xxAboutUsefulBitsAndPieces

The Principles

Learn about the core principles that shape the way I work.

When we see our reflection and notice that we are stooping over, we feel a loss of balance or we feel stiff joints or aches and pains we often simply think its because we are aging or its because we are stressed or uncomfortable any many other reasons besides.

A man named F.M Alexander started a path of investigation which led him to question the inevitability of this, he came to the conclusion that the way we use our bodies, in fact the way we use our entire selves, mind and body is the root cause of many of the problems that we associate with stress, office furniture, aging and well….modern living.

A key point that Alexander discovered was that we are better designed than we think, the patterns of what he called ‘good use’ are not something new but are something that we have lost but we can recover.

Alexander dedicated his life to the exploration of what happens after infancy when we lose our poise and balance and ease of movement, he observed that in nature animals rarely follow patterns of use that result in bad backs, even a household cat rarely does anything that results in discomfort or compromises its slinky fluidity.

Look at the effortless poise of the infant above

Alexanders explorations led him to conclude that humans have an ability to override natural patterns of use, this flexibility means we can do great things like learn to dance, ride a bicycle or play the drums, activities that nature did not anticipate and that no cat can emulate but it also means that we have the ability to unwittingly modify our patterns of movement in a way that compromises us and eventually results in crumpled posture, stiff necks, compromised walking patterns and worse.

Compare the infant above with the man picking strawberries, take a moment to see if you can spot some differences in the way that they are using themselves…

Here is just one suggestion to get you started, the line of the mans back is more curved than infants and his head is pulled back so there is a noticeable ‘kink’ in his spine, an area of tension which also compromises the strength of his back.

There are many sources of information about safe bending for people with bad backs available today and much of this advice is valuable, we could say that following this course of action may help you change your patterns and provided you find a good source information you may well find that this satisfies your needs. However Alexander took it a lot further than this, I am sure we are all aware that simply copying the ‘shape’ of a person who is very poised may give you the same ‘shape’ but it does not give you the full benefits. The Alexander Technique is not the same as following health and safety guidance for protecting your back, it affects your patterns, mental and physical at a much deeper level.

I would like to add that in the western context Alexander really did discover something new, he was one of the first explorers in the area we now call somatics, however eastern practices have been around at lot longer and there is a lot in common, this is reassuring, the way Iike to express it is that in both the east and now more recently in the west there have been many different explorers exploring what we might call human potentiality, I like to say that explorers like this have different perspectives and characters but they are all fishing in the same pond so we should not be surprised if they often catch the same fish.