Alexander teacher Hope Martin says: “The crux of what [F.M. Alexander] discovered was that trying to do a good job, working hard, end-gaining, always showed up in his system as tightening. And he had to stop that. He talked about inhibiting a habitual response, particularly ones that had to do with trying to do a good job and anticipating.”
Hope discovered Alexander Technique in her early twenties. “I’d been through the educational system. I’d been to a good college [University of Wisconsin]. And I didn’t feel like I knew myself. My education was so much about things outside myself. When I took an Alexander lesson, it was startling. All of a sudden I had an hour to focus on who I was… and how to let go of patterns that were not useful to me.”
“I had a good instinct that I needed some form of touch, some form of nurturing.”
“Alexander is helped through guidance and touch from another person but ultimately it is about relying on your own innate bodily wisdom.”
Host Paula Gloria: “I’m reminded of why my first [Alexander] teacher was not so enthusiastic about meditation. Perhaps by observing me, and at that point I had been meditating for ten years, she saw that I was using meditation to get out of my body.”
Hope: “Alexander is a western contemplative practice.”