I cannot predict, but I can inhibit

What happens to my body when I am surprised? I tense. First in my neck and then my shoulders and my back and everything else. My thinking and breathing will also be disrupted. Whether the surprise is pleasant or otherwise, my body will go into the startle response. How long I will stay in startle is up to me.

If I use the Alexander Technique, I can release that excess tension and better handle anything that comes after the surprise. How do I get out of startle? The first thing I must do is NOT try to get out of it and instead just pause. That pause is what FM Alexander referred to as “inhibition.” I inhibit trying to do anything, for if I do try and force myself out of one tension pattern, I’ll just be creating a new one. After I inhibit, I can use my Alexander directions to ease myself out of the startle response. This may seem like a long process, but in real time it is only a moment.

Here’s an example:

BAM!

I jump at the loud noise. My entire body compresses and my breathing becomes shallow. I pause. I notice what is happening within my body and I expand my awareness to include my environment. I notice without trying to change. Only after I am present in this moment can I move on the the next step: the Alexander directions.

1. I allow my neck to be free (to undo its tension)

2. I let my spine lengthen

3. My shoulders widen

4. My legs release away from my torso

These are just thoughts I have for myself. I am not forcing my neck to undo, I am merely wishing it to be so. With time, my body will respond to my thinking. All of these directions allow my body to take up more space than my startled body would. I feel calmer when I am able to release the tension. I breathe more fully and I think more clearly. It is at this point that I am able to realize the source of the noise was a door slamming closed.  

I may not be able to predict a startling moment before it happens, but I can inhibit. I can be present and I can breathe. I may still startle, but I know how to release the tension so I will not live in startle.

If you would like to learn to inhibit, contact me!

Your First Lesson

Photo by Cytonn Photography on Unsplash

What will happen during your first lesson?

You will arrive wearing comfortable clothing so you are able to move freely. I will spend the first part of the lesson finding out more about you. What made you decide to take a lesson? What do you hope to achieve by taking lessons? What are your concerns? What questions do you have about the Technique?

I will use both verbal communication and hands-on direction to guide you through a variety of everyday activities (like sitting, breathing, talking, and walking). You can let me know if you are uncomfortable with any of my methods so I can stop and try a different approach. As you move through these familiar patterns of movement, you may become aware of excess tension. Together, we will find options for movement that do not involve strain. Activities specific to your lifestyle will also be explored during your lesson.

Future lessons will focus on some of the same activities, and likely something new.  There will always be time for different activities that you wish to consider. You could spend a few weeks learning to possess more ease in your body and mind, or a lifetime. It is important to me that your lessons remain interesting and fun.

The Alexander Technique is non-manipulative. It is not painful because the teacher’s hands are always gentle. Most people report feeling more relaxed and more comfortable in their bodies by the end of the first lesson.

My Alexander Technique Story

Photo by Billy Pasco on Unsplash

While pursuing my Master’s degree in flute performance, my jaw began snapping and popping and aching.  I was diagnosed with Temporomandibular Joint Dysfunction. My jaw’s range of motion deteriorated to the point where I could barely clear a fork. By then I was constantly in pain and I had to file for disability. 

Bi-weekly visits to a physical therapist, a soft-food diet, pain medications, and muscle relaxants filled my days.

The Alexander Technique isn’t well known in the United States. I was lucky enough to be a musician where the Technique is familiar, yet I was still resistant to taking a lesson. Why? Because no one could tell me exactly what it was! Why would I take a lesson if the best people could come up with was, “Just try it. It’ll help.”?

First, I had a professor who mentioned I might try it. (I didn’t.) Then, I sat in on a short class with an Alexander teacher who offered to talk to me after class. (I left immediately after the class.) Then, I had a coworker who literally called her Alexander teacher friend and put me on the phone with him. I couldn’t escape politely so I took a lesson.

At this point, I hadn’t played the flute in three years. Yet even though I wasn’t playing, I was still in pain. It was then I knew the problem went far beyond the flute: it was how I dealt with stress on a daily basis. However, I had no idea how to undo the many layers of tension I had built up over the years…until I was backed into a lesson on the Alexander Technique.

In all honesty, it was my teacher’s personal experience that convinced me to try a lesson: He is a violist with a busy career after RECOVERING from tendonitis in his shoulder and TMJ. Everything I’d been told up to this point was that I wouldn’t be able to play again because TMJ was a career-ending ailment, but here was this man who said he was better because of the Alexander Technique!

The Alexander Technique is a method of movement education that focuses on learning to resist going into the startle response. In other words, if something surprises you, you jump, your breathing becomes shallow, your muscles contract, and you prepare to fight or take flight. Now imagine you experience a lot of stress (work stress, relationship stress, family stress, financial stress, physical stress, illness, etc.). You may be startling frequently throughout the day. If you startle repeatedly, you lose your ability to let go of that tension. If you can’t let go of that tension, you will probably tire more easily, feel discomfort, sleep poorly, and have any number of health concerns. The Alexander Technique works by identifying and changing habits that cause stress and fatigue so you can begin to change how you respond and how you feel.

How is this accomplished? I promise Alexander teachers don’t spend lesson time startling their students. Instead, they focus on daily activities like sitting and standing to engage a hint of the startle response so that their students can learn to undo the excess tension gradually. They also work on bending, reaching, walking, and activities that pertain to their students who may be musicians, corporate workers, dancers, parents, students in elementary school… basically anyone with a body. The side effects of learning the Technique include: less pain, more mobility, and more energy.

The Alexander Technique has changed my life. I never thought I could feel better and  play the flute, but that is exactly what’s happened. If you want to have the tools to improve yourself, please call me. I am making it my mission to teach others to empower themselves.

Sharing My Process

What is the Alexander Technique?

A method of movement re-education that focuses on letting go of the startle response through dynamic postural alignment and breathing work.

Hello. My name is Stephanie and I’ve been a teacher of the Alexander Technique since 2003. I trained at the American Center for the Alexander Technique in NYC and I'm AmSAT Certified (American Society for the Alexander Technique). I am starting a blog because I love to write and I want to share my knowledge in the hopes it will help others.

I’ve been working part time and parenting two children for the past 12 years, so my life has been full in the best possible way. That said, it’s easy to let my Alexander thinking move to the background as I go about my day.

Even Alexander Teachers need to regroup!  I think it may be helpful to allow others to follow my process. I promise to be honest about my struggles. If you believe that Alexander teachers no longer struggle with habit, I am here to prove you wrong!

For example, how am I typing at this moment? My head is balancing at the tip of my spine while my neck is free and my back is lengthening and widening. I am sitting at the front of my chair and my feet are on the floor. My sit bones are poised on the seat of the chair and I am breathing. I notice that my arms are heavy so I pause. I think again about my head, neck, and back relationship. Breathing into my back and allowing my upper arms to soften instead of pressing against my rib cage, my arms lighten.

All of this happens in just a moment, but these moments are important because they will bring me back into my body instead of allowing myself to be drawn down into my laptop with a compressed spine and shallow breathing. When I lose track of my body the Alexander Technique gives me the tools to notice and to free myself from that tension.

In Alexander terms, your front length refers to the distance from your pubic bone to the roof of your mouth. When you compress, your front length shortens. That compression could come from physical, mental, or emotional stress. One of my amazing teachers from the American Center for the Alexander Technique would say, “Nothing is worth losing your front length.”

She was right and this is how I remind myself to live her words.