“Alexander Technique teacher Galen Cranz talks with Robert Rickover about our heads and why there are considerably more complex than most of us tend to assume, and why it’s important to understand these complexities. Galen is also a Professor of Architecture at the University of California and the author of The Chair: Rethinking Culture, Body and Design.”
Galen: “I noticed that most of the English teachers said, ‘Let your head go forward and up, dear.’”
“Then I got introduced to ideas in cranial-osteopathy and that the bones in the head move. You can float them apart on the dura.”
“I began to think about taking the occipital bone back and up and let the frontal bone release forward and up. If you allow the opposition between these bones, uprightness is a byproduct.”
“Cerebral spinal fluid doesn’t have a heart to pump it. It has to rely on the movement of flexion and extension.”
Robert: “When I was training, I don’t remember anyone saying anything other than ‘the head’, as though it was a solid unit. There wasn’t much of an idea about any internal movements within the head.”
“Anyone who has cranial-sacral work knows that there’s movement because you can sense it.”