Each one of us has a natural postural springiness that can send us bouncing along.  With a trained eye you can see it working in young children, and even without a trained eye most people can appreciate ease and fluidity of movement.  But by the time we become adults this poise has often become diminished and distorted. Read the rest of this entry »

When I teach Alexander Technique, I put a lot of emphasis on the importance of vision.  How we look out at the world can have a profound effect on both posture and levels of muscular tension.  But we can also work with sound. Here are some ideas to explore. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m drinking a cup of tea while I’m writing this.  It’s Rooibos tea in a white bone china mug.  The mug has illustrations of medieval pilgrim badges made of lead alloy.  There are foxes, birds, a glove and a money pouch.  The historical badges are interspersed with contemporary representations of a stylised teddy bear riding a motorcycle.  There are two words written on the mug.  When I saw them, I knew I had to buy it.

The words are: ‘Patience’ and ‘Humility’.

Read the rest of this entry »

Got 6 minutes to spare?  This is an excerpt from the Nobel Prize acceptance speech given by Dutch ethologist and ornithologist Nikolass Tinbergen when he won the Nobel Prize in the category of Physiology or Medicine in 1973. (Ethology is the study of animal behaviour, btw).  He gives a succinct description of the origins of the Technique and explains why he thinks it so valuable.

Here’s a powerful question for you:

‘Can I do less?’

I don’t mean in terms of the number of activities you cram into every day – although if you are habitually stressed and rushing then it’s good to think about that too.   But there are two key areas in which we could all do less: body and mind. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a beautiful saying by Confucius: ‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’.  But in Alexander Technique before we take that first step, we need to know how to stop.

Sounds paradoxical, doesn’t it?  To start, stop.

Let me explain, and then tell you about a stop that you can start with right now. Read the rest of this entry »

‘That figure is most praiseworthy which best expresses through its actions the passions of its mind’

- Leonardo da Vinci

It’s a beautiful idea and one that you can see in Leonardo’s paintings.  It’s also one of the objectives of working with the Alexander Technique – to express physically only that which you intend.  Nothing more, nothing less.

‘With all its demands, the Alexander Technique is worth every moment it asks for, and those once committed to it may well find that they cannot do without. 
It is an enlargement of whatever life may be yours’.

- 
Robertson Davies

I heard some wonderful news this week.  Apparently German giant Siemens have banned ‘comfortable’ chairs from their boardroom.  In fact, there are no chairs at all.  Meetings are held standing up. Read the rest of this entry »

When I was training to be an Alexander Technique teacher, I was constantly told that I held my head tilted slightly over to the right.  I had never noticed, and no-one had ever commented on this before.  But it was quite true. Read the rest of this entry »