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.