Articles

"Getting Started With the
Alexander Technique the Hard Way "
by Jamee Culbertson, Dan Arsenault and David Arsenault

Editor's note: Contributions to this story come from three authors as noted as you read along.

(Dan): The irony is not lost on me. When I got the phone call from my sister-in-law Laurie that my brother David had been in a bad car accident, I was just getting ready for an Alexander Technique lesson with my teacher, Jamee Culbertson. It was the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday, the start of a four-day weekend. I'm sure I was not an apt pupil at that lesson, but, on my way out, Jamee offered to see David as soon as he was well enough.

(David): I had a car accident on November 25, 1998. I broke both my hips and shattered my right kneecap. While I was recovering at home I had a visiting nurse and a physical therapist but it was obvious to those who knew me that I was really uncomfortable, not in any undue pain but my body no longer seemed to fit very well. My brother told me he knew someone who did something called the Alexander Technique, and he thought it might help. I met Jamee two weeks later and began lessons. From the first few minutes it was clear to me that this was helping me a great deal. Like many people who have had massive trauma, I felt deli-cate and tense, as if I was trying to hold myself together by brute force. The lessons have taught me to find the time and to allow myself the room to move freely. Jamee would frequently talk about making some room in the joints and allowing me
to find my proper place.

(Jamee): When I first went to see David he was at home in a hospital bed recovering from his injuries. I wanted to approach him easily and gently at first without much overt movement until I found out what his limitations were. He had had surgery on both hips and his right knee and there remained a consid-erable amount of hardware inside keeping him together to aid in the healing process. He suffered temporary nerve damage in his left leg, which left him unable to flex his foot very far. While we were saying our hellos, I assessed just how I wanted to approach working with him in the most cooperative way. The head of the bed was up against the wall so I couldn't put my hands directly on his head and neck right away. There were movable brackets on both sides of the bed but it seemed the most unobtrusive to begin at his feet. I pulled up a chair and began at his left side making contact with David through his feet. There was no inter- ference in David's ability to access his postural reflex, what F.M. Alexander calls the primary control, "that which governs the working of all the mechanisms and so renders the control of the complex human organism comparatively simple, it depends upon a certain use of the head and neck in relation to the use of the rest of the body" (quoted from The Use Of the Self, pp. 59-60). The Primary Control is a first and primary movement that allows for a freedom of movement throughout. Head-neck reflexes are the central mechanism that orients us to our environment. It is "the primary relation upon which all more ultimate relations depend." (Frank Jones, Body Awareness in Action pp. 60). David first noticed a lengthening along his left side as a sigh of relief came over him. He moved to stretch a bit and discovered that he could flex his foot farther than he could before.

(Dan): After passing the life or death stage there is a natural tendency to rely on the wisdom of the medical professionals. While I knew what benefit David could derive from Alexander lessons, I'm sure David would have been highly circumspect about doing anything that his medical team did not know about and approve. The key here was an enlightened physical therapist.

(David): I told my physical therapist what I was learning at the lessons and she approved heartily. She had heard of the Technique and knew it to be beneficial. She thought that in conjunction with doing the prescribed exercises the Technique would allow me to use myself to my best advantage and allow my recovery to proceed faster.

(Jamee): David was finding a great deal of relief in the lessons. The first report was more mobility with his left foot, a decrease in his pain medication and finally, a good night's sleep! David has a growing understanding of what Alexander called "Inhibition," an awareness of indirect action, a decision to cease giving permission to habitual unconscious reactions. "In the presence of a stimulus to move, inhibition facilitates lengthening of the spine and adds to the efficiency of the movement. Too quick a response will shorten muscles in the neck and prevent the lengthening of the spine." (Frank Jones Body Awareness in Action pp. 149.) Inhibition has allowed David to learn to bring conscious choice into his response to the stimulus created by his desires. At first we worked with his reaction to the pain he was experiencing so that his reaction to the pain would not make his overall experience worse. "The Alexander Technique is the only method of improving human use and functioning which teaches an indirect method of consciously preventing interference with one's best use and functioning and is the only method where its teachers consciously use these principles at the same time they are teaching the Technique to others." (Quoted from the ATI Professional Development Committee report on the ATI web site, www.ati-net.com.)

