The Alexander Technique in India

The Space Between the Spaces

2012-02-10T18:21:00.004+05:30

One of the most common assumptions that people who come for lessons make is that the Alexander Technique is meant to be practised in peace and quiet.

If only we were so lucky as to have peace and quiet to practise the Alexander Technique, or anything else we put our minds to!

The proportions of each could vary for different people, but the elements remain the same. Even the leisure isn't leisurely - it's scheduled, and limited to a certain time and duration in the day.

When we want to get that sense of large and leisurely expanses of time, we go away on holiday to get it. If we're lucky.

So people come for lessons and go away thinking that the skills that they have learnt in the lesson are something to be used when they have an idle moment.

Since most of them don't have many idle moments, they end up not thinking about what they've learnt until the time comes round for the next lesson.

So it's a good idea to start our Alexander practice with the thought that this is going to become an integral part of life - personal, social and professional. We don't need to immediately start applying it to everything we do, all the time, but we have to have the intention.
That is important because that's what's going to set the tone of Alexander work in our lives.

We keep the intention of using Alexander skills during meetings, or performances, or presentations; we don't divide our day into

'Times I can use Alexander'

(when I'm sitting quietly/drinking a cup of tea/reading the newspaper/doing nothing in particular)

and

'Times When I Simply Can't Think About It, Ever'.

(when I'm about to leave for work/when I'm running for the bus/when I'm in a meeting/when I'm talking to my boss/doing the important things in my life)

We can start by using the relatively quieter moments of the day to think about release. When we're waiting for the bus, for instance. Or browsing in a shop. Waiting in line for tickets. TheAlexander Moments .

These are the little pockets of quiet that we miss out on, because we're so caught up in the general busy-ness all around us.

But well used, they could help us when we have to go in to face an angry boss, or tackle a difficult presentation, or finish a hundred different things before running to catch the bus to work.

Boil the Frog Slowly

2012-02-08T11:07:00.002+05:30

The title of this post is to do with an account that I heard as a child about how you can kill a frog by putting it in a pot of water and then gently increasing the temperature of the water to boiling. Because the temperature is increasing slowly, the frog keeps adjusting to it until it's too late.

I never liked it - I couldn't imagine why anyone would take all the trouble to work out this particularly cruel way of killing a poor frog.

But reading this post today - Your Back Pain is Killing Me! suddenly reminded me of this story.

We're very frog like in this respect - we adjust to slowly increasing levels of pain until it reaches unbearable levels, and by then the injury that the pain was signalling has probably reached a critical stage.

Funnily enough, the opposite also applies.

We adjust to slowly decreasing levels of pain until it's all gone, and then we forget that the pain was ever there.

As an Alexander teacher, I've always found this fascinating -

how people would come in for lessons with fairly acute wrist or shoulder pain and then a few lessons on, the pain or discomfort would have gradually lessened... to the extent that I've had some of them look blankly at me when I asked them, 'How's your wrist/shoulder now?'

This is fantastic, if we can remember not to go back to doing the things that brought on the pain in the first place!

2012-01-31T20:27:00.004+05:30

This is a video of Professor Nikolas Tinbergen's Nobel Prize acceptance speech. Professor Tinbergen shared the 1973 Nobel prize with Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frisch for their work on the organisation and elicitation of individual and social behaviour patterns. He was, with Konrad Lorenz, a pioneer in the field of ethology, which is the study of animal behaviour with emphasis on the patterns that occur in natural settings.

This clip belongs here because he devoted about 10 minutes of his acceptance speech to describing the Alexander Technique and the effect it had on himself and his family.

He also talks about the manner in which Alexander came to develop the Technique, calling it '...one of the true epics of medical research.'

Listening to Tinbergen, it is difficult not to marvel at the intelligence and tenacity of this man who, without a degree in science, medical or otherwise, and without any background in scientific research, set out to solve a problem which his doctors could not address.

What's more, he did it too.

2011-09-14T21:35:00.002+05:30

This is an experiential video of the Alexander Technique - there's a mosaic of voices speaking about the way they experience it, and what it's done for them. There's a musician, a politician, a computer professional, a retired person... a range of people who found that the the technique gave them a new freedom and ease.

What struck me was what one of them said - that he wasn't really used to going to a lesson to learn something, and then doing nothing much more than sitting and lying down.
It's a deceptive emptiness, of course, because what you learn in the sitting, standing and lying down can transform your life.
I always feel that what really attracted me to the Technique was this idea of the right thing doing itself - which seemed to imply, for me, that I didn't have to do very much.
Being incorrigibly lazy, that, of course, was one of the most delightful possibilities I could think of!

Song and Dance

2011-09-03T14:59:00.006+05:30

This isn't strictly about the Alexander Technique -

On the other hand, what isn't about the Technique?

Kumarji Sings Kabeer

The song and the dance, the freedom in the voice and the body, go together. That is the kind of freedom that is available to all of us -singers and dancers or not.

If only we'd refuse to settle for less.

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep...

2011-08-25T11:28:00.004+05:30

And then I tighten my head on my neck to pull it back and down into the pillow...
Draw my shoulders in...
Take a firm grip on my hips and knees...

And then I'm all ready to have a good refreshing sleep.

Sounds strange, but it's a reality that sleep isn't as refreshing and relaxing as we imagine it is. It has the potential to be, yes, but a lot of the time we take our deeply held tensions right over into sleep. Which is probably why we often wake in the morning feeling bleary and heavy headed.
This is a really tough one - what can you do about tensions which surface after you've gone to sleep?
I've found that spending some time directing for release in the neck, the shoulders, and other joints helps to quieten everything down so there's presumably less of a tendency to seize up after I've slept off. Certainly I wake up feeling fresher and more rested than if I'd just gone off, unreleased, to sleep.
A lot of the time, however, it seems just strange to compose myself to sleep in that way. I didn't realise that in the beginning; I'd direct and release one particular time, and then forget all about it for the next week. This, because I'd got used to lying in bed going over and over the day's happenings and slipping into sleep from there. So that seemed the proper way to go to sleep. The other was okay for a change, but it just didn't seem right to be doing it every day.
Strange - it would seem that we all desire ease and restfulness, and we'd grab every opportunity to have it - and then it turns that what we want is not so much ease and restfulness as the comfort of familiarity. Even if it's ultimately damaging and unsatisfying.

Stand up Straight? It's Not That Simple

2011-08-22T21:34:00.014+05:30

Who has good posture?

Why, that's easy - someone who's standing straight and tall. Someone who is holding themselves upright.

Someone who's bent over

can't possibly have good posture - surely that's obvious.

Marjorie Barstow was one of the first group of teachers who was trained by Alexander himself. You can see her here in this video on teaching children - it's not about teaching children the Alexander Technique, it's about teaching a teacher of children how to use the Alexander Technique in her work.

But what you'll probably notice immediately is how stooped Marjorie is - and you'd think -

'What - a teacher of posture, her? No way!'

But that was exactly what she was - and teacher of a whole lot of other things too, because as people who have some experience of the Technique know, it's not just about posture.

We forget that though it's ideal for someone to stand up straight, hold themselves upright and so on, it may not always be possible for them to do that. They may have a genetic problem - or may have had an accident -that affected their spine. Or they may, as Marjorie did, suffer from osteoporosis, which is a condition that leads to thinning of bone tissue and consequent loss of bone strength. The stoop that you see in the video is one of the effects of osteoporosis, and not a consequence of a lifelong habit of stooping. So in her case, good posture comes with the way she manages her condition. Anybody else would have been incapacitated - not her. Towards the end of her life, she used to teach workshops where she worked for 6 hours a day - for 7 days straight!

So the outward appearance may not always mirror the inner reality.

Nevertheless - whatever the problem, Alexander Technique skills can be used to make sure that we don't compound the difficulties caused by it, by contracting and pulling down.That's a usual, and understandable, way of trying to defend ourselves from the pain and discomfort of whatever ails us. But in fact, keeping free and releasing upwards actually helps muscles and bones to cope in the best possible way with the difficulties imposed by the problem; and if healing is at all possible, it speeds up the process of recovery as well.

You can have a look at other videos of Marjorie here. Don't forget, when you check them out, to observe her 'posture' in her younger days.

