An Alexander Student's Story - Part II

You've met Leela -
The story continues...
It is no wonder then that for many years I have been suffering from serious upper and lower back ailments which have forced me to be almost bed-ridden or completely house bound for weeks at a time. What's more my hip area had become all crooked; anyone could see that I was quite misaligned and I had been so for many years. My lower back was prone to frequent spasms causing pain and immobility, all probably from the wrong, albeit unconscious use of the body. Scans and countless visits to doctors confirmed a couple of herniated discs and mild atrophy of spinal muscles.
Surgery was considered but so far has been avoided. Apparently it is a condition that "cannot be reversed but only managed." Managed how? With rest and exercise.
Rest? What was that? I did not do "rest"!
Then I happened upon an article about the Alexander Technique and soon after, I read a book on it. It made a lot of sense to me.
After reading the book twice through, I longed to learn the Alexander Technique but thought that classes were available only outside India. I contented myself by reading and researching the AT on the internet.
They say in our philosophy that the intensity of the search determines the appearance of the teacher. In other words, "When the pupil is ready the teacher appears."
Leela's search must have been really intense because not only was I living in Bangalore, where she also lives, but I worked in a place not five minutes drive from her flat! She came in for a taster and promptly signed up for 15 lessons.
Read on...
In the first lesson I was asked to request my neck muscles to release but not to DO anything - simply allow the release to happen on its own. I was puzzled. What in the world was "release" and would my muslces obey? Why should they? I did not think they would.
After the first couple of classes, I began to actually feel that sense of release though some of the time I had to ask myself if I had only imagined it. For the first time I understood how liberating it could be to let go. It was quite a new and heady feeling! Of course the release was barely perceptible at first but gradually my awareness became stronger; I also noticed that the interval between my asking for the release and the actual release became shorter.
The hard part was still to come.
When I felt the release I was delighted and when it disappeared I was left with a good deal of disappointment. Learning to recognise the release (which my teacher helped me to do) and let it go instead of trying to hold on to it was a hard to understand concept; so is "not doing" rather than "doing". As hard, if not harder, especially for me, is to not look for results but to allow things to happen or not happen in their own time.
For the first time in my life I know what it is to be able to release and relax, to really enjoy it, even if it is just for those fifteen minutes while lying in semi-supine.
One day Leela came in and narrated a dream she had had the previous night; I found it really intriguing -
But I think I will keep that for my next post ...

An Alexander student's story - Part I

I usually don't ask my pupils to give a written account of their experience with the Alexander Technique. This is not because I doubt that they have anything of value to say - I know each of them has. It's because I also know that for most people, writing is a chore, and given the busy lives that most of us lead, I'm reluctant to impose any extra burden on them. So I usually content myself with making detailed notes of any observations they make during the course of their lessons.
So you can imagine how delighted I was when one of my pupils actually said that she was writing out an account of her AT journey, and would I like to look at it? It was a bit long, she warned.
Long! That sounded like exactly the kind of exhaustive narrative I wanted. I begged her to send it to me as soon as she had finished writing, checking, editing and so on, and that she did.
I found it so fascinating that I asked her permission to put it on my blog, which she very generously gave.
I don't want to interfere with her own voice by retelling her story, so I'm going to post excerpts, in instalments, for people to read. It's quite possible that her experiences may strike a chord with your own; in that case, please do share - similarities as well as differences.
First of all, meet Leela -
I believe that the world is divided into two types of people, the Type A person and the Type B person. I am a classic "A type", impatient, goal-oriented, competitive, restless, irritable, impulsive, hard on myself and a perfectionist.
I am known to cluck with impatience and grab a task out of the hands of somebody who, I think, is doing it too slowly or incompetently and do it myself. Faster! I have to arrange the magazines on the coffee table in order of their size, shoes must be paired and put away, and no matter how late at night, every single teaspoon and glass must be washed, dried and stored in its rightful place before I can sleep.
As for being competitive, I have to win every game of scrabble that I play and I feel very dissatisfied if I cannot complete a crossword puzzle. Swimming is my favourite form of exercise and the only thing I am permitted to do because it is low-impact exercise. In the pool I find myself swimming faster when I hear somebody drawing level with me and try to get to the other end sooner than he/she does!
It is not without shame (after all this is a "warts and all" true confession) that I admit this: when I hang out laundry to dry and catch sight of my neighbour doing the same, I speed it up and take childish pleasure in completing the task before she does! The lady I am competing with is, naturally, blissfully unaware that she is in a race!
I am a compulsive list maker. I cannot function without making lists. I plan not just my day but my week and when I have finished the list I have for today with time still left over, I start on tomorrow's jobs!
I never ever take breaks, going from one task to another without ever sitting down even when my back aches. I say to myself, "But this recipe asks me to stir continuously, so how can I stop now?"
Come to think of it, this is a metaphor for the way I live: I "stir continuously"!