Where is your pain, really?

I haven’t been around in a while. I’m sorry. Please visit because I promise to have more content! After a few rough months, I am here and I am teaching more and running into more people who are interested in the Alexander Technique. It doesn’t matter where I go, there’s someone in pain or perhaps just uncomfortable. Yesterday, I spoke with someone who is regularly experiencing lower back pain. The day before, I talked about how the Alexander Technique might help someone with Parkinson’s. No matter a person’s age or size, the Alexander Technique can help without harming. This is because the Technique uses a person’s thinking to release unnecessary tension. Therefore, it will not hurt or make a situation worse. I don’t mean to imply that it is a cure all. Some people out there might not find it helpful—although I’ve never met a person who didn’t benefit from at least one Alexander tool.

What I would like to share with you today is some Alexander Technique advice about pain. While you may feel pain in one part of your body, don’t assume that the part that hurts is the source of the discomfort. For example, you may wake up with a headache, but the source of the problem is that you were clenching your jaw as you slept.

If you are sensing pain at this moment, pause. If you are seated, make sure that your feet are on the floor. Move closer to the edge of your chair so that you are sitting on your sitbones, or the rockers at the bottom of your pelvis. Need help finding them? Sit gently on your hands and rock slightly until you feel the bones most prominently. Gently wiggle your hands out.

Now that you are supported by your sit bones and your feet, rest your hands on your thighs, palm up. Let your gaze soften; let your jaw soften. Is there anything you notice as you are sitting? Is your attention drawn to a certain painful part of your body?

Let your attention return to your breath. Allow your neck to soften. Notice if your pain is traveling anywhere else along the highways of your body. Can you think of anything you did during the day that might have contributed to the pain you’re feeling now? This is not a judgement! Backtracking through your day is an opportunity to find ways to alleviate your pain. This may seem silly, but how often do you take the time to retrace your steps? It’s possible you might have a revelation by pausing and really being aware of how your body has moved throughout the day.

Long before I began to study the Alexander Technique, I had tremendous jaw pain. If I had taken the time to retrace my steps, I would have understood that clenching my jaw to cope with stress was a contributing factor to my pain. At the time, I thought my pain was caused only by playing the flute, but it was also caused by clenching my jaw off and on throughout the day and while asleep.

While you may not be able to solve the mystery of your pain, you can become aware using this exercise. And once you know, you can make new decisions. Maybe you need to adjust the seat in your car, maybe you need to ask a friend to let you know if they see you doing the thing that will cause more pain later? Or like me, I set the hourly chime on my watch to remind me to soften my jaw. At least there would be 12 times a day when I could do less, I figured. It worked!

Let me know what happens.

Teaching Flute Lessons with Alexander Principles - Part 6

VII.         Breathing

A major aspect of the Alexander Technique is the study of breathing. As flutists, it is especially important to practice good use while breathing. When teaching a newer student, allow her vibrato to develop on its own. Teaching vibrato will create unnecessary tension in the throat. Extra tension in the throat will translate into more stress throughout the body. To further explore playing with less tension, have students play orchestral pieces while sitting and solo music while standing. This way, the students will have a realistic idea of how it will physically feel to breathe while playing the piece. Here is an Alexander procedure called the “Whispered Ah.” It is helpful to practice it before and after playing and at any point when you feel an increase in tension. Try standing/seated Whispered ‘Ahs’ as part of the study, notice the difference and discuss it with your students. See how little they can interfere with their breathing in either case.

The Whispered Ah

1. Spend a few minutes having an awareness of your breathing.

2. Allow your mouth to drop open so that you exhale through your mouth and let your lips come together so that you inhale through your nose.

3. Let your tongue lie easily in the bottom of your jaw with its tip against the back of your lower teeth.

4. Make a whispered “Ah” sound as you exhale.

5. See if you can interfere with your breathing as little as possible.

1. At the end of your exhalation, pause and wait for your body to tell you when it is ready to inhale.

6. Think of something humorous or pleasant to allow a smile to come behind your eyes. This will release tension and allow you to breathe fully

How to apply these procedures during lessons

1. Teach the Whispered ‘Ah’

2. Bring the flute to the mouth

Instead of playing, use the Whispered Ah. In this way, you inhibit the idea that the only response to a flute at the lips is to play. Once you have inhibited your habitual response, you can release old habits and when you do play, you will experience a new freedom.

3. Bring the flute to the mouth and use the ‘La’ articulation to begin a long tone (a tone that begins softly, increases in volume and then tapers into silence)

VIII.    Continuing Your Study/Good Use

It is helpful if children are surrounded by parents and teachers with good use, thus leading by example. If you, as a teacher, practice good use, it will surely influence your students (children and adults). Therefore, take some Alexander lessons and/or have an Alexander teacher work with a group of your students. Be sure to invite more ease into your life by practicing Constructive Rest. See how often you can come back to your sense of awareness and give yourself the gift of effortlessness. Let that feeling of lightness encompass your entire breathing, sensing being.  Your body will reward you in so many ways. Who knows? You may one day wish to become an Alexander Teacher.