And this is the quote at the head of the page - There isn't anything either right or wrong when dealing with co-ordination. There are degrees of movement. Life is really moving from one position to another. We never stop and say, "This is right--this is my posture, this is the way I ought to be". If we do that, we're stiff trying to hold that posture. It isn't natural for our bodies to be held in positions. - Marjorie Barstow, quoted in Practical Marj

Mind the Gap

2011-08-12T12:25:00.005+05:30

Awareness, and how to encourage it, and how much of it to encourage, is a big part of my life nowadays.

I spend a lot of time and attention in trying to increase and sharpen my own awareness - of things happening inside and outside of me -and a lot of my students' lessons doing the same for them.

So I found this article -The Illusion of Attention - really interesting.

Now before you make an exasperated noise and go on to google it -

stop.

Check this out first -

Basket ball awareness test ...

and then go on to The Illusion of Attention

I won't add anything more because I don't want to give away the point of the experiment, but even those of you who are familiar with this experiment might have an little surprise when you do the basket ball test.

It immediately interested me because I connected it with our forgetfulness of ourselves when we're immersed in our tasks, routine or specialised - and of course, one of the important points of the Alexander Technique is that it is precisely this forgetfulness that creates problems for us. So lessons aim to sensitise us to what's going on in ourselves so we can stop damage before it happens.

The article suggests that our supply of attention is limited, and so this kind of unawareness is bound to happen. I agree - only I wonder - have we really reached the limits of our awareness, or could we extend it a little further in our functioning?

Could we expand a sense of the whole - of ourselves, of our environment - a little more? Do we really have to work with the extreme narrowness that we usually sink into?

It's something that each of us can explore for ourselves, in our daily lives - how we can enrich our lives by simply being aware.

The Space Between the Spaces

2011-08-05T08:19:00.011+05:30

One of the most common assumptions that people who come for lessons make is that the Alexander Technique is meant to be practised in peace and quiet.

If only we were so lucky as to have peace and quiet to practise the Alexander Technique, or anything else we put our minds to!

The sad truth is that for a lot of us, life is a series of actions - of duty, pleasure, social obligation, leisure, professional obligation ... the list could go on for ever.
We step into our day in the morning, and are instantly sucked into this round of work and leisure. The proportions of each could vary for different people, but the elements remain the same. Even the leisure isn't leisurely - it's scheduled, and limited to a certain time and duration in the day.

When we want to get that sense of large and leisurely expanses of time, we go away on holiday to get it. If we're lucky.

So people come for lessons and go away thinking that the skills that they have learnt in the lesson are something to be used when they have an idle moment.

Since most of them don't have many idle moments, they end up not thinking about what they've learnt until the time comes round for the next lesson.

We keep the intention of using Alexander skills during meetings, or performances, or presentations; we don't divide our day into

'Times I can use Alexander'

(when I'm sitting quietly/drinking a cup of tea/reading the newspaper/doing nothing in particular)

and

'Times When I Simply Can't Think About It, Ever'.

(when I'm about to leave for work/when I'm running for the bus/when I'm in a meeting/when I'm talking to my boss/doing the important things in my life)

These are the little pockets of quiet that we miss out on, because we're so caught up in the general busy-ness all around us.

But well used, they could help us when we have to go in to face an angry boss, or tackle a difficult presentation, or finish a hundred different things before running to catch the bus to work.

The Little Things We Do

2011-07-14T17:01:00.007+05:30

Alexander Technique Connection

This is a link to a website about the Alexander Technique - it gives the usual information about the Technique, the teachers at this particular centre, and so on.

What is really interesting is the illustrations and the photos they've used. On this particular page, there are three sketches of a woman in profile, and they show very clearly what happens when you stick your head out in front of you, when you retract it back into yourself like a snail, and when it's poised normally (which may not be very usual) on your neck.

In the first sketch you can see how, as the head sticks out, the back of the neck is shortened. The strain in those muscles doesn't remain there, it spreads across the shoulders and down the back. And of course, it would pull the shoulders in, compressing the lung space and affecting breathing. You might have observed this yourself in habitual computer users - the computer screen has a malignant magic that sucks you into itself as soon as you sit down in front of it.

The second sketch is an over-correction of the tensions you see in the first. The chin is retracted into the neck, squashing the neck muscles and compressing the vocal cords.

The neck isn't shortened - in fact it's artificially stretched so that there's a long line of tightening from the neck up into the head and down into the back. It gives me a headache just looking at it. That's what someone who's trying to correct the mistakes in the first sketch would do.

You can (eventually) arrive at the third option simply by leaving yourself alone and letting the head, neck and back work out their own balance. However, some kind of awareness is necessary because otherwise the chances are that you'd simply go back to the most familiar tension pattern. So - no effort, no pushing and pulling, simply asking for a release in the muscles of the neck, and then staying quiet, allowing the response to arise on its own. You'd probably feel a bit strange without the old comforting tensions pulling at you; perhaps a sense of emptiness, something missing, and you'd have to resist the urge to go back to that familiarity and stay with the sense of strangeness.

The home page is also interesting because it has a series of photos of actions that we usually 'mis-do'. They're routine, everyday actions, and all of us have done most of them at some time or the other, usually badly.

One little reminder, however. It's entirely possible to do these things mindlessly, with the outward semblance of correctness. They have to be accompanied by the awareness of release, of allowing your muscles to use just the right amount of 'tone' they need to do whatever needs to be done.

Re-learning Movement

2011-06-22T11:11:00.025+05:30

http://tinyurl.com/3sbha4o

The human body is built for movement and activity, not to sit still for hours. Not to speak of sitting still for hours, all cramped up.

But we have lost touch with our innate facility for grace and ease so completely that even when our lifestyles involve action, we tend to do it badly, and damage ourselves in the process. We don't know how to use ourselves well and do all the things we need to do and want to do. It seems we need to go back to educating ourselves in a very fundamental way, in things which we did instinctively and easily when we were very little children. Things that we did in innocence, we now have to relearn to do with skill and conscious control, so that we can use it in our lives, to tackle more and more challenging actions if we so choose.

This is especially relevant in professions such as sport and performance where we need to be constantly honing our skills; if we didn't, we'd stagnate and our skills would die.

The actor, the singer, the athlete - their work demands that they constantly push themselves to go further, raise the bar. Anything that helps them to do that is a valuable tool. But -

What we forget is that we don't all have to be athletes or performers to raise the bar for ourselves. We can do that in our daily lives, without changing them in any dramatic way. Start with little challenges, without worrying about the big ones, and who knows where they may lead us? Life then becomes the endless opportunity for exploration and learning that it was when we were really little, and everything was new and exciting.

http://tinyurl.com/6gaqvcs

The Power of Posture

2011-06-09T14:50:00.003+05:30

http://tinyurl.com/655dcyk

This is an interesting account of a study which was carried out on the effect of posture on the sense of power that people felt in themselves. While it would be simplistic to conclude that posture by itself can solve all problems, it would equally foolish to go completely the other way, and insist that it has nothing to do with feelings of confidence or authority. The relationship between your feelings about yourself, your response to the things happening to you and around you, and the way you hold yourself, isn't a one way street. Each feeds into the other, creating a continuous cycle of stimulus and response; it may be a cycle that reinforces your feelings of inferiority and lack of control, or of power and the sense of being on top of things.

The study seems to suggest that the effect of posture trumps even that of being given a title of power such as manager, or of (relative) powerlessness such as subordinate. Regardless of the title they were given, people who had assumed postures of power responded with the power affirming options in situations that were suggested to them. Thus, given a choice of speaking up first or staying silent, those who had taken postures or power tended to choose to speak first, regardless of whether they had the title of manager or subordinate.

As the article suggests, parents, teachers and sergeant majors have always been nagging their charges to 'Stand up straight! Shoulders back! Stomach in!' and so on. The study seems to prove that they may have been right.

But of course, I have to have my Alexander take on this.

The people who have impressed me most are usually the ones who had the easy posture of power and kept it without seeming to try. Not push, not bluster, not an in-your-face aggression - but a comfortable easy sense of themselves. And they weren't all in positions of power, either.

Those who tried never seemed to pull it off, and more often than not, had to resort to bluster and shows of power to get things done. They may have got things done, but they didn't convince.

