What is the Alexander Technique?
The Alexander Technique is an educational method used worldwide for over 100 years. By teaching how to change faulty postural habits, it enables improved mobility, posture, performance and alertness and relief of chronic stiffness, tension and stress.
Why do people study the Alexander Technique?
People study the Technique for a variety of reasons. The most common is to relieve pain through learning better coordination of the musculoskeletal system.
Another common reason is to enhance performance. Athletes, singers, dancers, and musicians use the Technique to improve breathing, vocal production, and speed and accuracy of movement.
The most far-reaching reason people study the Technique is to achieve greater conscious control of their reactions.
During lessons you learn through direct experience how to go about your daily activities with increasingly less effort and greater ease. You develop awareness of habits that interfere with your natural coordination and learn how to undo these patterns to consciously redirect your whole self into an optimal state of being. Most of us have many habitual patterns, learned consciously or unconsciously. These patterns can be unlearned, enabling the possibility of new choices - in posture, movement and reactions.
How do I learn the Alexander Technique?
The Alexander Technique is typically taught through a series of private lessons. Over a course of lessons, your teacher introduces concepts and practices that expand your awareness of the functioning of your nervous system, muscular system and skeletal system. You’ll learn to restore optimal poise, balance and ease in overall functioning.
As you progress in your study, you’ll find that what you’re learning applies to all areas of your life. Just as study and practice in a new language enables you to understand and speak the language easily without thinking, so does study of the Alexander Technique result in being able to integrate it into the activities of your life on an ongoing basis.
In an Alexander Technique lesson, your teacher instructs you — with verbal and manual guidance — to approach movement differently. Not only will you learn to recognize habit patterns that may be interfering with ease, flexibility, and balance, but you will learn how to change them. No special clothing needed - normal street attire is appropriate.
Benefits experienced by people who study the Alexander Technique include:
- Pain relief
A leading contributing factor of musculoskeletal pain (and often its underlying cause) is unrecognized patterns of excess tension. People tend to respond to pain by tensing further which usually exacerbates discomfort. Because it teaches how to recognize and unlearn these habitual patterns, the Alexander Technique is known for its effectiveness in relieving neck, back, and joint pain for the long-term. - Skill enhancement
Athletes – amateur and professional - use the Technique to improve strength, increase endurance, enhance flexibility and increase speed and accuracy of responsiveness. Performing artists (actors, singers, dancers, musicians) apply the principles to enhance freedom of movement, relieve performance anxiety and improve concentration and stage presence. Public speakers use it to improve vocal projection and overall voice quality. Those in business find it enhances presentation skills and increases confidence. - Improved ability to deal with stress
By teaching how to respond to any stimulus with less tension, the Alexander Technique enables you to better handle life’s stresses.
The above information is as presented by the American Society for the Alexander Technique™
