By Omid Bahramzadegan

Today, I had my second session of the Alexander Technique on Skype. It started again with getting in and out of a chair. This time Leland talked about pulling the head down. Before this session, I always thought pulling the head down means that your chin sticks out and the back of the head comes down. But you can also pull your head down by bringing your forehead towards the floor. Leland tried different metaphors to see which helped me better understand the process. He described a harp of which all the strings were arrows, pointing towards the ceiling. As I walk, sit, or bend down, these arrows remind me of the right direction. The other example which helped me tremendously was that I was a soccer player who had the ball in both hands, holding it behind his head, and wanted to throw it. And the ball was my head which is attached to my body. When I imagined the curve of the ball being thrown, bending down became a lot more comfortable. Today Leland used a technique which I had never seen either in his videos or anyone else’s. He showed me how to put my knuckles under my ears, as if my hands wanted to jump up but they were stuck there, and as I bent down with my head going forward, my head released released. It made it clear to me on how far my head moved forward when I wanted to bend. It was like the gravity was reduced by 50% when I wanted to go down or come back up. The reason for this newly found ease is that when the head goes a little too far, then the back and neck have to work harder to pull it back up. I’ve had only two sessions, but when I watch videos about the Alexander Technique, I notice things that I couldn’t before. Having a teacher is by far better and easier than trying to learn on my own. Both my sessions were very good, but it’s amazing that each time and after a few hours, I appreciate the session even more.