Alexander Technique Lessons
Moving out of Pain
The continued presence of pain is exhausting and can reduce our willingness to pursue necessary change. The Alexander Technique has a long history of successfully alleviating musculoskeletal pain.
Learning how to apply the Alexander Technique in your life begins with discovering new patterns of balance and movement that gently guide you away from more habitual reactions - those that keep you stuck in pain.
Alexander Technique teachers use their hands in gentle, non manipulative ways to encourage you to find a response to gravity that does not involve bracing or fixing.
This is a first step out of cycles of pain, it builds a new foundation for the demands of more complex actions and movement.
Developing Poise
Alexander’s observation that our actions always involve our whole system is now being confirmed through recent neurophysiological studies.
Lessons in the Technique provide the experience of how the delicate poise of your head on top of your spine is one of the most significant aspects influencing your total pattern of movement and response.
You also discover that this is not merely a simplistic, ‘mechanical’ musculo-skeletal issue of position and ‘posture’ - it is something continually influenced by perception of our immediate environment and subsequent intention to move.
Gradually you become aware of the subtlety of our movement, how the holistic nature of our response is complex, a response which we can only indirectly influence.
Discovering Choice
Over a course of lessons in the Technique you gradually begin to rediscover how to move with increased ease and less pain.
You also find that this way of moving is under your conscious control.
While the teacher will encourage and help you explore new patterns of movement this does not require you to become dependent upon the teacher or commit to an endless series of lessons.
Hence this process of dealing with your pain or learning to change your response to stress provides you with a new set of skills - skills that are there for you to carry forward into new circumstances