(David): Around Christmas I was allowed to stand, and at the end of January I began to learn how to walk again. The Technique was very helpful in these early stages. In the beginning walking was very awkward. My legs did not feel as if they belonged to me and would obey very few commands. I had a walker at first and crutches a week later, but even in this sort of condition the Technique helped. I needed to be conscious all the time of my position and how I wanted to move. Jamee and I discussed the rare opportunity that presented itself in learning how to walk almost from the very start but with an adult sensibility and the Technique to apply. It was mid-March when I traded in my crutches for canes. We kept doing lessons all along and by the time I could stand a little straighter on my canes I was ready to do so. Although most of my lesson happens with me reclined we always focus on the kinetic aspects of the Technique and as I became more kinetic it helped more and more. This last week I have been able to discard my last cane, I had been walking with one cane for the last month. At all these stages there has been improvement in my posture and in the way I use my hips to move. As I learn to control my muscles again and as the strength comes back into them it becomes ever more important to apply the things I have learned. I get both lazy and occasionally stupid and forget to apply what I know, but fortunately there is a price to be paid almost immediately so I tend to remember more often.
I am about half way through my recovery now, but I hope I am only starting to learn the Alexander Technique. As I continue to grow stronger and better I hope to apply what I learn to improve how I use my body. I am an amateur actor so I hope to be able to apply some of the Technique to my work on stage. I am in a fall production so we shall see how well I have learned. There are so many things to try to remember when one is on stage that the Technique will have to be well ingrained. I am also a piledriver and I hope to get back to work around Thanksgiving if the doctor gives the O.K. This will be the real test for me. The type of construction work I do can be very demanding, but I feel certain that I will be able to do it again.
I am waiting somewhat impatiently to see how the Technique will affect the way I per-form both on stage and at work, but also how it will be when I really am recovered. I hope that I can learn to do things wholly and with better focus so I can enjoy the act in each case for itself. We shall see.

(Dan): It goes without saying that David's trauma was not his alone. His wife, Laurie has, understandably, had a lot to deal with over the last several months. From bedpans to helpful relatives, from finances to somehow finding the strength to continue. Laurie has also been taking Alexander lessons with Jamee. It has been of equal benefit to her, I believe, although in a much different way. Laurie, I think, sees the Technique as a treat for her body and soul. She typically can't wait for her next lesson.

(Jamee): During Laurie's first lesson she said with tears in her eyes, "This is the first deep breath I've had in weeks!"

They continue to be apt students and are making their way through this challenging time together.

"Alexander Technique and Aging Well"

by Andrea M. Matthews
Alexander Technique Teacher and
member of Alexander Technique International

"Most of us, including members of the medical and educational professions, tend to look on pain and illness as natural concomitants of the stresses of living and old age. But such stresses are caused by uncoordinated movements which accelerate the process of ageing."

This simple but seemingly radical idea is at the heart of what the Alexander Technique offers. In our culture, we are constantly told that age and gravity work against us, grinding us inevitably down into decrepitude and immobility. This scenario is based on a misreading of how we are constructed to process gravity. Rather than compressing ourselves by our own weight into the earth like a column, we are actually ingeniously built to process gravity by means of reflexes that in fact suspend us lightly off the planet. Rather than gravity pulling us down, gravity serves to project us up into life and activity.

Despite these widespread and hampering ideas about age and gravity, older persons are seeking the means to improve their quality of life, to cope with concerns that seem to limit their activities more each day, and to retain their independence and mobility. By means of a few simple principles, thoughtful and non-strenuous movement, and the development in students of their ability to self-observe and gradually take responsibility for how they choose to move, the Alexander Technique provides a powerful answer.

A great strength of the Technique is its ability to address the whole student as an organic system, avoiding the trap of an unending series of specific "fixes." By starting with the reflexive system of the head and neck that F.M. Alexander (who developed the Technique a century ago) termed the "Primary Control," the Technique addresses indirectly a host of related issues in well-being and movement. His empirical discovery that this primary control (a certain dynamic relationship, rather than a fixed position of the head and neck) controls the balance and coordination of the entire organism was later confirmed by scientific studies of vertebrate movement.