I've also met several people who were in positions of power, but had rounded, diffident shoulders and a hesitant gait. Some of them were looking for a way to get themselves into postures of power because they had been told that that was holding them back from progressing in the organisation.

I could see very well that there was no way they were going to force themselves into the kind of 'good' posture that would presumably bring them the rewards of high office. Holding oneself in a posture that is not natural to you is difficult - no, nearly impossible - and damaging. It only means you have an additional layer of tension over the one you have already accepted as natural.

Instead of adding to it, you actually need to let go of it, so that the natural dignity of the human body can reestablish itself.

This doesn't just translate into a posture of power in the board room - it translates into an unselfconscious grace of being that operates everywhere. The authority in the board room - if you happen to be in it - is just the cherry on the icing.

The Knot in the Gut

2011-06-07T13:40:00.003+05:30

One of the most memorable discoveries I made after I started learning the Alexander Technique was the presence of fear in my life.

There really was no apparent cause for it at that point - I was thoroughly enjoying my training, I'd got interesting work to do that paid for all my living expenses, I'd made wonderful new friends... in short, I couldn't wait to leap out of bed and into my day every morning - no matter what the weather - and that, for the UK, is saying quite a bit!

But then, through all of this, there was also a layer of tension at a very deep level; it surfaced, I think, simply because other, more superficial tensions began to drop away; that was great, because I realised that it was possible to live with a simple and uncomplicated pleasure -if only I could get rid of this clutching in the gut!

That was when I began to get a dim idea of just how much unnecessary fear we cart around. I thought around to all the people I knew, friends, relatives, acquaintances... anyone I could think of, and they were all living with this deep and diffuse apprehension that wouldn't let them enjoy their lives.

All of that terror, and where was it being held? Of course in the body! In the neck, the shoulders, the hips, the guts, in deep insidious knots that makes sure you are nicely tightening and shrinking. As I discovered, it wouldn't go away just because I was asking it to - and this was the point where I really felt I'd hit a wall.

This was the baseline from where I was living - under all the pleasure, pain, excitement, sorrow and all the myriad emotions that make up our daily lives, there was this layer of nameless dread; it surfaced as my habits began to change, and was just there -that knot in the gut, a solidly physical presence that kept me from living life as completely as I wanted.

But the real revelation for me was not this - it was the fact that this was the way I'd been living all along - this fear filled, apprehensive quality defined my life, and I hadn't even known it!

Then, of course, I can't help thinking -

What else do I not know?

Butterfly on a Wheel

2011-06-03T15:10:00.002+05:30

I've always found this title very evocative - the idea of using massive force to do something that requires minuscule effort.

As I watch myself and others live our lives, the phrase comes back to me more and more insistently. We're using so much effort to do so little! In a converse of the 20/80 rule, 80% of our efforts bring in 20% of the desired end. Why would someone use a clenched fist to hold a tea cup?Or cling to the newspaper as if it were a lifeline?

Time and time again, if I stop whatever I'm doing, and simply ask myself,' Can I do this with less effort?', I find that indeed I can; not just that, but the quality of the action changes radically, becoming easier, smoother, lighter and altogether more pleasurable.

It seems that somewhere deep within us we have internalised the idea that life should not be pleasurable in this simple and satisfying way, that it is actually intended to be a struggle. So when we are able to access this quality, we don't really see it as something we can learn to bring more and more into our lives. We see it as an aberration - an enjoyable, even desirable one, but an aberration nevertheless. By definition, an aberration is something that's not normal - we can't take it for granted.

Which is why, when we experience the lightness and ease in the release of a long held muscle, we tend to tell ourselves,' Oh, that's lovely, but of course it's not going to last. That's not now I really am,' and straightaway go back to the comforting familiarity of tightness.

One Hour AT

2011-05-25T14:11:00.006+05:30

An enjoyable hour spent on a Sunday morning introducing the Alexander Technique to a group of 25 participants of a summer workshop being conducted by Bangalore Little Theatre group.The best way to get people to appreciate the weight they are managing all the time without thinking about it is to get them to think about it!

A couple of sandbags weighing 5 kg each, and the participants had the task of balancing a bag on the head and experiencing what that did to their necks and backs. Of course, no one who was at all apprehensive about this did it.

Why is the sandbag balanced off centre? Because we often do funny things with our heads, (to the extent possible) and create problems for ourselves, only we're so entrenched in our habits that we don't notice it until the problems become acute!

Mountains, Bogs and Snares

2011-05-02T16:26:00.005+05:30

I've been talking to some new students about the process they can reasonably expect to go through as they begin to apply the Alexander Technique in their lives. Thinking about it at home recently, I realised that I could probably distill it into some common ideas. It's a bit like the heroes of mythical stories setting out on quests with a guide telling them about the kinds of obstacles that they could expect to encounter on the way.

The first, of course, is failure. What could it be, in mythic terms? A mountain they have to climb? An ogre they have to slay? However you think of it, it's the state where you try and try and you're very aware that it's not working. People come back after a first, second or third lesson and say," You know, I tried those directions at home, and nothing happened."

Or people who've had a few lessons say," Yes, I can do it when I'm quietly at home, but let me get to work and in front of the computer, and bam! everything just slams back to square one. Just can't do anything about that."

The thing is that this is a process where we are challenging some of the deepest and most entrenched habits of mind and body; habits which we weren't even aware of. Not surprising if it takes a bit of time. We just have to give ourselves the time and space to allow it to work itself out. There's absolutely no point in giving ourselves deadlines and saying - "Okay, I have this really important party next week, and there are going to be a lot of people I want to impress, so I want my shoulders nicely released and broad, please." There's not much hope of that happening, especially if we're going to be obsessing about it all the way to the party.

The best way to climb this particular mountain - or kill this particular ogre - is to stop worrying and learn to enjoy the process. Forget about the party - or decide to enjoy it anyway, broad shoulders or not. We probably have a much better chance of impressing our target audience if we do that!

I've found that people who are able to do that seem to get on much better with applying the Technique in their lives; they also seem to be the ones who stick with the Technique, start actively enjoying it and getting fascinating insights into the way their bodies and minds

work.

Another difficulty we may face is stagnation. Mired in the bog. Nothing happening at all. This is especially hard for us to take if we've been noticing a real difference in the days or weeks past. We suddenly feel that there's no response to our directions; in addition, because we've started to become aware of subtler levels of tension, we feel that not only are we not responding, we're actually tightening up even more!

When my students complain about being stuck, I usually suggest that they give themselves a pat on the back for picking up the tightening in themselves. I also remind them that they have challenged their bodies in a really deep, fundamental way, and that time may be needed for real assimilation to take place. In other words, even if you think nothing is happening, there's a lot going on. Encourage it by quietly continuing with the directions as before and allow the response to emerge.

After all, the best strategy when you're mired in a bog is to do nothing at all, but keep very very quiet.

True to the traditions of myth, the last one is the deadliest - the trap of success. It's a really heady feeling when we start picking up on the releases that are happening in ourselves, and realise that we have the ability to influence what happens in our bodies. We start feeling confident that we can do it - and from there it's a short and slippery slope to 'doing the directions'; rushing into action instead of staying quiet and allowing the directions to work themselves out.

The remedy? A healthy dose of failure -the poisoned goblet that carries the promise of rebirth; and the best thing to do is to drink it down and start afresh.

The Liberating Wobble

2011-04-12T11:55:00.007+05:30

It's been my experience, and that of several of my students, that when something frees up, there is actually a sense of uncertainty, of being off balance. This can be a very physical sensation when the release is in the weight bearing joints like the hips, knees and ankles, but it can also be a sudden disorientation in the mind.

I had a definite sense of wobbliness when I experienced release in my legs for the first time - it felt like I was standing with a great deal of freedom, but also as if falling was just a heartbeat away. As if, every instant, I was choosing balance instead of falling. It was a strange, heady feeling; perhaps because I had never imagined before that I had any options in the matter of standing.

We see that same choice being exercised when we watch toddlers take their first tottering steps. It's a delightful sight, but if we can watch with awareness, it's also a very educative one. We realise that the choice has never gone away - we are still making it every instant that we stand or walk. The only difference is that we're no longer aware that we're doing so. Once we had worked out the mechanics of balance we turned our attention to other things - there were so many things we needed to learn in order to function in the world!

