Alexandroid

This is a term - and a state - that I came across early in my training. It's also a stage which most Alexander students pass through at one time or another, whether they're training to be teachers or not.
It's characterised by an obsession with the way you are holding yourself, and a paranoid reluctance to make any movement, in case you tighten. So you develop a tendency to keep yourself very upright as you walk, continually giving directions for the neck to release. There is also often a tendency to turn with the whole body to look at something to the side, instead of turning just the head like any normal person. Hence the name, I guess!
Sitting down and getting up is done solemnly, with due consideration to stopping, directing, and letting the head lead the action. Sitting is always with an upright posture, with both feet on the ground, and the hands placed on the lap. Directing, you may be sure, all the way.
I began to do a rethink when I heard a possibly apocryphal story of Alexander students who went to the Sistine Chapel and lay down on the floor to look at the ceiling.
Excuse me?
I thought the Alexander Technique was meant to open up more possibilities for me, not narrow down the few I have. If that's the case, it should free me up to do the things I need to do and want to do. That made a little more sense, and so did the relaxed - released? - attitude of my teachers, who encouraged me to look, not just at what I was doing, but also how I was doing it. This doesn't mean that we pay no attention at all to our posture in sitting and standing. There are certain positions in which it is easier to release. If you are sitting balanced on your sit bones, it is definitely easier for you to lengthen and widen, especially in the beginning, than if you were sitting forward, or behind them.
But we need to be aware of two things -
One, that it is quite possible to be tight even while balanced on your sit bones, and
two, that some one who is skilled at the Alexander Technique can release while balanced on the sit bones,behind them, or in front of them.
The best thing to do, probably, is to pay attention to the posture, and the best way to sit, or stand, or do anything, but also to constantly keep learning to direct and inhibit in unusual and challenging situations.