„If we stop doing the wrong thing the right thing does itself“ F.M. Alexander

Method

The Alexander Technique was developed around 1900 byFrederic Matthias Alexander. It helps you to open up your posture and find productive ways of behaving.

How does the method work?

By inviting touch and explanatory words, I help you to consciously pause and align yourself – in relation to space and gravity. You will experience how you normally use yourself and your body, and get to know the habits you have built up over the course of your life. This experience can allow you to let go of unnecessary tension and to find healthy and appropriate ways to move. 

What do I have to do?

Working with the Alexander Technique is a learning process that is not based on “right” and “wrong”. This means that you cannot do anything “right” and you cannot do anything “wrong”. Rather, you learn to look at yourself more neutrally, which leads to greater serenity and thus opens up new space. You learn to pause, to realign yourself – and you change bit by bit, all by itself. 

What do we pay attention to?

Special attention is paid to the relationship between our neck, head and back, which the Alexander Technique regards as crucial for all other physical and psychological processes. How can I adopt postures so that my neck, head and back can work optimally, at rest or in motion? How can I achieve balance and what influence does this have on the overall state of my health? The flow of the breath is inextricably linked to this. And it is just as important with which ideas or evaluations I go into an activity. 

Find out more about the course of a lesson

 

Some expressions used in the method

When the neck, head and back are in a balanced relationship with each other, they work together harmoniously: we move in a balanced, light and generally pain-free manner. Gravity supports our upright posture. The voice sits, the breath can flow unhindered. Our whole system is in a harmonious and coordinated state. 

Then we “come into our power”, use the strength of our back and experience a connection with ourselves. This connection is potentially always there, and would we disturb it less, we could let ourselves be carried by it. F.M. Alexander called this the “primary control” that is inherent in every human being: the relationship between neck, head and back determines how coordinated and free we can move as a whole.

Essential for a coordinated and balanced state is our ability to pause, to inhibit, to “not” do: to have the freedom to decide not to react to internal or external stimuli for the time being, to remain neutral – and by this to free ourselves from our own ingrained (muscular) reactions.

– Inhibition – as F.M. Alexander called this kind of non-reacting – can be practiced, and it reveals a whole range of new possibilities.

– When we inhibit, we create the conditions for regulating our breathing, muscular activity and mental focus. 

– When we pause, we can differentiate our feelings and habits better and can make a more conscious decision: do I follow the automatisms I have learned or do I go into the new, the unknown – into real change.

– When we pause, our organism calms down, a feeling of connectedness arises – the prerequisite for successfully learning new things, for being in authentic contact with ourselves, with a task, with our fellow human beings, for being satisfied with ourselves.

What alignment means can be observed from the outside: a cat that stretches out into a jump after gathering itself, a toddler who squats with balance, a person who listens alertly and attentively – or somebody in a defensive posture, someone who contracts from pain or cold, a person who gives free rein to their anger – we spontaneously have images of all these situations, we can distinguish and recognize whether a movement is relaxed or tense, free or prevented.But how do we enable and control these qualities in ourselves? 

In his self-exploration, F.M. Alexander discovered that he moved his body in all kinds of strange and unfavorable directions, and that these directions were related to his complaints (including hoarseness when speaking): for example, he curled his toes, pushed his chest upwards, but shortened his back and drew in his neck, even more so when he was about to speak or do something specific. If, on the other hand, he mentally associated himself with more favorable directions, e.g. an elongated figure, a broad back, a free neck, the head going upwards, his complaints also improved immediately. 

In the Alexander Technique, we learn to work with these directions and to distinguish in our sensory appreciation how we are aligned in our body.

We are all subject to our automatisms, both those that help us and those that hinder us. In the Alexander Technique, we do not try to change our habits directly, but rather to confront them. We recognize that our habits, grown over many years, unconsciously intertwined with us, are a force that cannot simply be eradicated or replaced. Instead, we learn an attitude and method that allows us to pause again and again and make different decisions – we learn the presence of mind to maintain the freedom of our actions and movements despite and with our habits.

Muscular movement always takes place against the background of our thoughts, assumptions and emotions. Just as an inner attitude, mood or thought finds its expression in the quality of our movements, in our voice, in the rhythm of our breath. Alexander called this the “psycho-physical unity” – all these processes cannot be separated from each other, even if we are not used to paying attention to them in everyday life.

Learning with the Alexander Technique takes place holistically. We not only move physically, but also mentally and emotionally and get to know the whole cosmos of ourselves through the touch and movement of the body. To the extent that we change our “physical” habits, we indirectly change ourselves as a whole.

Practicing the Alexander Technique therefore also helps us to deal with inhibiting tendencies on a broader level. It is often our habits themselves that cement or reinforce difficult feelings/thoughts – the newly acquired security and openness in the body gives us the space to let go of emotional fixations bit by bit. Circular thoughts, fear and insecurity can diminish and feelings can flow more freely. The ability to consciously pause and react differently to inner stimuli gives us the freedom to choose new paths with confidence and self-assurance.