But we paid - and are still paying - a price for our lack of awareness. We lost the sense of connection within ourselves, and with it, we also lost the ability to tell when we were doing things wrong, in a way that would damage us.

If now we want to regain that first delightful feeling of ease, of balance and grace, we have to work at it. We have to recapture it consciously, and practice it as a skill is practised, so that over time, it becomes more and more natural for us to use ourselves well rather than badly.

At any point, if we start falling back into the old unhelpful ways of using ourselves, we are able to tell; and we then have a choice. Continue with the bad use, or stop, and let ourselves release into good use again.

We might still, for our own reasons, choose to go with the bad use - but at least we will know we are doing it.

Making a Note of It

2011-03-27T21:03:00.008+05:30

Keeping a record of lessons and of the process of your learning can be invaluable; I recommend it to everyone who comes for lessons.

It can seem a bit of a drag, keeping notes after a lesson, and every once in a while, but once you're used to it, it becomes an integral part of your learning.

One very important benefit, I think, is that it sharpens your observation skills. I remember when I started training, every now and then, and usually when I wasn't thinking Alexander, there would be a fleeting sense of release. Just a slight shift, so small that I couldn't be sure whether I felt it at all, or it was just wishful thinking on my part. It was a bit like glimpsing someone out of the corner of your eye - a flash, and gone. But I soon learned to accept that as a release that I had indeed picked up, and I found that it became easier to notice when these releases happened again. Record keeping helps you to capture these little will o' the wisps as they flit past. Sit down at the end of a lesson and jot down anything that occurs to you; even if nothing does, the very fact that you took the time to think about it makes it easier for you to observe things the next time round.

The other thing that record keeping helps with is when you are on your own, after a series of lessons, trying to apply Alexander in your life. You remember a couple of things that were done during your lessons, and you work conscientiously at them; but as time goes by, and you don't work at anything else, mainly because you don't remember all the other stuff that was done, the chances are high that you'll get bored, and gradually let things slip completely. If you have a record of the various activities that you worked on, you have a number of alternatives that you can go on to explore.
Another very useful result of record keeping is that you start to have a picture of an ongoing process. That really comes in handy when, as happens sometimes, your body adjusts to the changes that are happening, and you forget that there was an earlier and more unhappy time when you were troubled by sundry aches and pains. You think you were always as you are now, and you may start wondering whether the Alexander Technique did anything for you at all. One look at your record will tell you exactly what, and how much, it did.

I've also found that as I make notes on a particular session, things that happened a long time ago suddenly start making sense. I'm able to make connections between my observations now, and events earlier in my life; in fact, I've found that it links up past and present in a way that I hadn't anticipated at all.

The View at the End of Your Nose

2011-03-14T22:30:00.001+05:30

Back from my visit to Hyderabad and Delhi, but deciding to stay put in Bangalore to set up my studio here properly. No sense in running around madly distributing pieces of myself in half a dozen places!

One evening I had a visitor who'd just dropped in on some other errand, and we got talking. She was going through a spell of bad back pain, and having to watch every move she made, and I told her how the Alexander Technique could help.

"Oh, I know the Alexander Technique!" she exclaimed. "We had a teacher come in to the office to help us with better posture - but it was so boring!!"

That did gave me a start, because I've never had someone describe AT to me as boring - strange, bizarre, inexplicable, even disturbing... but never boring!

So I questioned her a little more, and it turned out that many years ago, when she was working abroad, their company had an Alexander Technique teacher come in to help people with their working posture, and apparently what she did was to go around making adjustments to the way people sat. At least, that's what this lady remembered it as. It didn't work at all for her because she was already suffering from her back pain, and all she wanted to do was lie down - which of course the teacher was not in a position to offer her, not in that setting, anyway!

I thought that teacher must have had an uphill job - table work is such an important part of the work for me that if I couldn't offer it, I'd feel I wasn't giving my pupils all the help possible in re-educating themselves for a better quality of life.

Also, I guess she must have been under tremendous pressure to produce results quickly to justify her employment by the company. In that situation, one's focus can shift from what is actually best for people to what looks most effective - only it might not be.

I've faced that dilemma with people who come with pronounced back pain or some such problem - how to not just make a difference, but to be seen making a difference, and quickly too. So far, I've been able to stay back from jumping straight into addressing the problem, and luckily for me, within a few lessons, they've been able to get a sense of what's happening and take it on for themselves.

I've been lucky, I should say - will I continue to stay lucky... well, I certainly hope so!

And my visitor - I didn't have the time to give her a lesson as I'd have liked to, but I did take her through semi-supine and explain how she could use it for helping her back - so I hope that helps!

Walking Skywards

2011-03-10T01:00:00.000+05:30

This is a lovely phrase that one of my pupils used as we were applying Alexander ideas to walking and movement.

It struck me then that life would be so different if we could access that state of ease and harmony as a matter of course, and if that elusive quality could be something we take for granted rather than something that we view as a delightful aberration.

That's what most of us do - we like the changes that we observe in ourselves after a lesson, but we don't really expect to have it permanently. We've already bought into the view that this is something that we can have only when we're thinking exclusively about it, or when we're in a lesson. The idea,'This is the way I can be all the time', doesn't figure as a serious scenario - and in a way that's understandable.

Lots of things working here - one is of course the strength of habit, which keeps us expecting to go back into the old familiar state, sooner or later. The other is the thought that it's all too good to be true - is it really possible that we can rid themselves of our problems so easily? It seems to much to expect.

I tend to get caught up in that mindset too, and I've to be constantly on guard to make sure I don't unwittingly transmit that to someone working with me.

'Walking skywards' is something that we're all made for - age, race, sex, profession no bar. But we do need to accept that it's possible.

The Alexander Technique in Delhi

2011-03-07T14:38:00.000+05:30

It's beautiful weather in Delhi now; a little chill in the air, but blue skies and warm sunshine, and it's still possible to walk to places you want to get to.
I'm working in a studio in an old building on the fourth floor; it's in Shahpurjat, in South Delhi. The rest of South Delhi, except maybe Hauz Khas nearby, seems to be wide roads and greenery, but Shahpurjat is a tangle of narrow twisting lanes with houses overhanging them - or so it seems as I make my way through these lanes morning and night - on my way in to work, and on the way home. Invariably there are occasions when I have to stop for cars winding through these crooked streets in apparent defiance of all the odds of meeting another vehicle coming head on. Sometimes there is indeed another one coming head on, and then I can seize the chance to make some quick progress while the two vehicles negotiate ways of inching past each other - starting with the tricky question of who is to back up first! Since they effectively block the road for anything else, I'm assured of some easy walking for a bit - that is, as easy as a choppy and uneven surface can get.
But I'm enjoying working here on the fourth floor - the studio is large and airy, there is a little kitchenette so I can bring a packed lunch and warm it up when I'm ready to eat. The shady-sunny terrace allows me to sun myself between lessons and gives a slow leisurely quality to the days, so I'm not really worrying about what the follow up to this week of lessons here in Delhi should be. It seems as it everything will work itself out as it should.

Warning - Use is Highly Contagious

2010-09-10T08:06:00.000+05:30

I guess I had always known this - if I was in a highly charged situation, I tensed up myself.
If it was a family quarrel, for example, or an argument between friends, I would find myself getting tense even if I wasn't directly involved in what was going on.
All along, I'd equated it with my relationship with the people in the situation - i.e. both sides in the quarrel are dear to me - therefore I tense up.
This was in the Dark Ages before I got involved with the Alexander Technique.
After I started training I noticed that I didn't have to be involved with the people concerned - a fight between two strangers at a bus stop left me with a tight neck, too.
If I was looking at somebody going through emotional trauma, I tightened in sympathy.
Then I noticed that there didn't even have to be an open altercation - someone standing tensely next to me communicated that tension to me.
Are we then going through life communicating tight necks and tensions to each other? What a waste of time!
If we are able to transmit things at this subtle level, why on earth don't we transmit peace and good will?

