and people of all backgrounds have describe something similar when in a state of flow - when things just ‘happen to you’ or ‘happen through you’.

So what happens when you pause the prediction? Where does the ball land?

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* Biological Learning and Control: Shadmehr and Mussa-Ivaldi).

Muscle Tone, States, and Dancers

One way to simplify how you think about the way you carry yourself is to imagine possible dance partners: The collapsed/ sluggish dance partner; The tight/ stiff dance partner; The disconnected dance partner; or the responsive dance partner.

Collapsed / Sluggish

The contact you feel with the collapsed dancer is that of heaviness. When they still (such as sitting or standing without movement) they are under-engaged and often look or feel compressed, deflated, or like a ton of bricks. Imagine trying to pick someone up who doesn’t want to be picked up…they can’t be moved.

Tight / Stiff

This person is doing the opposite of the collapsed/ sluggish dancer; It’s as if they’re trying to hold themselves off the floor. They’re over engaged and often look or feel tight, strained, anxious or inflexible. The interesting thing is that they can also feel heavy, but in a different way; they too can’t easily be moved (internally or externally).

Disconnected

This person is often a mixture of the two above: They’re both collapsed and sluggish in some parts of themselves and tight or stiff in others. They’re often quite flexible in some areas, while very rigid in others. Moving with them, or dancing with them, really relies heavily on your own coordination/organization as a way to create the consistency (or framework) for their easeful movement - if you’re heavy, tight, or disconnected yourself, then the other person will be difficult to move with.

Responsive

The responsive dancer feels toned, attentive, calm, and ready to move. They’re not leaning on you for support so you don’t feel weighed down by them, and they’re not stiff so they don’t block movement. The seem like they’re listening to your every move and thought, and to their own internal intentions. They’re present and they emanate presence. They feel light under your touch but not flimsy or held, and when you move together they respond quickly and without the need to ‘get ready’ - they’re already there but they’re not far ahead of your movement - you get to be a part of a dance with them.

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In life we all have our habitual states that follow one of the above characters more than the others. It may even be the case that we need all these different states to navigate life.

Moreover, we often flow in-between these states as we embody ourselves in action; sometimes we even combine them in different ways (For instance: Heavy and collapsed but then held tightly or pulled down in a compressed way).

Nonetheless, there seems to be a certain aliveness that comes when being in the state of responsiveness that is a truly remarkable way to live. Like the curiosity of a toddler in motion looking around and responding to the world in flow.

Cultivating thought, intentions, and practices to access more responsiveness from head to toe in yourself is a game worth playing.