 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
Notes on an Alexander Technique Lesson by Leland Vall If you’ve just had your first Alexander lesson, you may be feeling a little lighter on your feet and freer in your movement. But you probably also have some questions. Three common questions I hear all the time are: Where do I put my head? How do I get out of a chair the right way? How do I do it myself? While these notes won’t answer all your questions, they might help you to find a better direction. How Do You Use Yourself? At the beginning of the lesson I asked you to perform some gestures. I asked you to sit and rise from a chair, touch the floor and stand on your toes. The purpose of performing these gestures was to demonstrate to you that you shorten and narrow your body during activity. I probably mentioned that your head goes down and back toward your spine or that you arch and shorten your lower back as you aim for the chair. Almost everyone has these habits of contraction but very few people realize it, even when the body is, to any observer, obviously contorted. Alexander noticed this problem and called it Faulty Sensory Awareness. The sense you use to tell what your body is doing is called proprioception,and it is subject to the principle of faulty sensory awareness. You may have realized the fallibility of your proprioceptive sense if you have ever taken a music lesson or worked with a sport or dance coach who brought an unknown habit to your attention. Since our senses tend to be attuned to new or changing events, old habits of contraction fade into the background of our awareness. In Alexander’s case, unconscious shortening and tightening in his neck caused him to lose his voice. In an Alexander lesson, I help you to gain new experiences in using your body so that you will have a new reference point and your old habits will become more evident to you. If you were wondering how to do the Alexander Technique yourself, the answer is to observe your habits of tension, especially tightening your neck. Do not try to change your habit or put your head in the right place because you can’t change a habit until you find it. Just allow yourself to observe the shortening and tightening in your neck. The more you look, the more you will find. © Copyright 1999, Leland Vall
Page 1 of 5 |
|||||