Releasing a Cold

2010-08-26T17:27:00.000+05:30

Two days ago, I brought my mother back from the hospital, where she'd been admitted for investigation into a fever which wasn't responding to anything -
She's better, but a friendly bug must have latched on to me there, because I've been sniffling dismally through my days, and feeling a marked disinclination for any effort, even the mental kind.
Of course, Alexander junkie that I am, I felt that this was a situation that called for even more determined directing than usual. After all, if it can't be used when I am uncomfortable or ill, then what good is it?
So there I was, heroically directing away, with the ache and tickle in my throat refusing to go away, but me refusing to give up, saying to myself - 'Release, release! Go on, release!'
It must have been sheer exhaustion which made me stop for a bit - and which gave me the space for a uniquely physical realisation that my throat was really tight and that was why it was hurting so much. With that realisation I was suddenly able to let go, and immediately I felt a sense of rushing warmth and comfort which came as an immense relief.
I'd like to be able to say that that also got rid of my sniffles, but it didn't. However, it is allowing me to enjoy my frequent doses of milky tea laced with honey, cardamom, crushed pepper and dried ginger which is my favourite medicine for a cold and sore throat. And I don't want, quite so much, to curl up in a corner and die. My head still feels heavy, and I am conscious that I have a throat, but the over-riding misery is gone.
I can do things - witness this post. And that's good enough for me.

Fitting Into Your Skin

2010-08-25T17:37:00.000+05:30

I remember reading about how people often had to remake their clothes after having Alexander lessons because their bodies had changed - become straighter, more poised - and their clothes no longer fit in the old way.

But I have realised another thing - I am beginning to fit better into my own skin after lessons. I realise how cramped and contracted I'd been, as if I had been shrinking into myself, not expanding to take up all the space I had available in myself. And I didn't even regard me as particularly lacking in confidence!

Joanna Field, in her book A Life of One's Own, describes how she allowed her awareness to expand so that it filled all of herself. She called this 'that fat feeling', and found that if she used this when she was feeling tired, in a very short while, she felt refreshed with a new sense of energy.

I'm also reminded of Marjorie Barlow's statement in her Alexander Memorial Lecture - 'It is as if each of us is trying to take up the least possible amount of room in the Universe.' (Marjorie Barlow incidentally, was Alexander's niece, pupil and then assistant teacher for a number of years.)

But it is so true that that most of us are continually trying to make ourselves small, to reduce the amount of space we occupy, and the more diffident we are, the smaller we try to make ourselves. Often, in a blind reaction to that, and with a vague feeling that something is wrong, we force ourselves into the opposite - we push aggressively forward, quick to lose our tempers, and insistent on our stand that 'I'll take no nonsense from anyone.' Which actually doesn't fool anybody.

And when we're comfortable in our own skins, we lose that frightened feeling that we need to be protecting ourselves all the time. We can be calm and collected, but we can also have the confidence to be wrong sometimes, to look a bit foolish without feeling that the world has ended.

Taking my blog for a walk

2010-08-17T12:03:00.000+05:30

I'm realising that starting a blog is a bit like having a virtual pet - you have to feed it and water it, and take it for walks, or it will languish and die.
Hopefully my spiral monkeys haven't gone so far, or if they have, will revive very soon.
Amazing how quickly time passes - I can't believe my last post was in March, and here we are in the second half of the year - Time doesn't seem to be doing much inhibiting here!
I was away for six weeks in Brighton for a much needed refresher course. Had the time of my life meeting old friends and teachers, working with them and catching up on all that had happened. Walked around noticing changes - favourite shops that had moved or closed down, a couple of lovely old houses that have been demolished to make way for a block of flats...
The work really helped me. I realised that I had spent two years telling people to allow release but had almost forgotten how it works for me! That was a revelation - noticing how subtly I was holding tension in my arms and legs - and a good reminder that I need to be eternally vigilant, not just for my clients, but for myself as well.
Still, the best part is being back and starting work again, with a feeling of having a whole lot of new ideas I can use with people to start them on this fascinating journey of balance and release.
Just got a high today - when my client finished his lesson this morning, he remarked that all along he had thought that the emotions controlled the body and there was nothing he could do about it, but now he was realising that the body too had its own influence on the emotions, and that was an area he could do something about! Great!

Spiral Learning - Or, Don't Worry, It'll Come Round Again

2010-03-26T16:22:00.000+05:30

These were some of the most frequent words that I heard my teacher speak.

(and I don't think I say it to my pupils often enough.)

It was really reassuring because we had the comfort of knowing that even if we didn't quite get it this time, we could always tackle it when it came by again.

Welcome to spiral learning, which I personally believe is a more accurate model of how we actually learn. As opposed to straight line or linear learning.

When I was training, we did the same things for three years - simplistically speaking. I think I can quite accurately state that I'd been introduced to all the relevant concepts by end of week 1. So what was I doing the rest of the 2 years and 51 weeks?

Learning the same things differently. In greater depth and subtlety. In different applications. Seeing different aspects of it which I couldn't see the first, second or third time; seeing them this time round because I had changed.

We learnt new things all the time, but they were also part of the things we'd learnt the previous day, or the previous week.

So it didn't worry us too much if we couldn't see the point of some demo straightaway because we knew that we'd get it the next time it was done - or the next.

So yes, I really need to say that a lot more to my pupils!

An Alexander Student's Story - Part IV

2010-02-24T11:56:00.000+05:30

Here's what Leela feels the Alexander Technique has done for her. I haven't included her whole list, but I think this will give you an idea -

1.My muscles DO obey instructions from my brain.
2. Practising the AT allows me to do everything I want to do or have to do such as lift buckets and move furniture, but in a way that the body was designed by nature to do. Now every mundane activity is an adventure for me because I am learning to do it in a new and more efficient way.
3. It's all about stopping and "coming back to quiet" before doing anything, taking time to think before I make a conscious choice to react or NOT to react. This has greatly curbed my native impulsiveness and improved my interaction with other people.
4. The AT is an ongoing process. It is not confined within a time frame. It is not like putting in one's sentence in the gym for an hour each day, and then forgetting about fitness till the next day! I have the rest of my life to practise what I have learned and gradually allow my life (and my mind) to evolve and improve instead of looking for immediate results.
As I said, this is just a selection of the ways in which Leela feels the Alexander Technique has helped her. And she ends -
AT has been like giving myself a gift. At long last I am learning to focus on myself in a way that is good and right. After a lifetime of doing everything fast, of racing against against everyone and with myself, I am learning that the sky will not fall down if I stop and think before I act or speak or do ...
"Ask not that your load be lighter; ask rather that your back be stronger," I read recently. To which I'd like to add," Absolutely! But also learn the Alexander Technique!"
I enjoyed reading her account tremendously because it gave me another view, so to speak. Some of the experiences she had are fairly common, but there were others which are uniquely hers, born out of her life, and the kind of person she is. Not to speak of that fascinating dream she had, which seemed to mirror the process she was going through!
That's why I always ask people to start a journal when they start their lessons - it gives a record of their unique journey, and it shows them that things have indeed been changing and developing in them.

An Alexander Student's Story - Part III

2010-02-06T08:10:00.000+05:30

Here's the dream that Leela had -
In my dream, I am trapped in a very small space and unable to move. It is a narrow passage where the ceiling is so low that I have to bend double and cannot straighten up even though my back aches abominably; or I am climbing up a steep staircase or hill with a heavy load on my back; or I am trapped in a car and the lock is stuck; or I'm in a cramped elevator which is stuck and I am unable to get out.

At this point I always get up with that familiar back ache and I am unable to sleep again. Perhaps it is my body's way of signalling that I have been is the same position for too long and that it's time to turn and give my back a rest. This fact alone I have found interesting enough, but something even more interesting happened.

One night when I was about half way through my classes I had that dream. This time I was a tourist trapped in a dark underground cave along with a lot of other people with no way out. I was hemmed in by a crowd of people and the hard stone walls of the cave and my back was giving out. This is the point where normally I would have woken up in agony. This time though, I did not wake up at all. Still in the dream, one of my fellow tourists pointed to a wide, bright and airy passage that none of us had observed. We all made our way to that passage in a nice orderly sort of way and were able to get out into the open air where the sun was shining and and the sky was blue and everything was right with the world.

