When I walk into a 12-step room, I can tell at a glance who’s in the throes of addiction and who’s in recovery.
Active addicts are usually pulled down and in on themselves. They stare at the ground. They have all sorts of interfering tension patterns. They’re slumped over. They’re depressed.
Those in recovery are usually buoyant. They have upward direction. They’re light.
I’m listening to this great podcast interview with Alexander Technique teacher Amira Glaser.
She says: “One of the ways that F.M. Alexander described the Alexander Technique was as the study of human reaction. What we’re looking at in the Alexander Technique are our mental, physical and emotional habits and how they come out when we’re confronted with a stimulus. The Technique teaches us how to get into that moment between the stimulus and how we respond.”
FM discussed people arguing about free trade, and how they were stuck in their habitual ways of thinking and couldn’t transcend that.
I haven’t noticed a more elevated way of discussing religion, politics or anything controversial in the Alexander Technique teaching world. People seem just as habitual as any other group when it comes to ideas. Alexander teachers seem just as easily triggered, and just as nasty and petty as any other group, they just do it with less body tension. Am I missing something? I know I have faulty perceptions and a predisposition towards debunking.
Let me think about my own journey. When I started taking Alexander Technique lessons, I’d say things that were inappropriate frequently. As my training went along, I did this less and less. Despite years of Alexander lessons, however, I never eliminated my inappropriate streak, but I made it more appropriate.
I still get into trouble for things I say, but one-tenth as often as I did when I started my lessons.