Alexander Techniques For Better Posture

🖨️ Print post

Play Audio

The Mind-Body Connection: An Introduction to the Alexander Technique

The Alexander Technique is a mind-body re-educa­tion method used to help change postural habits and improve musculoskeletal coordination. It offers enhanced well-being for the whole person, teaching a person to be more proficient in whatever activity they are doing. Actor Frederick Matthias Alexander (1869–1955) initially developed this work because he needed to solve his own vocal and breathing problems. He later expanded his technique for people with a variety of physical prob­lems, including helping those involved in sports or the arts to improve their performance skills.

Alexander spent his early life in Tasmania, the southernmost state of Australia. In 1889, at age twenty, he moved to Melbourne to pursue an acting career. His initial successes came to a halt when he developed vocal and breathing problems that no medical treatment could cure. Rather than abandon his acting ambitions, he began to experiment with various methods for improving voice production.

Over time, Alexander’s experimentation allowed him to overcome his earlier difficulties and resume his acting career.1 Noticing Alex­ander’s improved performance, people began asking him to teach them his vocal methods. He thus pursued a dual career as both actor and elocution teacher. After continuing this work for several years in Australia and New Zealand, and encouraged by prominent medical people, he moved to England in 1904. He began teach­ing in London but also made many prolonged teaching visits to America. In 1931, and until his death in London in 1955, Alexander expanded his teaching from individual private lessons to training instructors to teach his work.

FORMATIVE INFLUENCES

Although Alexander continued to refine his approach throughout his life, his formative years in Australia laid an important foundation for his work,² cultivating skills and knowledge that contributed to his experiments, discoveries and the technique that followed. For example, his early horse-riding experience and natural curi­osity honed keen observational skills. At school in Wynyard, Tasmania, the young Alexander asked so many questions that the lone teacher at his small school arranged to give him private lessons in the evening outside of school hours so that the teacher could attend to the other students during the day without distraction. Alexander thus spent his days exploring the countryside on horseback and learning horse management as well as sailing.

Notably, his growing understanding of horses would have included developing a par­ticular awareness of a horse’s head and neck area. Riders know that too much pull on the reins will pull the horse’s head backward while the rest of the horse’s body is moving forward, interfering with the horse’s smooth gait. Alexander would have observed that continual easy adaptation of the head of the horse to the rest of its body is crucial when a horse is moving.

During his school days, as he later wrote, Alexander “took a delight in poetry,” and “it was one of [his] chief pleasures to study the plays of Shakespeare, reading them aloud and endeavouring to interpret the characters.”¹ When he began his acting career in Melbourne in the 1890s, giving a theatrical recital would have involved presenting a variety of literary masterpieces, such as those of Shakespeare and Milton, as well as reciting speeches by prominent people such as Gladstone and poems expressing wide-ranging emotions, from comic and humorous to dramatic and tragic.

Published books on recitation offered fixed rules governing diction, inflection and the regulation of appropriate gestures for each sentence and emotion. In addition to having an extensive knowledge of literature, Alexander understood the role of these subtle hand gestures and varied stances when reciting. When he later worked on solving his vocal and breathing problems, Alexander derived numerous insights by setting up mirrors to closely observe his posture and manner of reciting.

Alexander’s early experiences also cultivated the sense of touch. Of the five human senses, touch is particularly important to help gather information about the muscles. In the nineteenth century, it was not un­common for voice teachers (for oratory or singing) to place their hands on a student’s body—for example, on their rib cage—to indicate where movement should happen to improve breathing ability. For recitation, at­tention would focus on appropriate arm and hand gestures, and elocution teachers would, at times, have placed the student’s arms in the required fixed position. Thus, when Alexander began practicing his recitation in front of mirrors in the 1890s, trying to work out the causes of his throat soreness and poor breathing, it is probable that he would have placed his hands on various areas of his upper body to gain more information about possible areas of excess tension.