That was the first time I slept right through the night and woke up at a normal time without any back pain at all.
While I was asleep, had my brain sent directions to my muscles to release? Had they obeyed? I will never know.
I'm going to devote one more post to this. I'd like to include a random selection of the benefits that Leela feels she got from her lessons.
What struck me is that she got something out of the Alexander Technique that transformed her life without making any dramatic external changes. There's something magical about that!

An Alexander Student's Story - Part II

2010-01-28T17:06:00.000+05:30

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

2010-01-23T20:25:00.000+05:30

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"!

The Inner Massage

2009-12-05T19:29:00.000+05:30

I owe this idea to one of my pupils - she remarked how we go to a spa or clinic to get a massage, and leave feeling rejuvenated. But very soon all that delightful ease is gone and we're back to square one again.
Whereas with the Alexander Technique, she said, we can be giving ourselves an inner massage all the time. It needn't ever stop - and if it does, we can pick it up any time we like.
That's very true. We do carry around an enormous amount of underlying tension - that's our default state. I call it 'default holding', because at some level, that's what our muscles are doing.
Holding on. All the time.
We carry this into our work, and the pressures there, which for most people are enormous, pile on even more tension on our default state. That's what we pick up, and try to get rid of with massages and similar treatments. The other holding, the underlying one, we don't even register as tension.
But if we learn the skill of releasing whenever we want to, we can learn to shed first this external tension, and over time, we can access the lightness which at the moment is inaccessible to us. That brings in a qualitative change in ourselves and the way we respond to situations.
Once we change the way we respond to a situation, we change the situation itself.
Not bad for a simple massage!

Lying Down is Hard Work!

2009-11-30T18:52:00.000+05:30

A couple of my students have recently commented on how tired they felt on the day they had a lesson. They said it hesitantly, almost apologetically, as if they had no business to feel tired after half an hour spent lying down or sitting down in a chair and getting up from it.
That's a very familiar feeling, and a very familiar response to the feeling.
Alexander teacher trainees typically might comment, if asked what they did in class -
'Oh, nothing much, we just sat and stood up a couple of times, and then we lay down for some more time while the teachers worked on us. Then we had a break; sat and stood up some more and lay down some more.
I'm wiped out - I have to rest!'
There is the understandable view that since an Alexander class doesn't involve - usually - any strenuous movement, there really is no reason to feel tired at all. But we forget that during the lesson, we are continuously giving instructions to our muscles to behave and respond very differently from the way they have been behaving and responding so far. Instant by instant, we are stripping away layers of habitual behaviours which have an impact on muscles we are not even conscious of. The tiredness here is not confined to the outer muscles - it is more subtle, and very very deep.
We should be gentle with ourselves in this process of relearning the old natural way of using ourselves. Allow ourselves to rest and recuperate.
Even more important, we need to not push ourselves into some imaginary level of achievement. We need to unquestioningly give ourselves all the time we need to assimilate and use the new information we've taken on board.

On a different note -
There's a possibility that I might have to move out of the place I'm currently working from. So I've been pretty busy the last few weeks looking for another place. Finally found it - it's a very pleasant place in the Cooke Town area, and I think I will enjoy working there as much as I enjoy working from my present place in Domlur.
But no need to worry about directions, and finding the place, and so on - I haven't been asked to vacate yet!

Alexandroid

2009-10-18T20:26:00.000+05:30

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.

Back from Mumbai

2009-10-05T13:53:00.000+05:30

I thought I would get the time to post at least a couple of blogs - unfortunately I couldn't.
It was a good trip - I got to work with people who were really motivated to learn, who asked questions and expressed their doubts and confusions. That challenged me to really think so I could satisfy them with my answers. I hope I did. Also got some contacts which hopefully will work out in the future. Some carefully directed action, judiciously laced with inhibition, seems to be called for!
On my return, I got a call from an old pupil who wanted to come in for a lesson -
I'm constantly thinking about this, he said, and I'm feeling that everything I do is wrong.
I'm thrilled! I said, Carry right on directing, you're right on track!
I don't think he's forgotten what he's learnt, or suddenly, inexplicably, lapsed. I think it's just that he's coming up against some use patterns that he's really comfortable with, and his system doesn't want to let go.
I remember walking along the sea front in Brighton, some weeks into my course, miserably feeling that I had forgotten how to walk, that everyone was looking at me in astonishment at my strange, awkward way of walking. I really,truly felt that I didn't know how to lift my legs and move them so as to take a step. Only the realisation that I did have to get home somehow made me continue. And all the time, of course, I could also see that actually no one was looking at me at all; everyone was happily engrossed in their own business - or pleasure. A very weird feeling.
Absolutely convinced of the complete wrongness of my being and doing, and at the same time, realising that I looked as normal as anyone else.
Of course, I never for a minute considered throwing it all up and going home. I'd decided even before I got to Brighton that I was going to learn this, come what may.
But if I had wanted to give it all up, I think the other interludes would have persuaded me otherwise. The sudden, unexpected moments of walking - floating - along the street, feeling everything working smoothly, with an intelligence and harmony of its own. I didn't have to do anything - it was all doing itself, and life didn't have a greater joy than this.
Of course, after a few moments, I tried to grab it and hold on to it, at which it immediately vanished. But I'd had the experience, and seen what was possible. That alone would have kept me going, if I'd had any thought of giving up.

Releasing into Tightening

2009-09-11T12:00:00.000+05:30

Most people feel a heady sense of lightness and ease after their lesson - even a first lesson. So did I.

I had my first ever Alexander lesson at the hands of a visiting teacher because there were no Alexander teachers in India at the time. I had to drive across the city through traffic choked roads to get there. During the lesson I didn't have any epiphanies; perhaps I was too preoccupied with trying to make sense of all the new information I was getting. But I drove back across the same traffic choked roads with a blissful feeling of effortlessness, as if I was being carried along by the current of a river. In words familiar to all Alexander students, 'I wasn't doing anything - it was all just happening.'

An experience like this can be a powerful motivator to pursue this strange discipline. Understandably, we want to experience this again and again. Make it our default state if possible.

So it can come as a rude shock when the initial phase of releases is followed by what seems to be relentless tightening in the muscles. We know our shoulders are tight, we direct for release, and frustratingly, nothing happens. It begins to feel as if learning the Alexander Technique is a never ending process of getting our noses jammed against the next level of tightening.

It's helpful to remember that we are usually holding several layers of tensions, and letting go of the outermost can bring the inner ones to the surface. Also that the new information we're asking ourselves to process is, more often than not, directly contradictory to the way we've been doing things up until then.

I remind my pupils, when they complain of feeling tighter than ever, that they have been carrying this tightness around for the whole of their lives. The only difference is that they didn't know they were carrying it - and now that they do, they don't like it. Naturally.

The best response to this is to give ourselves an encouraging pat on the back for being able to register the tension, then continue to direct and inhibit without worrying about when a release is actually going to happen.

There might be a little gap between this and my next post, because I'm travelling to Mumbai to do some Alexander work there for two weeks. I should be able to resume by the middle of next week, and I'm hoping I will have some interesting experiences to post - AT as well as non AT!

It's Different!

2009-09-07T16:49:00.000+05:30

It's very exciting to be starting out on a new venture, but one of the downsides is that there are so many factors to balance that some of them tend to fall by the wayside occasionally - as happened with my posts.
What helped me get back is a comment from one of my pupils:
'My only suggestion is keep directing into the blogs, it will work at some point!'
An apt suggestion, indeed.
So here I am, directing away -
and again, inevitably, I got back to the question of why the Alexander Technique constantly fascinates, frustrates, but refuses to let go of me.
Well, it's a nice middle point between 'Just go for it', and 'Everything is illusion, give it all up.'
It doesn't stop me from wanting things, but it shows me a different way of getting them without damaging myself in the process.
It doesn't encourage me to run blindly after them, to grab, hold, grip.
In fact, it encourages me, after making it clear to myself what exactly I want, to drop it and pay attention to something else instead. Strangely enough, I often end up getting not only what I asked for, but also an indefinable quality of ease and effortessness.
But the Alexander Technique doesn't work to a time table.
Deadlines are something I am learning to drop - very difficult!
I have to learn to ask, and get out of the way.
It may happen -
now
at some other time.
Or
something else may happen
nothing may happen for quite a long time
a whole lot of things may happen all at once.
It doesn't need a special time, or a special place.
The best time to use it is now, and the best place is here. Wherever I am, and whatever I happen to be doing at the moment, the Alexander Technique slips right into it, and infuses a whole new quality into it.
After some time you don't do the Alexander Technique, it does you, and you go along for the ride.

