Alexander technique improves your posture, and your life.

Posture affects everything you do. But forget “sit up straight” and the frustration of trying to hold yourself in the “right” position. Alexander technique improves your posture and relieves patterns of holding at the same time. It aligns you, reduces chronic muscle tension and pain and makes you feel livelier and more fit. You perform daily activities better, from speaking, to singing, to running, to computer work. It helps you to calm down, to not overreact, and to think before you act. Changing your posture in this way is powerful and life affirming.

Why is posture so central to living? Posture is the entire neuromuscular system that supports the body both at rest and in movement. Yes it aligns your bones but it also determines your muscle tone and tension. Posture sets the stage for movement, preparing you for activity. Think of what your body does before you give a talk, swing a golf club, or get angry – this is the postural system in action. In short your postural habits affect how you relate and react to the world in general. Good posture grounds you, keeps you balanced, calm and ready to move well.

Because posture is so intertwined with all of your activities, changing it requires patience, dedication, and expertise. If you hurry and oversimplify things you end up stiff and frustrated. Even professional “body people” such as dancers or actors have serious misconceptions about their own habits, the meaning of good posture, and how to change. We can all benefit from expert help with the process.

Lessons in Alexander technique put you in the room with a highly skilled posture expert. You and your teacher explore your habits of alignment, tensional balance, movement habits, and habitual reaction patterns. Alexander teachers use light touch hands on guidance and practical verbal instructions to continually tweak your postural system throughout the lesson. The result feels great – a lighter, taller, freer, and even wiser you.

Between Alexander lessons you practice what you have learned on your own – calming tension and guiding yourself to healthier support patterns. As lessons progress and you gain confidence, this practice on your own becomes more important until finally you are ready to continue the journey with or without the teacher.

Example 1: Computer worker

A student is having trouble with his neck and back which are very sore at the end his days of computer work. Believing that his bad posture is the problem, he has already tried to “pull his shoulders back” and “pull his belly in” and “pull his head more over his torso” to get his body “aligned” with only more pain and frustration.

The teacher explains that computer work requires not only sitting in place all day but doing so while focussing attention on the screen and dealing with stress and deadlines. These are complex and somewhat unnatural challenges that, if not handled correctly, can create problems deep in the postural system. The student’s reaction patterns to the screen, stress, and focussing pull him down in the front, take his spine out of alignment, generate excess tension, and interfere with breathing and speaking. Ultimately these habits are affecting all aspects of the student’s life.

The teacher uses his hands and some verbal cues to get the student taller and better aligned. The experience is very nice and very strange and new. As the teacher is doing this, he is explaining what is happening, teaching the student about his habits. They also practice some exercises to liven up the students vision, spatial awareness, and sense of the body in action.

After some repetition, practice, and creative self examination over an extended period of time the student and teacher head back to the computer with a much fresher view of what the patterns really are is and how to undo them. . The release of bad habits not only reduces the chronic pain but also improves many aspects of the student’s life.

Example 2: Swimmer

A swimmer comes with shoulder problems. She is an adept swimmer, but tightens her neck and shoulders throughout the stroke. This gives her speed, but comes at the cost of her comfort and safety. It also pulls her spine out of alignment, especially during the breathing phase.

The student and teacher discover that there are deeper issues associated with these problems. First of all the student is not fully comfortable with gliding through the water. When the student tries to breathe, she panics a bit as she pulls her head back to take air, tightening the neck and shoulders and taking the head out of alignment. These patterns of tightening are associated with other activities in the student’s life, such as computer work.

The student and teacher begin by practicing lots of slow gliding in the water with the teacher using his hands to release the pattern as the student glides. Simultaneous verbal cues such as “let your neck be free” or “let your head float in the water” or “let your shoulders widen” enrich the experience. Eventually the student learns to enjoy a stress free glide in the water

Next the student and teacher investigate the mechanics of the stroke, building it up slowly. With each step, the teacher watches out for the old postural habits creeping in. In this way the student slowly builds up an experience of the stroke without the pattern. With lots of practice and repetition the new pattern starts to work.

The improvements in the swimming affect many aspects of the student’s life from general ease and posture to sitting habits. Swimming has been transformed from a simple cardiovascular exercise to an exploration of one’s deep fundamental habits.

Example 3: Accountant/Golfer

A successful accountant comes wanting to change his posture. People have commented that he is very “slumped” over. However he has no idea how to sit up straight and he would like to change this.

The teacher notices excess level of tension in the torso, shoulders, and arms that get in the way of just about any change. Essentially the accountant is “held” in bad alignment by his own postural system. When the teacher asks to student to try to sit taller, i.e. to lengthen the back, the student actually does the opposite – shortening the lower back and the neck. The teacher and accountant begin with a number of hands-on sessions with the goal of getting the student to notice and release the patterns of holding and to better understand his body.

The teacher learns that the accountant’s favorite activity is golf. They start analyzing the accountant’s swing together. The swing improves when the accountant learns to release the hips and shoulders, thereby allowing a smoother stroke.

As the accountant becomes more used to releasing, the teacher begins to teach the accountant how to really lengthen his spine. Over time, the lengthened spine begins to affect the accountant’s golf swing. Combined with the freedom in the limbs, he can now use the twisting spring action of the spine, to add smoothness and power. The student’s golf handicap begins to improve – a result that was not part of the student’s original goals.

The combination of releasing the patterns of holding and understanding the specific directions needed to lengthen the spine applied both in daily life and golf allow the student to become taller and more poised. His sitting posture improves because it no longer is comfortable to collapse while sitting.