In Melbourne, the city’s fine libraries provided Alexander with ready access to anatomy books and anatomical knowledge. Throughout his sub­sequent teaching career, Alexander also had a great deal of contact with doctors, some of whom took lessons from him. These ongoing exchanges meant that Alexander could check anatomy facts when he needed to. Not long after Alexander solved his voice prob­lems, he wrote two newspaper articles on elocu­tion, in 1894³ and 1895⁴; both made reference to Alexander’s study of certain books, including Voice, Song, and Speech, published in 1883 by Lennox Browne (an eminent London throat surgeon) and Emil Behnke (a well-known vo­cal physiology and voice teacher).⁵ This highly regarded book provided detailed anatomical text along with illustrations and many examples of voice exercises.

THE DISCOVERIES

In Alexander’s experimental work using mirrors to observe himself as he recited, he made two initial observations. First, he discov­ered that his very first “action” was to think of reciting and then to recite. He also observed that whereas his voice became hoarse when reciting, he had no problems when talking to friends.

After practicing with the mirrors, he no­ticed that as soon as the thought to recite was activated, he would pull his head back, but he did not adopt this pose when speaking to friends. Moreover, he found that when he pulled his head back, his chin moved upward and his neck muscles tightened; this interfered with his vocal cord function and caused further stiffness to cascade downward through his whole body, right down to the tightening of his feet.

Alexander decided to try reciting in the same manner as though he were talking to friends. To change the procedures he had learned for recitation, he worked out that he needed to go through the following steps:

1. Have the thought to recite (the “stimulus”).
2. Refrain from pulling his head back (stop­ping the harmful pattern of excess tension).
3. Leave his head more easily balanced on top of his spine, keeping the neck free.
4. Recite with ease.

After practicing the four steps, Alexander was able to stop the harmful habits, replac­ing them with patterns of use that allowed for easier breathing. His voice then developed a fine resonance because his whole psychophysical mechanism was functioning in harmony.

THE HEAD AND SPINE

The key to Alexander’s discoveries was his new understanding of the relationship between head and spine—how the head moves around on top of the spine at the atlantooccipital (AO) joint. (The AO joint is a paired joint between the base of the skull and the cervical spine.) The importance of the head and neck area in all our movements was given particular prominence in an article about Alexander’s work by the great English physiologist and Oxford professor, Sir Charles Sherrington (1857–1952), the Nobel Laureate for Medicine in 1932. Sherrington wrote, “Mr Alexander has done a service to the subject [the reflex element in the willed move­ment or posture] by insistently treating each act [of movement] as involving the whole integrated individual, the whole psycho-physical man. To take a step is an affair, not of this or that limb solely, but of the total neuro-muscular activity of the moment—not least of the head and neck.”⁶ Medical professor Raymond Dart (1893–1988) also wrote many articles about Alexander’s work and its relationship to anatomy and the way we do activities.⁷

Figure 1 illustrates three states of posture:

1. The leftmost person’s slumped posture is characterized by sagging shoulders and head as well as bent knees. The head is too far forward, which causes the body to slump.
2. The person in the middle has a “neutral” posture where the body is at ease. The head is finely balanced on top of the spine, allowing the rest of the body to function more easily.
3. In the rightmost person’s extended-con­tracted posture, the head is extended or thrust too far back, causing the back and chest to stiffen and contract. (When he re­cited, this was Alexander’s previous “go-to” position.)

The drawings in Figure 1 are general out­lines, but in real life, how the head swivels on top of the spine and adjusts its angle in relation to the spine will depend on the activity in which a person is engaged. Moreover, each of us has his own individual “neutral” position. It is how we organize our body to go into action that matters—the amount of energy used and the synchronization of all parts of the body to achieve the desired activity. I caution people, therefore, against looking at drawings or photos of others and trying to match what they see with how they think their body position “ought to be.”

Figure 2 shows more precisely where the head meets the top of the spine—at the AO joint (Arrow 2 in Figure 2). The normal range of movement for this joint is about fifteen to twenty degrees. On occasion, of course, we can bend further, but generally it is best to stay within the normal range.