Tone vs. Tightening

2009-07-23T14:48:00.000+05:30

One big Alexander hurdle - how to have your muscles engaged and working well, but not use unnecessary effort and energy in the process.
All my pupils have had this problem, whether they were aware of it or not. I had it too when I started training.
You're standing, being worked on, and the teacher says, ' Ask your neck to release'.
You do, and don't feel any change. But she says, ' Great!' leaving you with the suspicion that she is just being nice, and that you're actually lousy at this.
Part of the problem is that we're not used to paying such close atention to our bodies. So many of the shifts and releases that happen simply slip through our awareness, like little fish that swim through the spaces of a net.
But another aspect of the problem is that we confuse tone with tightening, and think our muscles are tight, when in fact they're only using the appropriate effort required for the action being done. So if we're standing, and we ask our muscles to release, it doesn't mean that all our muscles go completely floppy. That would just make us end up in a heap on the floor.
No, it just means that the extra effort we're putting into that action melts away, leaving us using just the right amount of effort that's needed.
This melting away of the extra effort often goes unnoticed, especially if we're at the beginning stages. That's when we feel that our thoughts have had no effect. Naturally we feel confused when the teacher beams, 'Well done!' at us!
But as time goes by, and our kinaesthetic awareness sharpens, we learn to recognise when release has taken place, whether we're moving or standing still. We experience the pleasure of having our muscles working smoothly and freely, centred and purposefully engaged.
Best of all, we get that extraordinary feeling of effortlessness, the sheer pleasure of the action having done itself.

Physical Responses to Thought

2009-07-18T13:40:00.000+05:30

We can think of thoughts and emotions - mental processes generally - as having a grip on our muscles. Or rather, if we consider the Alexander stand that mind and body are one, then the muscles patterns are the thoughts, and vice versa.
So it needn't only be the so called 'negative' emotions - fear, anger, hate and so on - that cause the neck to tighten. It could just as well be happiness, excitement, anticipation and so on. Add the fact that very often we have mixtures of 'positive' and 'negative' feelings in us, and we can see that the whole process of tightening and releasing is not as straightforward as we might have thought.
We hold on to these emotions, so that our muscles are continuously locked into one emotional pattern after another as we move mindlessly through our day. No wonder we feel ragged with exhaustion at the end of it!
Perhaps what happens when we direct and allow release is not that we stop feeling the emotion, but that we stop locking it into us. We stay released, allowing it to flow through. Just as our muscles have to engage to a certain extent in the effort of picking up something, in feeling an emotion, too, our muscles have to do the same. But if there is just the optimum effort involved, we can get back to our normal, released state when the emotion passes.
And perhaps, in some cases, we get the time to pause and realise that we don't really need to feel that emotion after all.

Investing Time

2009-07-15T11:34:00.000+05:30

Someone who comes in for Alexander lessons comes prepared to invest a certain sum of money. But there is something else, something much more scarce that they have to be prepared to invest, if the lessons are to work, and that is Time.
That's what nobody has enough of these days.
Babies seem to be born with watches strapped to their wrists, and a cell phone in their hands. Children's lives are structured and timetabled down to the last nano second. Even having fun has to be productive, and train you to be confident, a better manager, improve your leadership skills, your risk taking capabilities, your decision making abilties...
Along with the shrinking of the open spaces, the spaces in our minds have shrunk as well.
In the middle of all this, along comes the Alexander teacher, who seems to be a relic of the past.
Stop, he says.
Take your time.
Be aware.
Give your directions, but don't push them.
Let them work.
Allow your body to adjust to the totally new situation you have just created.
Let the new balance happen in your body.
I can't tell you how and when it it going to respond.

To someone immersed in an atmosphere of schedules and deadlines, familiar with - 'by the end of 3 months, we would have achieved 1,2 and 3...' this kind of vagueness may sound unacceptably waffly.
It happens to be the truth.
You have to be prepared to invest, along with a definite sum of money, an indefinite amount of time to allow the Alexander Technique to work in you. It would help if you mentally prepare yourself to invest your entire life.
This doesn't mean that you resign yourself to a long hard slog for the rest of your life, and then see the results when you are on the point of departing from it.
You start seeing the effects very soon, but the process never stops. There never comes a point where you can say, 'That's it, I've got it now, I can move on to other things.'
No, it stays with you for the rest of your life, like a benevolent Old Man of the Sea.
This can seem very daunting too, because it seems like you're stuck with all this effort of sustaining thought, and direction, and letting go, and all the rest of it, and it looks like just one more bit of slog added to all the bits you've already got.
But the delightful thing about the Alexander Technique is that it's not about more effort, but less. Not about trying harder to achieve something, but about achieving it without trying.
And it gets easier as you become more attuned to yourself, quicker to catch yourself tightening, quicker to release - until one day you realise you've just gone through a very tense scene, but at the end of it you are still calm and collected...
It all seems so right and inevitable and simple that the only possible response is, 'But of course...!"

Beyond Awareness

2009-07-11T15:26:00.000+05:30

In this work, we are working with habits built up over a lifetime, and so ingrained, that we identify ourselves totally with them. They are an integral part of our identity - of the way we experience ourselves every instant. As far as we are concerned, they are us. This experience is not intellectual or mental; it goes far deeper than that, and for that reason, is not available to our conscious mind.
The habits I'm talking about are not what we usually think of as habits - whether they be actions (such as drinking tea every morning) or mannerisms ( such as tapping our feet on the floor when we sit).
These are very deep, inner habits of the muscular system and are involved in the simplest actions of daily life - standing, sitting, reaching out for something, speaking, listening.
For instance, as you sit there reading this post, your muscular system is working in a particular way that is uniquely yours, to hold you balanced in your chair. It works in a different way to support you when you reach out for something, when you read or write, when you get out of the chair.
The fact is that in most people, the muscular system works by shortening and tightening, so that too much effort is expended for even the simplest non-action, like just sitting still.
We need to reach down this deep, to a level which we are not otherwise aware of, and cannot otherwise control, to access the working of our self, to allow it to unravel, and to let a different way of working to establish itself.

Bigger on the Inside Than the Outside

2009-07-07T11:52:00.001+05:30

If the title sounds weird, well, there it is. That's the Alexander Technique for you. It's got just enough zaniness in it to keep you sane.
It's fine to speak of releasing and expanding when your outward posture matches the thought. So you're standing beautifully balanced, perhaps arms spread out, and you can allow yourself to breathe deeply and fully. You can let your muscles expand and release into open-ness.
But what if you're sitting at the computer, typing away?
What if you're an actor playing a hunchback?
Or a student who spends long hours reading, writing, typing?
A golfer standing bent over the ball, arms angled inwards, hands gripping the golf club?
Your outward posture is anything but expanded. So then do you let yourself go all crinkly inside, and hope like hell you'll remember to stretch every now and then?
Remembering to stretch every now and then is a good thing anyway. Well, most of the time, at least.
However, the actor playing the hunchback doesn't have the luxury of taking time out every 30 minutes to have a good stretch!
The fact is that you can be released and elastic, whatever your outward posture.
The Alexander Technique teaches you to stretch inwardly, while you're working, acting, reading or typing.
You can have your arms angled inwards, your shoulders and back rounded and hunched, your gaze directed downwards.
Through all of that, you can ask for inner release and expansion so that while your arms are focused inwards, your shoulders are imperceptibly releasing outwards. While you are walking, stooped and hunched, looking crooked and misshapen, inside you are free, so that your muscles have the best chance of protecting you from damage, and helping you do your job.
Outwardly, you appear constricted, tight. Actually you are released, free and open, with all the space in the world inside!

