Wellness through Mindfulness via the Alexander Technique

Much of our discomfort and pain, both physical and psychological, is caused by poor habits in the ways we hold and move our bodies. These harmful habits are powerful primarily because they are unseen. Improving mindfulness permits us little by little to ‘see’ them. Repeated ‘seeing’ of these habits weakens them until in time it becomes possible to drop them. Released from the tyranny of our harmful habits, we are better able to heal, and thus become re-acquainted with wellness.

What do we mean by ‘Mindfulness’? We mean of course a kind of self-awareness; however, there are two distinct aspects of self towards which one might direct this awareness: to sensations of one’s body, or, to one’s internal thoughts and stories. Keeping in mind that we are talking about replacing harmful habits that cause discomfort and pain with more functional ones, we would do well to ask, “To which of these two aspects, sensations or thoughts, would it be more productive to direct our mindfulness?”

Faulty Sensory Feedback: Sensations coming from one’s body have a strong preference for a habit that is longstanding, established and therefore familiar, whether or not that habit is harmful. In the world of the body’s sensations, familiar habits feel ‘right’ while new ones feel ‘wrong’. The body’s preference for familiar over unfamiliar habits is not a bad thing per se fostering as it does predictability and economy of effort; however, it can and does get in the way of change. For the job of replacing harmful habits with more functional ones therefore, it will be more effective for us to direct our mindfulness not to our sensations but to our thoughts and internal stories.

Stating the Story of Perfect Poise: Guided by her/his Alexander teacher, the student of the Alexander Technique begins by formulating in words the ideal way to use one’s body, a kind of ‘story of perfect poise’. The student proceeds then to state this ideal, repeatedly, at regular intervals, sometimes aloud, sometimes internally. In this way, the student of the AT directs her attention to creating an ideal in the mind’s eye, a kind of constructive visualization. The simple and well known operating principle being employed here is “where attention goes, energy flows”.

Don’t Force it, Let it Happen: Each statement of the ideal uttered by the student begins with the words, “Let my…”, emphasizing that the statement is a request, a wish, and not a demand, for one’s old habits will not happily be bullied. In this regard the student is well advised to remember Isaac Newton’s third law of motion, “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. Accordingly, the Alexander student proceeds indirectly, stating and restating the request/wish, neither demanding compliance nor interfering in any physical way to force compliance. In this way the student pays heed to the frequent warning of her/his Alexander teacher, “The desire to get it right is the main obstacle to getting it right”. In time, the AT student comes to understand that the granting of her wish i.e. ‘getting it right’, is none of her business. Her business is to state the wish, to create and to re-create the ideal in her mind’s eye. The deeper underlying truth here is that one’s body already knows how to ‘get it right’. One’s body was born with this understanding but for various reasons (imitation of others, illness, accident) it became confused and took on habits both foreign and harmful. The story of perfect poise is the verbal counterpart of the body’s original but long forgotten program. Stating this story regularly is a simple but remarkably effective method for re-awakening the body’s memory of its original program.

In Teaching the Alexander Technique, the Alexander practitioner appreciates that in order for the ideal to take root deeply, it needs to be expressed in all three common modalities: the auditory, the kinesthetic, and the visual. Regular verbal expression of the ideal fulfills the auditory requirement. The kinesthetic element is provided by the Alexander teacher’s hands, gently but clearly guiding the student toward better ways of moving and being still. The visual component is also provided by the Alexander teacher who, thanks to extensive professional training (in small groups for 1600 hours over three years), has learned how to ‘be’ the Alexander Technique, to exemplify it in action, and thus is able to provide an ongoing visual demonstration of what the ideal looks like.

Unusual but not Unknown: The Alexander procedures described above, while unconventional, are certainly not unknown. Stephen Covey’s famous best seller entitled “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” tells us that the very first habit of highly effective people is uncovering their ideals followed by habit number two, stating them frequently. Well known also by many of us is prayer or mantra, often containing a repeated statement of an ideal leading to a kind of constructive visualization. At the heart of such practices lies the understanding that one’s wish (we could also call it one’s stated intention) is not separate from the physical world but is inextricably a part of it. The ancient East appears to have understood this well for at one time there it was widely understood that Cetana = Karma, which translated into English means, Intention = Consequences. Nowadays, it can be scientifically demonstrated that a thought/wish is a chemical and electrical event, the same sort of event that drives body movement. It is not really such a stretch, therefore, to believe that for the task of replacing harmful habits with better ones, while we certainly cannot control directly the myriad neuro-muscular processes necessary, we can indirectly set those processes into motion with judicious use of our capacity to wish, to create an ideal in our mind’s eye.

Who Benefits from the Alexander Technique? The Alexander Technique is a ‘must try’ for anyone suffering with stress, tension, neck, back, shoulders or joints problems, for those simply wishing to improve posture and co-ordination, and for those seeking improved performance as an athlete, dancer, musician, singer, public speaker or actor. It should be emphasized that the AT is not a therapy but a re-education of the whole psycho-physical self with the aim of rediscovering wellness, considered in the AT to be the natural state of being. Thus the AT does not claim to ‘treat’ any specific ailment but rather teaches us how to ‘get out of our own way’ thereby restoring to the body/mind the freedom to heal itself.

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Frederick Mathias Alexander (1869-1955), or FM as he liked to be called, was an exceptionally astute observer of the human body/mind dynamic, able to perceive clearly how we deceive ourselves and what we can do to improve our situation; perhaps most important of all, he was remarkably good at discerning what does not work. It was during the 1890’s that FM Alexander, having suffered severe loss of voice while working as a professional actor/orator, began his long patient search for ways to retrieve his own lost wellness. By 1900 Alexander had met with considerable success helping both himself and others, and so continued to develop what eventually became known as the Alexander Technique.

Richard Albert (1949- ) received a B.A. from Ottawa’s Carleton University in 1969. He began taking Alexander classes in 1980 and became a certified practitioner of the Alexander Technique in 1990 having graduated from an authorized Alexander teacher training School near London, England. A life-long interest in wellness and all aspects of being human led Richard to undertake a number of other in depth explorations, into art and craftsmanship, meditation, music, movement, and horsemanship. All of these combine naturally with his professional training to teach the Alexander Technique, allowing him to offer clients his own unique understanding of Wellness through Mindfulness.

For further information, please contact Richard Albert:

telephone: 613-315-5730 email: alextech@magma.ca web site: www.magma.ca/~alextech

Please Note that the Alexander Technique is Covered by Extended Health Care Insurances