Although you cannot actually touch the AO joint, you can come up with a fairly clear idea of where the head sits on the top cervical vertebra, which is called the atlas (Arrow 3 in Figure 2). To figure out where your AO joint is, place your fingers at the bottom of your earlobes and put each index finger behind the bottom of the earlobe flap, where you will feel a small hol­low. Imagine each index finger drilling through your head to meet in the middle—this point is approximately where the AO joint is situated. While the index fingers are there, gently ease your head up and down in a small nodding movement; this will give you a sense of how the head moves on this pivot.

Bones form the human frame. They are con­nected by joints, each quite different in design. Having explored the AO joint, perhaps look at a few other joints in your body. These joints al­low your bones to move as levers, shifted by a variety of muscles. When one set of muscles contracts, the working muscles—the antagonists or opposing muscles—lengthen.

We are all familiar with the five senses—sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch—but there are two other closely related “senses,” those of proprioception and kinesthesia. Proprioception is the sense (awareness) of limb and body position. For example, without needing to look to see where your hand is resting, you “know” where it is. Kinesthesia is the sense of movement, with input from receptors in joints and muscles. Our quality of movement depends on the good functioning of these “twin” senses. If there is poor awareness (that is, poor proprioception), then we use more effort to carry out activities and tend to be clumsy; sometimes falls can occur.

During the day, it is easy to become absorbed in an activity to such an extent that we lose the sense of where we are and of our spatial rela­tionship to the outside world. A familiar example is when we look at a screen; as we are “sucked into” the images, the visual sense dominates. We stay still for too long and often only move when parts of our body ache. In short, we “lose touch” with ourselves. Medical scientist Dr. David Garlick, writing on this subject in 1990 in The Lost Sixth Sense, explains how “our minds become occupied with so many inputs and outputs to do with the outside world that signals from the body are suppressed or ‘gated out’ before reaching consciousness.”⁸

Photos that show human activity capture only a moment in time for the whole activity. The important part is how each person moves on to the next part of the action. The quality of the movement will depend on the state of the individual. Our capabilities are all different, and we need to move within our own capacity rather than try to imitate others. With that said, photos can be worth looking at to broaden one’s knowledge of how humans can use their bodies well or poorly in activity. For example, Figure 3 shows a baby with the head finely balanced at the AO joint and the back flat and “solid.” Figure 4, in contrast, illustrates poor posture. The boy is bent over his desk and absorbed in the task of writing. This reveals poor awareness of the function of the AO joint because the head is too far forward; this slumping interferes with ease of breathing and other bodily functions. Today, we engage in far less writing activity, but people are even more likely to be bent over their computer desk or while using their mobile phone.

 

Figure 5 provides another example of poor posture. As the girl bends over to reach into the oven, her back is bent over; there is no hinge in the middle of the back, and the leg joints are not being used as they should. Figure 6 shows a better choice of how to reach into the oven: the girl has used the leg hinges appropriately, the back is left lengthening and the head is finely balancing on the AO joint.

 

THE SEMI-SUPINE POSITION

Most of our daily activities are carried out in front of us, often with our hands manipulating equipment—such as computers or knife and fork—so that the whole back curls over. Equipment should not pull us “out of shape” and disturb normal body functioning, because it is then very easy to lose the sense of one’s back.

One of the best ways to get in touch with your back is to use the horizontal position and lie down on your back. In Alexander Technique work, this is called the “semi-supine position” or “constructive rest.” With the Internet and online videos, a lot of verbal and visual informa­tion is available to demonstrate this technique. A simple online search for “Alexander Technique” will bring up hundreds of videos, including some that demonstrate and talk the viewer through the “semi-supine” activity. Watching a few videos about the semi-supine position can help you gather ideas and figure out what works best for you. However, though this is an easy activity to do at home, when doing it for the first time, it may be best to consult with a licensed Alexander teacher. (Caution: Preg­nant women, and particularly those in the later stages of pregnancy, or individuals with chronic conditions should not undertake these activities without first consulting their presiding medical practitioner for advice. The semi-supine position is not the same as a sleeping position. During sleep, we move about; there is no correct sleeping position.)