Alexander discovered that from a very young age and continuing through life, most of us learn unwittingly to interfere with our mechanisms of balance, starting by contracting the muscles in the area where our heads rest on our necks. Because natural balance and coordination are immediately impaired by this interference, a series of "compensations" arises, further distorting coordination. Instead of being a poised and available system "tuned" by a balanced distribution of tonus and compression throughout, we learn to feel "normal" as a discontinuous collection of some slack and other excessively tensed parts that we must heave around like so many bricks. It never seems to strike us as peculiar that we even find it harder and harder to get out of a chair!

As time goes by, the imbalance becomes ever more pronounced, and is fed by the very fear of falling that it engenders. Moving our joints against the forces tending to immobilize them generates tremendous wear and tear, leading to pain and injury. We realize, without knowing how or why, that we have somehow become stiff, top-heavy, unstable and less able to respond flexibly. Fear of being injured in a fall ironically makes us tense up more, increasing those qualities that make us unstable. Balance and falling become major concerns, and often, major limitations.

* neck pinched

* head pulled back and down

* stiffening

* cantilevered, top-heavy, out of balance, static, braced

Fig. 1 This person's head is pulled back and down, interfering with reflexes of balance and coordination, forcing rest of body to compensate with bracing and stiffness, in order to prevent falling forward. This is only one example of the forms that distorted balance can take, but they all begin with a disruption of the balance of the head on the neck. Such a posture as this can only work in that position and offers no responsiveness to change of any kind, let alone an unexpected one. Such vulnerability leads to fear and even more interfering tension.

Restoring Balance

Fortunately, Alexander also discovered that it is possible to interrupt and reverse this unhappy process. The delicate balance of the head and neck can be consciously restored, imparting balance and flexibility to our movements. With a slight change in how we think about what we're doing, we stop contracting our necks and pulling our heads back, the interference with the reflexes of balance ceases, the dynamic relationship of our head and neck restores itself, and our balance and confidence return.

In theory, this simple principle, that we should cease our interfering contractions, hardly seems revolutionary. It doesn't seem like it should be very hard to put into practice, either. Nor would it be in practice, were it not for this paradoxical obstacle: Habit. The very thing we are trying to prevent is what feels "right," and has become an ingrained habit. It is often only when we attempt to change such a habit that we realize how shockingly resistant it can be to alteration, because we are constantly seduced by its feeling of rightness. It seems so natural to strive to be "right." And so unnatural not to!

For this reason, the benefits of the Alexander Technique are much more easily attained through the help of a teacher who can objectively observe how the student actually moves and uses himself. Gradually the student also learns to catch how he "gets set" to move and learns to inhibit (to interrupt, not repress) that impulse, allowing the movement to be carried out with natural, unimpeded grace. The philosopher John Dewey, himself an enthusiastic student and supporter of Alexander, called this skill of using conscious awareness to cooperate rather than interfere with reflex coordination, "Thinking in Activity."

A Rising Tide

Because Alexander Technique resists the temptation of chasing down and fixing particular "symptoms" such as stiffness, pain, and fear of falling, in favor of addressing the fundamental interference that generates those symptoms, it sets off a wave of indirect benefits of value to all students, and in particular to older students. Young people tend to have a greater latitude for error and misuse than older persons, and thus can "afford" more excess tension and interference. Those who are older or suffer from illness have a decreased margin for error and thus need to regain every degree of flexibility possible. The rising tide of balance and flexibility set off by use of the Technique lifts many "boats." The relief of pressure and redistribution of tonus at the head and neck is transmitted throughout the body,

* restoring poise and balance, helping to prevent falls

* increasing flexibility at joints and reducing excessive pull on bones, lessening damage when falls do occur

* helping to regain and maintain mobility

* increasing economy of movement by re-enlisting normal antigravity reflexes of the body, improving stamina and lightness

* promoting ease in activities from the simple and routine, such as rising out of a chair, to the more complex, such as lifting, reaching, golfing, gardening, etc.

