Alexander Technique
When you tense your face, you make wrinkles. Your brow gets all furrowed and the skin around your eyes and lips becomes tight and scarecrowy. By contrast, when you release unnecessary tension and let go of postures of your face, you can become alive to the moment. When you read one of my witty blog …
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An Alexander teacher emails: “Alexander Teachers Spend Raucous Afternoon Validating Each Other” is really excellent writing. How the hell did you keep this kind of righteous commentary stuffed for three years of training? Did no one suspect that they had a “suicide bomber” in their midst?
When I started taking Alexander Technique lessons in 2008, I became frustrated that change was so slow. I remained frustrated for a couple of years until I finally felt at ease. In this podcast, Alexander teachers Robert Rickover and Eileen Troberman discuss the rate of change. A 20 year old kid asked Marj Barstow why …
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In this podcast, Alexander teacher Amy Ward Brimmer talks to Robert Rickover about how the Technique can help with boredom. Robert: “One aspect of boredom is not being in the moment and self-aware but being in some other state.” Amy: “Whenever I’ve been aware and in the present moment, there’s always been a whole lot …
Robert Rickover tells Harriet Anderson: “When learning a foreign language, there are pronunciations that are usually foreign. I wish I’d had Alexander lessons when I was taking French in high school. It would’ve saved me a world of grief.” Harriet: “First, as learning to learn. Learning a transferable skill. Learning to unlearn and learning to …
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When you’re afraid, you tighten up. The contraction will start in your neck and then spread to the rest of you. You compress, make yourself smaller, less of a target, and go into some version of the fight-or-flight reflex. When you’re afraid, it will be hard to reach out to others. Your touch will be …
Continue reading “Fear Makes You Contract, Love Makes You Expand”
In this podcast, Jano Cohen, an Alexander Technique teacher and Massage Therapist in Philadelphia talks to Robert Rickover about ways the Alexander Technique can help Massage Therapists. Jano: “Practicing massage is an athletic endeavor that requires good body mechanics. In a lot of massage training programs, they teach people how to use their bodies well, …
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Are there places you can’t go in case you have a panic attack? Are there things you can’t do for fear of panic? A few Alexander Technique lessons will help most people to let go of panic attacks. I had a girlfriend who could not go to courts or hospitals for fear of a panic …
When life is not what I want, I feel a huge emotional need to clench my jaw. I just want to grind my teeth. I’m frustrated and I have to express this frustration through body tension. That’s one of the principle ways I know myself — through my layers of body tension. As I’ve learned …
Before I took Alexander lessons, I never thought about the way I read books. I never thought about my sitting mechanics. I never thought about the strain of holding a book up. Nuitsmani comments on one of my videos on how to sit: “When reading a book (or writing) I put my book (or journal) …