To try the semi-supine position:

1. Find a place to lie down on your back, preferably a mat on the floor. If getting down to the floor is difficult, the bed can be a second option.
2. Bend your knees so that your feet are flat on the floor, with your hands resting on your abdomen.
3. Place a small support under the head (typi­cally a few books), enough so that the chin is not tucked and the head not tilted too far forward or too far backward (see Figures 7 and 8: observe the bent knees, feet flat, hands on abdomen, books below head). The head should be comfortable.
4. Please note that the lower back may not touch the floor initially. However, if you allow the body to relax, you may find the back will become flatter.

Experts agree that fifteen minutes of rest in this semi-supine position allows the spine and the soft cartilage discs between each vertebral bone to decompress and expand. When you return to the day’s activities, you will feel less tired, and you will be a bit taller!

After resting in the semi-supine position for fifteen minutes, you might like to explore some gentle movements, such as raising a forearm and returning it to rest on the abdomen. Take note of what happens in the rest of your body as you do this. Monitoring the whole body for signs of stiffness when doing this or any action is important. If you gently move and feel the desire to yawn, go with the yawn, as that is one of the best ways to slowly stretch, expand your body and enjoy a long, drawn-out release of air.

Too often when we do a specific movement such as raising an arm, the thought is to do a set number of repetitions such as ten or twenty. Try doing the chosen action eight or sixteen times and instead of counting the numbers, hum a tune. People sometimes work out to music, but that is external; it is good to provide your own music—at different speeds, slow and fast—and also do the movement in a smaller range and then again in a larger range. Imagine the bow arm of a violinist, which does not always move at the same speed and in the same range. Vary what you do when “exercising” a specific limb.

Another movement to explore while in the semi-supine position is the beginning of rolling over. This rolling-over movement is something we all have to do every morning to get out of bed. To start with, have the thought of doing a half roll, but do not actually do it yet. The thought is the stimulus to go into action, but what choices are there for organizing your body? If the roll is to the left side of the body, you have a choice of two different physical sequences to achieve the start of the roll:

1. If you ease the knees to the left, the right elbow will start to lift toward the left, followed by the turn of the head to the left—staying in contact with the surface area at the back of the head.
2. If you start by turning the head to the left (staying in contact with the surface area at the back of the head), the right elbow will start to lift toward the left, followed by the easing of the knees to the left.

After you have mentally rehearsed each of the two choices, put them into practice and consider which one gives more flow of move­ment. Explore, in particular, what it feels like to allow the head to lead the movement (choice two). Watch how some animals roll over (called the “righting reflex”). The thought is the stimulus, and then you choose a sequence and do it—this is the mind-body connection.

 

EXPLORING UPRIGHT MOVEMENTS

It can also be useful to explore movement patterns once you are up­right. Every day, we do a myriad of movements, often with excess tension of which we are unaware. We use our hands a great deal to manage all types of tools and equipment, sometimes while sitting and other times when we are standing or moving.

One activity we all regularly do is open and close doors. How is this usually done? You may like to ask a friend to film you as you do this activity, so that you can see yourself and analyze what is happening. The usual pattern for timing and balance when a person opens a door is as follows. Well before nearing the door, a person’s hand comes out. There is a thrusting movement from the shoulder—the shoulder itself may move upward. As the door handle is reached, the hand grabs it and then with effort turns the handle and yanks the door open. Through the door the person goes, but with little awareness of how much effort has been used for this activity. The mind is “somewhere else,” either thinking of the past or the future; it has been on automatic pilot in the action of opening the door.