As movement becomes less effortful and pressure is taken off joints and organs, the student's general well-being is enhanced. She will often experience:

* improved breathing

* improved organ function

* improved digestion and absorption

* lowered blood pressure

It is important to note that in addition to heart problems, high blood pressure is now found to be associated, along with lack of activity, with bone loss. By reducing blood pressure and making physical activity more pleasurable and manageable, Alexander Technique may also contribute to retention of bone mass.

* improved ability to cope with chronic illness and/or pain

For example, arthritis sufferers benefit from the Technique also because it reduces pressure on joints and promotes activity. Studies are also being conducted on patients with Parkinson's disease that indicate improvement in movement and outlook.

The human organism being indivisible in its physical and psychological aspects (its "psychophysical unity," in Alexander's words), such apparently bodily improvements immediately manifest as emotional benefits to the person as well. Improved physical function and balance

* lessen anxiety

* improve mood and sense of well-being

* restore independence and a sense of self-determination

* restore natural coordination, control and choice

* reconnect the individual with a feeling of support both from within and from the environment

A Means for All Seasons

Walter Carrington, a teacher of the Technique who trained with F.M. Alexander, stressed the value of the work for older students in a talk recorded in the book, Thinking Aloud.

I remember what was probably Alexander's last lesson, an old lady who had been a pupil of his for some years. She must have had quite a number of lessons, off and on, and she was quite old. Of course, so was he by then, he being nearly 87. The relevance of age is that people find that life becomes more difficult in all sorts of small, unexpected respects when they get older. They never thought or hesitated about climbing stairs and carrying things, or even lifting their hands up to a high shelf. The physical demands that you have taken for granted do become more difficult as you get older, and that is where you really need all the help you can get. Alexander help is particularly appreciated here. In fact, old age really is the testing time from the point of view of the Technique.

So here was this old lady and when F.M. finished the lesson, he patted her on the shoulder and said, "Now, my dear, see that you don't stiffen your neck, and see that you've always got something to look forward to." And that was the summary of the whole thing.