I Have the Time

2009-07-04T18:40:00.000+05:30

This is the second half of the previous post - I was describing the aspects of the Alexander Technique that go against the beliefs of the 'developed world'.
The first is to let go of a preoccupation with the results that we want.
The second, is to take all the time that we need.
One of the first things that we have to accept when we start learning the Alexander Technique is that the process of release cannot be hurried. We can ask for freedom in the neck, the shoulders, the arms, hips or feet, but the minute we start urging a response from ourselves, the whole process stalls.
This principle is implacable, and you cannot cheat. Start pushing, thinking of how much you’d like things to happen immediately, or tomorrow, or in the next lesson, or by the end of 15 lessons, and you are lost.
The only way is to let go of a time frame completely – to affirm your readiness to let the process take its own time.
Paradoxically, this acceptance may speed things up.
On the other hand, it may not.
Not difficult to see how completely it goes against the grain in the ‘developed’ world, is it?
We live by dates and deadlines that are regarded as acts of God. Our days are numbered - in more ways than one! Everything is packaged into neat, time bound schedules that promise a certain result if a certain input is made.
Into this neat, pre-ordered universe, comes the Alexander teacher, with his, ‘ Well, just ask for release and get out of the way, and you will get it – or you may not just yet, but continue asking anyway.’
We can go nuts trying to squeeze the process of release into a timetable.
Or we could let go, and embark on a fascinating exploration of how our own selves work. And all without leaving our home –
Talk about environment friendly tourism !

Against the Flow

2009-07-02T22:13:00.000+05:30

There are two things - at least! - about the Alexander Technique which are completely at odds with the culture of the so called 'developed world'. By that I mean the 'developed' communities, wherever they are found.

One aspect is non end-gaining - the idea that in your AT practice, you do not worry about the results that you want to accomplish. You stay in the present, take care of the means, and let go all worry about the ends in the confidence that the means you are using will inevitably lead to the ends you want.

We're more accustomed to being told to 'go for it,' 'grab it!' to 'seize the day' and so on. The 'go-getter has much more status, never whether he is actually getting something in all his going. You are expected to have a clear goal, and work towards it, disregarding any other factors you may see around you.

And the second?

I think I will save that for my next post...

Letting Go Without Giving Up

2009-06-28T18:25:00.000+05:30

Alexander teachers are always telling their pupils to 'release' and 'let go', both of their muscles and their preoccupation with a specific goal. This often makes their pupils feel that they should try for a kind of beatific non-involvement with worldly affairs and concern themselves with higher things - which can quickly get extremely depressing. Nothing worse for morale than feeling that you shouldn't be doing what you are longing to do.

What is happening, however, is that we are mixing up 'letting go' with 'giving up'. There's an important difference between these two terms which we often fail to appreciate. I know I used to confuse one with the other until I sat down one day (in a released Alexanderly way, I hope!) and sorted them out.

'Letting go' of your aim or goal isn't the same as giving it up.

Giving it up means deciding that you're not going to have it, for whatever reason. Forgetting about achieving it. It has echoes of 'giving up', hopeless, sad, forlorn.

But 'letting go' only means you stop holding on to it - or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that you stop holding on to the desire for it.

So if we're thinking of wanting the neck to release, the head to go forward and up, and so on, we don't want to be obsessing about how much we want that release to happen/whether it's working/whether we're doing it right/whether it will work tomorrow/whether it will work for the rest of our lives/whether it will help that bad back...

All that just takes attention and energy away from the release itself.

I find it really ironical that it's our very obsession with the result, the desperation of our need for it, that prevents it from happening. Whereas if we're a bit stand offish, and look away, so to speak, with an attitude of,"It's okay whether it happens or not", it very often does.

This standoffishness can be really difficult to reach, because of course, inside I'm just dying for the release to happen, for my bad back to get better, or my frozen shoulder to release, or whatever.

I always felt a bit of a fraud in this situation, and tried valiantly not to want the result so desperately, but to remain centred - until I realised that the very effort of trying not to do it was tightening me up further. And then I had a minor epiphany and realised that I had to let go of the desire - but also of the desire to let go of the desire ...

...but that would trap me in an endless backward loop and unending conflict ...

until I had the real epiphany and realised that I didn't have to let go of anything - I just had to let go, period.

So if I ask for release, and notice that the desire for the result isn't going away, I don't try to fight it. I just let it be and go back to 'neck free, head forward and up...'

Teaching, Not Therapy

2009-06-23T17:50:00.000+05:30

I must admit I wasn't prepared for the complete and overwhelming sense of panic that seized me when I actually saw my words out there in the ether for all to see. I had to dive for cover and try to free my neck. Which I hope I have done.
But in the interval between then and now, I've been talking to various people about the Technique, and the thing I've had to keep saying is that it isn't a medical treatment, it's a skill, it's taught, not administered, and your success with it depends completely on how you apply it in your life. Sometimes I feel like I'm making a big deal out of what could be regarded as a minor difference, when I keep interrupting someone and saying, 'Lesson, not treatment', and 'pupil, not patient'.
But then again, I don't think so. Your attitudes and expectations are very different when you go for a lesson from when you go for, say, a therapy session. You expect to learn in a lesson, and what is more important, you expect to practise. To go away and apply what you've learned in the lesson.So it's really important that if you want to take Alexander lessons, you should be clear that the process that you start is not going to stop at the end of the 15 lessons or whatever. In fact, the end of your course is the beginning of your real education, when you start using what you've learnt in the lessons, and using it in a way that is unique to you.
It's your story.
You are the hero/ine, and you are (in a non endgaining way, of course), in control.

Taking Time

2009-06-20T11:09:00.000+05:30

It's very difficult, often, to make the effort and stop in the middle of work to take a break.

You might have got nicely into the flow of it, or you might just want to get it over and done with. But the reality is that if you have been working for a long period without stopping, you have tightened, shortened, forgotten to breathe, and lost awareness of your legs.

The Alexander Technique teaches you to stop.

Stopping and releasing, coming back to your whole self from that little sphere of your head, can not only refresh you enormously, but can also prevent actual physical damage. Just taking a few moments to do the 'inner stretch', to lengthen and widen and rest your hands, can allow you to go back to work as an integrated, complete self. ( In contrast to just being a head stuck on a pole)

The State of In Between

2009-06-17T18:26:00.000+05:30

Most of us know only two states - either in movement, or tightly held.

Locked solid.

I experience this when I ask pupils to let me move their arms or legs for them.

They either leap into movement with me, or hold on so tightly that I cannot move them at all. There is an in between state of poise and readiness for movement - in stillness. That is, the hand or leg or head is released and free, but not moving. You're able to move if you want, but equally able to stay still while someone else makes the movement for you. In our control oriented society, many people find this deeply threatening, and cannot let go even if they say, or think, that they wish to.

AT junkie

2009-06-16T14:28:00.000+05:30

What fascinates me about the Alexander Technique is - well, there are heaps of things, but what caught my attention immediately when I first came across it, was this thing about not using effort. That really grabbed me, because I'm incorrigibly lazy. All the usual rhetoric about hard work, determination, knowing what you want and going for it, leaves me cold. But I'd reconciled myself to some form of the daily grind, mainly because I didn't know there was an alternative. So the minute I came across something that insisted that you've to put in less, not more effort, I said to myself, ' Hey, that's for me!'
Anything that tells me not to work hard gets my vote everytime!
The other thing about it that I really like - this took me some time, because I had to understand a bit about it first - is the fact that it can be used in anything that you do. It doesn't ask for an hour, or two hours, of your exclusive attention. You can use it in your daily life, your routine chores. You can use it for simple acts like sitting, standing, walking, talking, breathing. But it doesn't prohibit you from doing anything else. So you can continue with your Yoga, or your daily walk or jog, and the probability is that it will make these activities even more pleasureable and effective. And then again, you can also use it in complex activities like playing a game or a musical instrument, in singing, dancing and theatre. Not only does it prevent damage,but it also improves performance in a very subtle and powerful way.
It's the subtlety that's fascinating. Lots of other disciplines give power. But that subtle shift, that transforms life radically, yet leaves you asking,'Did that really happen, or did I imagine it?' - that's what got me hooked.

Swagatham

2009-06-15T22:08:00.000+05:30

For readers unfamiliar with the word, that means 'welcome'.

Welcome to my Alexander Technique blog - I call it that because AT is what occupies my thoughts a lot of the time at this point. Not just how I can introduce it to people in India, but also how I can use it for myself to get that wonderful quality of 'not doing' ness in whatever I do.

Responses, comments, criticism, suggestions ......all gratefully received!