In opening the door, there was probably very little awareness of the placement of the feet. However, if you consider the example of a person playing tennis, they may be holding the racket in the hand, but the whole body is involved in making the strokes. There is a par­ticular need to develop good balance. A coach will tell a beginner, “Get your feet in position before you hit the ball.” Timing is everything.

Similarly, when you go to open a door, become aware of where your feet are placed. Now, plan a different approach to the opening of a door. First, walk to the door and stop—your feet will be one in front of the other, caught in “mid-flight.” Next, float a soft hand up to the door handle, bending mostly from the elbow joint, and attach your hand to the door handle like Velcro. Turn the handle and move your whole body back from the door by pivoting on the ankle joints; in this way, you are gently using your whole body weight for this action rather than overusing just the arm. In a sense, this action involves being mindfully aware of your surroundings and choosing appropriately how to deal with a given stimulus (in this case, the thought of opening a door).

As well as exploring your own physical movements in daily life and the shapes you get into, watch other people of all ages as they do daily activities. Observe timing and ease of movement. Is there poise? Is there a flow of movement? Observation is key to learning.

WHO CAN BENEFIT FROM ALEXANDER LESSONS?

For performers striving for reliably high levels of skill—in the arts or sports—poor performance can mean loss of a job or not being chosen for top-grade teams. Alexander’s pupils always included actors who were keen to maintain high levels of performance, and today, many performers from all areas of the arts and sports continue to take Alexander lessons. An Internet search for “Celebrities Using the Alexander Technique” will list many famous names, including Dame Judi Dench, Renée Fleming, Hugh Jackman, Paul McCartney, Wil­liam Hurt and Sting. British Alexander teacher Sue Laurie has written in her book, Touching Lives, about her teaching experience with fa­mous actors as well as the classes she conducted for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre.⁹ Laurie gives many sugges­tions for practical work you can do yourself to improve vocal and breathing capabilities.

Some people seek Alexander lessons to minimize back pain or other aches. Paul Little, professor of preventive medicine at Southamp­ton University, published a study in 2008 on the effectiveness of Alexander lessons to help reduce chronic and recurrent back pain.¹⁰ The researchers randomly assigned participants to four groups: normal care (control group), therapeutic massage, six Alexander lessons, or twenty-four Alexander lessons. At one year, the twenty-four-lesson group had an 86 percent reduction in days with pain compared with the control group, with lesser but still significant reductions in the six-lesson (48 percent) and massage groups (33 percent). Twenty-four les­sons (and, to a smaller degree, six lessons) also significantly affected other outcomes.

Alexander Technique lessons can help people in all walks of life improve skill levels in any activity. When we do repeated activities in our daily lives—such as opening doors or bending to pick something up—a paying audi­ence may not be judging our skill level, but it still matters how we do these actions. Too often, daily actions are done with excessive effort. Some muscles are tightened unnecessarily, there is extra wear-and-tear around our joints, we feel stressed and we tire more easily.

Whether we want to improve a performance skill, solve an aching muscle problem or become fitter so that we do not develop chronic aches and pains, we can benefit by learning to combine the knowledge gleaned from Alexander and other teachers with our own powers of observa­tion and awareness. We do not need the exact same skills that Alexander had when he solved his voice problem—we are all different—but a general understanding of his technique can be useful when we embark on our own self-study.

CONCLUSION

As babies, we explored all sorts of basic movements to refine and learn the easiest, smoothest way to move. As adults, it is good to continue exploring our individual movement patterns and learn more about anatomy and physiology. The advantage of having Alexander lessons from a quali­fied teacher is that as you do a movement, the teacher is monitoring your particular muscle patterns moment to moment with their hands. There is not a lot of verbal instruction—the dominant form of instruction is via the teacher’s hands, which monitor muscle use during a given action and constantly make tiny adjustments so there is more flow of movement. Any unnecessary tensions or interferences are dealt with immediately as they arise. You then have the experience of moving more easily, and it is this creation of new experiences that enables you to keep building on the remembered experiences when doing activities at home.