The Alexander Technique is not just for young professional athletes or performing artists, though they are often thought of as its primary beneficiaries and historically have been the first to recognize its enormous value. Ease of movement, confidence in balance, and enthusiasm for life's activities are our birthright as human beings at any age and it's never too late to start to reclaim them.

~~~~~~~~~

Richard Brennan, The Alexander Technique: Natural Poise for Health, Element Books, 1991, p. 49

The reasons for this are too numerous to go into in the space of this article, but have been discussed widely in other writings on the Alexander Technique. For more information, I recommend particularly Michael Gelb's book, Body Learning (Owl Books, Henry Holt & Co., 2nd ed., 1994). You can also find numerous informative articles and books listed at the website of Alexander Technique International at www.ati-net.com or call ATI at 1-888-321-0856.

One preliminary study that confirms these results in older students is: Dennis RJ; Functional reach improvement in normal older women after Alexander Technique instruction. (J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci, 1999 Jan, Abstract available) The outcome of the study was significantly improved balance and a reduction in falls.

Stallibrass C; An evaluation of the Alexander Technique for the management of disability in Parkinson's disease--a preliminary study. (Clin Rehabil, 1997 Feb, Abstract available))

And in particular with the knowledge, through experience, that real control stems not from clamping down and grasping at results, but rather from balance, clarity of intention, expansion of the organism, and trust of the ability of one's own reflex mechanism to respond appropriately to the demands of life.

Walter Carrington (Jerry Sontag, ed.), Thinking Aloud, Mornum Time Press, 1994, p. 136

©Andrea M. Matthews, 1999. This article may be copied for free distribution for the purpose of promoting the Alexander Technique, as long as authorial credit is given.

Can Alexander Technique Help Students Master
Tai Chi Chuan Practice?

by Bill Walsh and Holly Sweeney

First Published in T'AI CHI Magazine,
December 1997 Issue
Copyright (C) 1997, Bill Walsh and Holly Sweeney,
All rights reserved world-wide

Tai Chi Chuan study is popular among Alexander Technique practitioners. Some Alexander Technique training schools, like the F.M. Alexander Foundation in Philadelphia, include Tai Chi Chuan in their program design.

We would like to explore the relationship between Tai Chi Chuan and Alexander Technique and whether the study of Alexander Technique is complementary to the study of Tai Chi Chuan.

In Talks on the Practice of Taijiquan, recorded by Zhang Hongkui, Yang Chengfu enumerates ten essentials in the study of Tai Chi. First on the list is "Straightening the Head". When Yang Zhenduo, (Yang Chengfu's son and 4th generation Master of the Yang family), taught this year in New York and Texas, he began his seminars with an explanation of this first essential. He told students to begin with the head: centered, not leaning; empty; and lifted without tension. The neck should also be empty, he said. Bill asked Yang Zhenduo to explain what he meant by emptying the head and the neck. This was his answer:

The head is lifted as if supporting something. The neck is upright and lightly pressing up. The body in between pulls open and you are open and extended. This should not be done in a way that is stiff. When this is done correctly then your spirit can come up. Then your eyes are bright and shiny.

This description is strikingly similar to what is called the primary movement or primary control in the Alexander Technique. F.M. Alexander, the originator of the Technique, described his primary movement this way:
1. Let the neck be free (which means merely to see that you do not increase the muscle tension of the neck in any act).
2. Let the head go forward and up (which means merely to see that you do not tense the neck muscles by pulling the head back or down in any act.).
3. Let the torso lengthen and widen out (which means merely to see that you do not shorten and narrow the back by arching the spine).

Both of these descriptions appear to be talking about the same thing--a very specific movement of the head and neck, and an accompanying elongation of the spine. One subtle difference between Tai Chi Chuan andAlexander Technique is that Tai Chi Chuan describes the What and AlexanderTechnique focuses on the How. In fact, the skills learned in Alexander Technique are based on learning how to apply the primary head/neck movement to all activities: from going up and down stairs, to getting in and out of chairs, to practicing Tai Chi Chuan, to delivering a speech. It is an accepted fact of Alexander Technique study that it takes a long time to master this seemingly simple skill of natural head/neck/spine movement... and a lifetime to let it transform every move you make.

As a first step in the study of the Technique, Alexander students learn a process that lets them free their necks of tension. This process is taught through verbal instructions, demonstrations, and precise, delicate, hands-on guidance from Alexander teachers. Having studied this process, Alexander students then set out to practice balancing the head without tension during all of their daily activities. Whether working at the computer, brushing their teeth or dashing down the stairs, Alexander students strive to apply what they have learned about the primary movement, (or, in the language of Tai Chi Chuan, "the first essential"). Can you imagine the possibilities for improvement if you were to practice your Tai Chi Chuan every day, all day long?

This leads us to a second issue of importance, which is how we practice. Is it possible to believe we are practicing correctly and find out we are not? Absolutely! This is a common, though frustrating, part of the learning process when studying sophisticated movements such as Tai Chi Chuan. We have all seen students in Tai Chi Chuan classes being corrected by instructors and then seeming to continue practicing in the same incorrect way. Does this mean the student rejected the correction, or ignored it? Probably neither is the case. What is usually happening is that the student does not have a reliable enough sensory standard to guide him in making the change the teacher requested. Quite possibly the student thinks he is doing exactly what the teacher asked. Observers can see his mistake but the student cannot.