Sitting in School

Photo by Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash

When my daughter was in first grade, her teacher told me she wasn’t paying attention. My sweet girl who had gotten in trouble once during Kindergarten was now regularly getting in trouble for being inattentive. She had a wonderful teacher who liked her very much but she still struggled. There were many probable causes for her distraction:

• First Grade was more serious than Kindergarten and class sizes had increased

• There was less free time and more time spent sitting in chairs and on the floor learning lessons

• Recess was 15 minutes

• My daughter was small for her age and therefore her feet didn’t touch the floor when she sat in her chair

I could not do much about most of the things on that list, but I could help with the chair! I sent her to school with a yoga block and a sitting disk.

My daughter sat on the disk and put her feet on the yoga block. Within a day her teacher noticed a difference. Was she attentive all the time? Of course not, but there was an improvement. My daughter appreciated the change, too.

What happened?

Since her feet couldn’t reach the floor when she sat in her chair, she felt ungrounded. She did not have stability and she was constantly fighting the sensation sliding down in her seat. That alone would make it difficult to concentrate!

The sitting disk is an air-filled cushion that allows for mobility while sitting on a flat surface or chair. The disk helped my daughter get vestibular input by balancing and rebalancing in her seat. Even though she needed to remain seated for long stretches of time, she could still have a small amount of movement on the disk. The ability to move was subtle enough to not be a distraction to her teacher or her peers. We talk about this in the Alexander Technique: Having openness and freedom in your joints so that you move slightly even in stillness. We call it the “standing dance.” In this case it was a sitting dance.

The nice thing about the sitting disk was that my daughter could take it to the floor with her when the teacher was reading or teaching a lesson while the class sat on the rug. This is something Alexander teachers fret over--children sitting on the floor while the teacher sits in a chair or stands to use the board. This is because it can be difficult to have poise while sitting on the floor. Children will  kneel to combat slouching but the teacher will ask them to sit “criss-cross-applesauce” so that the students behind them can see. So the students’ backs grow more rounded the longer they sit and their necks shorten as they look up from their hunched positions. A sitting disk raises their hips and gives them the support they need to have a lengthened posture for the duration of their time on the floor. Enabling them to maintain the length of their spines will allow them to breathe and move and be more open to learning.

It would be better if children were allowed to move more in school. Until that happens, they can use a sitting disk and study the Alexander Technique.

Is your child having difficulty sitting in school? Is desk too big or too small? Does the chair slant back? Is the seat curved and slippery? Is the chair connected to the desk? Is your left-handed child sitting in a right-handed desk? Is your child straining to see the board? There might be a simple solution. An Alexander lesson can be a helpful and quick way to solve your child’s discomfort.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder and the Alexander Technique

Photo by Kaylah Otto on Unsplash

While the Alexander Technique is known by performing artists to relieve performance anxiety, it is also helpful in coping with Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

It is because the Alexander Technique addresses stress in the mind and body that it is beneficial. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, Generalized Anxiety Disorder is characterized by excessive worry--to the point where a person finds it difficult to control their fears and they struggle to function. Physical symptoms like excess muscular tension accompany the mental stress.

The Alexander Technique can help distract someone with GAD with alternative thoughts to the worry spiral. Thought patterns that focus on undoing excess tension and breathing work can interrupt the cycle of worry. Gradually, the individual will be empowered to use their Alexander Technique thinking to create a sense of calm at will.

The ability to learn and implement the tools of the Alexander Technique doesn’t take long. One lesson will set the student on their way to a new way of being in the world.

A former teacher of mine and the Director of the American Center for the Alexander Technique, Brooke Lieb, wrote an incredible article about using the Alexander Technique to stop anxiety. Here is an exercise from her article:

How to Release Muscle Tension with Direct Intention

1. Notice a topic you may be concerned about, or worrying over. (There are plenty of issues facing us, such as the state of today's economy.)

2. Write down the thoughts of concern or worry you are experiencing.

3. Which ones are based on current facts/circumstances? Which ones are based on what might or might not happen?

4. Now, take a moment to think of allowing your shoulders and jaw to release some tension. Notice what that is like.

5. Now, think about something you are concerned or worried about.

6. Return to releasing your jaw and shoulders. You may have noticed that they tensed again when you put your attention on your concerns.

7. Continue to move back and forth between actively releasing tension in shoulder and jaw, and thinking about things that worry you.

I would be interested to know if you found this activity to be helpful. Please feel free to share other ways in which you manage stress.