Alexander’s long-time student, George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), aptly summed up his teacher’s ideas for better self-management: “Alex­ander has established not only the beginning of a far-reaching science of the apparently involuntary movements we call reflexes, but a technique of self-control which forms a substantial addition to our very slender resources in personal education.”¹¹

Of course, the quality of our movements depends not only on explor­ing new ways to perform them. The quality of our rest also matters, for sound sleep is the body’s repair time. And, as Weston A. Price Foundation members know very well, nurturing ourselves with nutrient-dense food is also important.

---

SIDBARS
RECOMMENDED READING AND VIEWING

My seventy-minute DVD documentary, Frederick Matthias Alexander, His Life… His Legacy…, covers the historical background of Alexander’s life and how he developed his work; the film also shares modern-day scientific and medical information about the Alexander Technique. (For more information, visit fmalexanderdoc.com). For historical books on the Alexander Technique, please visit mouritz.co.uk.

In more recent times, many professionals have incorporated the Alexander Technique into their specialist fields. For example, The Alexander Technique Birth Book,¹² by Ilana Machover and Angela and Jonathan Drake, outlines how Alexander lessons can aid with pregnancy preparation and childbirth. As a pioneer in this field, Machover has trained others to assist women with childbirth.

For an interesting read on a ubiquitous piece of equipment that has literally shaped human lives over the centuries, consider The Chair: Rethinking Culture, Body, and Design by Galen Cranz,¹³ professor of architecture at the University of California at Berkeley. Cranz’s book places the chair and its long history under the microscope, including relating the back pain rampant in the modern era “to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle spent in traditional seating.”

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO HAVE “GOOD POSTURE”?

According to one medical definition, the word “posture” means the “active or passive arrangement of the whole body, or a part, in a definite position.” However, those last two words imply stillness—no movement—but as human beings, we are built for movement. Both movement and its opposite (rest) are essential. For resting, our best position is to be horizontal; once we are vertical, our bodies need to work harder and use more energy. Moreover, when moving, the spatial relationship of one’s physical body to the outside world is constantly changing, so the sense of propriocep­tion needs to be optimal.

When sitting, the equipment we most often use is a phone or computer. It is during the often long, drawn-out activity of using these small machines that we tend to become aware of poor posture because our body starts to ache. We then make an effort to “straighten up” and find a more comfortable “fixed position” that will leave our body in better balance.

Generally, to have one’s body better balanced while seated means the following:

1. The head placement on top of the spine (the AO joint, see Figure 2) is neither too far forward (causing slump and squashing the internal organs) nor tipping too far back so that the chin is lifted upward (causing shortening of the back—that is, deeper curvature and imbalance of muscle tensions both in back and in front of the torso). With no exaggerated placement of the head on top of the spine, the head can freely accommodate minute movements such as slight shifts of the eyes with changing focus. The range of motion at the AO joint should be about fifteen to twenty degrees.
2. With the head finely poised on top of the spine, the next big “building block” to consider is the rib cage. This needs to be able to smoothly expand upward and outward as air comes in, and the reverse as air goes out. Ease of breathing is essential. There are many aspects of rib cage functioning that enable it to move efficiently, including how elastic the muscles are that cover the rib cage. Tight muscles restrict breathing.
3. The final “building block” is the pelvic bone. When seated, the body weight needs to be mainly on the two sit bones. For many people, the body weight is either forward or backward of these bones, causing tilting of the pelvic bone that interferes with internal body function.

When seated and about to begin an activity such as working at a computer or playing a musical instrument, check that your head is finely balanced on top of your spine, the rib cage is free to expand, your body weight is mainly on the sit bones so that the whole back is almost flat, and both feet are flat on the floor. As you take up your equipment (picking up your phone or moving your hands toward the computer keyboard), check that you do not “pull down” your torso as the hands go to touch your machine, maybe moving the equipment so that the equilibrium of your body is not disturbed. During the activity, don’t get “lost in thought” for too long; momentarily bring your attention back to your physical contact with the outside world—your sit bones on the chair and your feet on the floor.