The problem described above is a central one in the Alexander Technique. Alexander gave this common phenomenon a name, unreliable sensory appreciation, and searched for teaching methods that would correct it. He realized that unreliable sensory appreciation was connected with our ideas and sense of what is "right" and what is "wrong". Alexander realized that what we think is "right" is based on our sensory feeling of correctness, and that this is based on our familiar habits of movement. These familiar habits become the standard by which we evaluate all of our movement experiences. If our standard is faulty, we have no way of knowing it, and we will not change our habits or standard until a new experience gives us a basis for comparison and evaluation. A practical example: observe the amount of muscle tension or effort needed to stand up from a seated position. We do this many times in a day, probably without noticing ourselves while we are doing it. If we consciously observe ourselves, however, we discover how much effort we are using. If we can perform the same task with less effort, then we obviously were using more effort than we needed to, on a regular basis--and that familiar standard, even though it felt "right," was not the most efficient way. Alexander based his teaching techniques on the realization that, until someone has an experience which allows him to observe himself in a new way, he will not be able to change his patterns of movement. Therefore, one of the first skills that an Alexander Technique student learns is how to observe himself more accurately while he is in the process of moving.

Frank Pierce Jones, who conducted extensive research on the Alexander Technique at the Institute for Applied Experimental Psychology at Tufts University, wrote a book on the Technique which he titled, Body Awareness in Action. He explained the benefits of the Technique in this way:

The Alexander Technique doesn't teach you something new to do. It teaches you how to bring more practical intelligence into what you are already doing; how to eliminate stereotyped responses; how to deal with habit and change.

Jones goes on to explain that Alexander Technique trains students to take in certain key relationships within their structure in such a way that their sensations have a meaning which informs their whole coordination. Jones described this skill as the ability to expand awareness into an extended, more inclusive, form of consciousness. Yang Chenfu's 8th essential, Harmony Between Internal and External Parts, seems to imply a similar goal in the study of Tai Chi:

In practicing taijiquan, the focus is on the mind and consciousness. Hence the saying: the mind is the commander, and the body is subservient to it...Perfection is achieved when one unifies the two and harmonizes the internal and external parts into a complete whole.

Another way of stating this 8th essential of practice might be: 'Perfection is achieved when we're able to do what we think we're doing.'

This could be applied in Tai Chi Chuan by not letting the knee go past the toes in the front leg of a seventy thirty stance. It is very hard to change the habit of letting your knee go too far if you are not paying attention to certain specific feedback from your body. Yang Zhenduo has transformed this movement for many students by asking them to use their toes to grasp the floor while transitioning the weight from their back leg to their front leg. If you are "grasping with the toes" while transitioning onto your front leg, it becomes very clear when you've moved too far forward. In pushing, when we move too far forward , we compensate for technique by using more external strength. If your front knee goes past the "knuckle" (metatarsal/phalangejoint) of the big toe, you can clearly sense that you have lost power and efficiency. For many, Yang Zhenduo's suggestion allows them to experience a constructive knee/foot relationship for the first time.

This article compares some of the important principles apparently shared by Tai Chi Chuan and Alexander Technique. The first principle "lift the head"has always made us curious. We've never heard much of an explanation for it so I tend to superimpose what we learned from the Alexander Technique. We were excited that the explanation we heard this summer was confirming and consistent with the Alexander Technique. Or were we just hearing what we wanted to hear?

Sometimes it takes a long time to find a question that is important and potentially pulls together different ideas and disciplines. If you have studied both these disciplines, please let us know what you think!
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About The Writers

Bill Walsh is an Alexander Teacher, a Tai Chi Chuan Teacher and a Management Consultant. As a Management Consultant, he has taught in Fortune 500 companies in Influence Skills ( Selling, Negotiating, and a general influence workshop). As a Tai Chi Chuan teacher, Bill is one of four appointed teachers in the U.S. who direct Yang Chengfu Centers under the tutelege of Yang Zhenduo, fourth generation Master of the Yang Family. In his private practice in New York City, Bill enjoys combining the Alexander Technique, Tai Chi Chuan and Influence Skills.

Bill Walsh e-mail: Bill Walsh
Tel: +1 212-226-0627, fax: 212-343-9662
66 Crosby St. #2F, New York, NY, 10012, USA

Holly A. Sweeney is an ergonomist and certified Alexander Technique teacher with offices in Montclair, New Jersey and in New York City. She has a M.A. in Ergonomics and Orthopedic Biomechanics and she is a Researcher and Independent Evaluator at the Occupational and Industrial Orthopedic Center for the Hospital for Joint Diseases in New York City.

Holly Sweeney e-mail:Holly A. Sweeney
Tel: +1 201-655-1048
24 Tuers Place, Upper Mont Clair, NJ, 07043, USA