The Alexander Technique: A Mindful Approach to Self-Care

The Alexander Technique is a unique blend of therapeutic and educational practices designed to help you take better care of yourself. It fosters awareness and mindfulness in your movements, offering a holistic way to release unnecessary tension, improve posture, and cultivate overall well-being.

What Happens in an Alexander Technique (AT) Session?

Your First Session:

We’ll start by exploring the fundamental principles of the Alexander Technique. This sets the stage for understanding how your habits influence your tension and movements.

Table Turn

Each session will include a portion of time lying on the massage table. The duration of this part depends on your individual needs and habits, as it is often the most effective way for me to help you release tension. This portion of the session is similar to a sports massage or myofascial release, where you lie on your back, and I use gentle adjustments and manipulations to release tension, lengthen your spine and limbs, and guide your body toward greater ease and balance.

Chair Work, Standing & Walking

The Alexander Technique (AT) aims to provide not only relaxation through lying down but also the ability to carry that relaxation into everyday activities. Depending on your situation, I may guide you through walking, sitting, or standing exercises to help you maintain these postures with more comfort and ease, while reducing excess tension.

Addressing Your Tension Habits

Throughout the session, we’ll work together to identify and address your habitual tension patterns. By applying the five core principles of the Alexander Technique, you’ll begin to discover a new way of moving and being in your body.

Constructive Rest

This is a key practice of AT that you can continue at home. Constructive Rest is a simple yet powerful mindfulness activity performed lying down, integrating the principles of the Alexander Technique. The more consistently you practice this at home, the more you will experience lasting relief from our sessions.

Is It a Treatment?

An Alexander Technique session may feel like a treatment, but it’s more of a collaboration. While I guide your body through gentle adjustments, your role is to remain actively present in your sensations—a mindfulness practice that requires minimal physical effort. Think of it as a partnership: I take care of moving and stretching your body, and you focus on being fully present with it.

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In our sessions, we will explore the five principles of the Alexander Technique:

Primary Control

The relationship between the head and spine plays a key role in how our posture and muscles function. Instead of directly controlling our movements, this system helps guide how our postural muscles align, promoting expansion rather than compression, and influencing the overall quality of our movement.

Sending Directions

Giving directions is an activity of thought—it’s an actionless practice. In the Alexander Technique, we use these directions to guide the body, such as: “Let the neck to be free, let the head to move forward and up, let the back lengthen and widen.” Secondary directions include: “Let the knees to move forward and away, let the feet meet and be supported by the ground.”

Force of Habit

The tendency to repeat familiar behaviors because they feel easier is known as the force of habit. With a better understanding of neuroplasticity, we know that the neural pathways we use most frequently become stronger and more efficient, making it easier for the brain to access and reinforce these habits. However, the brain cannot distinguish between muscular habits that are helpful and those that cause unnecessary pain to the body.

Inhibition

Inhibition in the Alexander Technique refers to the act of pausing between the stimulus and the response. Instead of reacting immediately, we insert a mindful direction, which helps create new neural pathways and encourages the development of new, more beneficial habits.

Faulty Sensory Perception

Faulty Sensory Perception is a concept that, thanks to advancements in neuroscience, psychology, and biomechanics, we now understand more clearly. What we feel to be “right,” “correct,” or “neutral” is often based on a skewed experience of the world. In the Alexander Technique, we rely on the practitioner’s hands to guide the release of old tensions and the formation of new habits. By using both the directions and the practitioner’s hands, we create a more accurate guide than our own senses can provide.

Key Aspects of the Alexander Technique:

• Mindful Awareness: Cultivating conscious control and awareness of habitual movement patterns.
• Neuroplasticity and Relearning: Retraining the nervous system to develop healthier movement habits.
• Holistic Integration: Recognizing the interplay between physical habits, mental states, and emotional well-being.

The Alexander Technique has influenced many modern somatic practices, such as the Feldenkrais Method, Body-Mind Centering, and Rolfing. It remains a cornerstone of body-mind education for its emphasis on awareness, coordination, and transformative potential.

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