If you have the thought to “straighten up” while you are seated, do not use muscular effort to “hold yourself up.” If you do, you will become so stiff and tense that soon your body will just want to sag to get relief from this exaggerated “good posture” position. When you become aware of aches while seated, maybe the best idea is to either get up and move around or lie down. This is where the semi-supine position can be useful. Remember, too, that doing an activity does not mean that your body remains almost rigid. There will always be slight and varied physical adjustments.

Ultimately, there is no precise definition of “good posture” that is right for everyone. In broad strokes, you can consider the points mentioned above, but also be aware of your own unique circumstances. Until about four years of age, we mostly all have uprightness and a certain poise (see the baby in Figure 3), but then life brings challenges, such as illness or accident, to which we need to adapt. Meeting these challenges means that beliefs you once held about “good posture” may need to be rethought to align with your body’s new capabilities. The only constant is change.

SIT-TO-STAND ACTIVITY

How we rise from a chair to standing depends on several factors. First, it depends on how we sit down; too often, we reach for the seat by sticking the bottom backward (this causes balance problems) and then dropping onto the seat with a “plonk.” This type of “hard landing” jars the joints (the hip joints, in particular), and the spinal discs receive extra compression. Jane Heirich provides useful details about these intervertebral discs—the spongy material that cushions the impact of our movements on the vertebrae.¹⁴ Other factors that affect our ability to rise easily include sitting on soft cushions or sitting for too long, leaving the muscles stiff and making it cumbersome to stand up.

The movement of sit-to-stand is one we all need to be able to do competently. You can investigate the movement and try new ideas yourself, or you may consult an Alexander Technique teacher, whose training includes detailed study of this movement. Remember, however, that while we all have a similar anatomy, there are endless variations in how we operate our bodies; there is no one “right” way to do the sit-to-stand action, but we can learn to use less effort. (Note: pregnant women or people with chronic conditions should try the practical activities described here only after talking with their health professional or taking a lesson with a qualified Alexander Technique teacher.)

In an Alexander lesson, the teacher observes how you sit and stand and then explains the body mechanics of this action. Next, the teacher’s hands guide you to do the movement with appropriate muscular use, resulting in the experi­ence of coordinated movement. Benefits include more quickly stopping the harmful habits that cause stiffness and back or neck ache as well as feeling a new sense of freedom—which you can recreate for yourself at home.

I often suggest the following exercise to my students. Stand at full height after getting out of bed in the morning and count the number of times in the next hour that you need to change height—whether to pick something up, open a drawer, sit on a chair or do any other activity that involves a change in height. Alternatively (and this is harder), once you are standing up, do not alter your height—without any bending, manage your activity needs as best you can. Try­ing either variation can help you realize the importance of being able to change height in daily life with ease and poise.

There are several ways to gather information about your sit-to-stand habits:

1. Alexander used mirrors to observe how he stood to recite. With today’s easy access to video, film yourself (from the side) going from sitting to standing and then from standing to sitting, so that you have a record of your habitual (normal) pattern. After experimenting with how you normally do this activity, watch your video and think about changes that may be beneficial to make this movement smoother and less effortful.
2. Remembering that the neck is the link between your head and the rest of you, while seated, place one hand gently on the back of your neck and feel the muscular condition; then, leaving your hand there, come to standing. What do you notice about the neck muscles? Do they become tighter, softer or stay the same during this action? If the muscles tighten, is it a sudden or gradual change? The vital “machinery” inside you (cervical vertebrae, muscles, etc.) functions best if the neck muscles stay free, with no sudden tensing during movement.
3. While seated, observe your body’s three main points of contact with the outside world: your two feet touching the floor and your bottom on the chair. Most of your body’s weight should be resting on the two sit bones, but often, too much of the bottom’s flesh is either in front of or behind these bones. This causes the body extra stress, especially because the spine will shorten, becoming either too concave or too convex.

