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 »

Here’s actor Hugh Jackman describing the benefits he got from learning Alexander Technique.  He describes the mix of ‘incredibly good posture with incredible relaxation’, and says what he learned was ‘beautiful, an art…it was about being still and relaxed in order to 100% listen to someone, to be present’.

Of course, this isn’t just good stuff for actors.  It’s good stuff for anyone.

Here’s one of my favourite videos.  It’s psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist explaining his research into our divided brains.  It’s densely packed with information and deserves watching a couple of times.

How does this relate to Alexander Technique?  In two ways.

Firstly I believe that the Technique is a way to reconnect with the broader quality of attention that McGilchrist describes as associated with the right hemisphere of the brain.

Secondly, he says at one point that for the left hemisphere, the body is ‘an assemblage of parts’.  In Alexander Technique, working with the body as a whole is fundamental.  In fact, once we fall into the trap of thinking of our bodies as collections of parts, we get into all sorts of trouble.

When I was training to be an Alexander Technique teacher, I was made aware that one of my habits was to hold my head tilted over to the right.  I’d been doing it for years and was completely unaware of it.  Many people have similar habits.  But why does it matter?  Read the rest of this entry »