For all vertebrates, a principal in nature is that the head leads when moving. Thus, when humans go from sitting to standing, the head and torso first need to lean forward so that the bottom loses touch with the chair. Then, the leg joints open, and standing is achieved. This sounds simple and easy, but many people—especially as they age—find this difficult.

To experiment, consider the distance you need to travel. If you are seated back on the chair, leaning forward to be over your feet will be further than if you are seated on the chair’s front edge. Make things easy for yourself by having the sit bones near the front of the chair’s seat and your feet near the chair and flat on the floor. Next, make a mental plan or picture of the movements involved, but without moving yet. Think of the AO joint—the master hinge—connecting the head to the top of the spine (Figure 2). Any movement is affected by the head/spine relationship and AO joint function. An adult head weighs approximately eleven pounds (five kilos), or about one-eighth of total body weight. By allowing this head weight to slightly start to release forward from the AO joint, the torso will follow so that the hip joint starts to close. As the body weight travels forward across the chair, include awareness of your knees, which should keep pointing over the toes rather than moving inward. Think of increasing heel contact with the floor. Once your bottom is off the chair, the leg joints open to come to standing. After going through the mental plan a few times, do the movement. Try not to judge whether you are doing it “correctly” because you will probably hold your breath and stiffen up, and there will not be a flow of movement. Sometimes it can help to start this activity on an outbreath.

When an Alexander teacher takes a pupil in or out of a chair, the pupil seems more upright because the teacher’s hands are guiding them and assessing, moment by moment, muscular tensions and the pupil’s capabilities. When doing sit-to-stand on your own, be aware of your own capabilities, exploring the activity with good balance as far as you are able.

REFERENCES

1. Alexander FM. The Use of the Self, 1st edition. London: Methuen and Co, 1932.
2. McLeod R. Up from Down Under: The Australian Origins of Frederick Matthias Alexander and the Alexander Technique, 4th enlarged edition. Mouritz Publishing, 2017.
3. Alexander FM. Elocution as an accomplishment. The Mercury, July 9, 1894.
4. Alexander FM. Speech culture and natural elocution. The Auckland Star, July 20, 1894.
5. Browne L, Behnke E. Voice, Song, and Speech: A Practical Guide for Singers and Speakers. London: Sampson Low, Marson, Searle, and Rivington, 1883.
6. https://alexandertechnique.com/articles/quotes/
7. Dart RA. Skill and Poise: Articles on Skill, Poise and the F.M. Alexander Technique. London: STAT Books, 1996.
8. Garlick D. The Lost Sixth Sense: A Medical Scientist Looks at the Alexander Technique, p. 6. First published by New South Wales University, 1990. Free download available at https://mouritz.org/system/files/libitemfiles/1990/1990GARLF036.pdf.
9. Laurie S. Touching Lives: Memoirs of an Alexander Technique Teacher Working with the RSC and National Theatre. HITE, 2016.
10. Little P, Lewith G, Webley F, et al. Randomised controlled trial of Alexander technique lessons, exercise, and massage (ATEAM) for chronic and recurrent back pain. BMJ. 2008 Aug 19;337:a884.
11. Greenoak F. The Alexander Album. London: STAT Books, 2014.
12. Machover I, Drake A, Drake J. The Alexander Technique Birth Book: A Guide to Better Pregnancy, Natural Birth and Parenthood. Mouritz, 2006.
13. Cranz G. The Chair: Rethinking Culture, Body, and Design. WW Norton & Company, 2000.
14. Heirich JR. Voice and the Alexander Technique: Active Explorations for Speaking and Singing. Mornum Time Press, 2005.
15. Simmons RJ. The Evolution of Movement: A Guide to the Procedures Originated by Raymond Dart, 2nd edition. London: Mouritz Books, 2020.
16. Fenton JV. Choice of Habit: Poise, Free Movement and the Practical Use of the Body. London: Macdonald and Evans, 1973.

🖨️ Print post