Zeke Paradock, Warrior Librarian

I have a small birth defect in my pelvis and have always used a back pillow for sitting. In recent years I developed chronic pain and limited mobility in my back and legs. As the pain increased, I gave up things I loved—like running, weight-lifting, and martial arts. Even so, it kept getting worse until I could barely find a comfortable position to exist in. Someone recommended the Alexander Technique and after a few months of lessons with Constance I can do everything I used to be able to do and more! I can’t believe I no longer need to take my back pillow everywhere I go. It is such a thrill to have an understanding of what I’ve been doing wrong with myself and the ability to stop scrunching my back. I look forward to finding out what else the Alexander Technique can help me with!

Madeline Aranda, English Teacher

While spending five years working my way through grad school and teaching as an adjunct lecturer in several locations, I experienced an acceleration of pain from repetitive stress injury and TMJ. I kept telling myself that I would get better as soon as I adjusted to the work load and felt more confident, but obviously hoping for ease and experiencing it are not the same thing. I feel so fortunate to be studying the Alexander Technique with Constance. With great ease and presence, she guides me with directions that subtly encourage the reality of the moment to emerge. She listens at a deep level, inviting inquiry, offering imagery, and always showing me that there is movement and fluidity even in stillness. Patterns of chronic pain have scattered onto learning opportunities that require my awareness, inhibition of the automatic and re-direction. I am moving beyond mere recovery from stress through mindful resting to experiencing breath ad spaciousness during challenging moments.

Falling and Up-righting

We humans are always falling and up-righting ourselves.
Gravity makes us fall, and ideally we capture the force of our falling and our innate up-righting system kicks in and sends us back upwards.

But lack of awareness and habits lead us to falling backwards. When we fall even slightly backwards, we add muscular holding to stay upright. When we lean back in chairs or stand with our weight on our heels, our bodies respond by adding muscular effort. Although this extra effort is small, it causes an ongoing tightness and compression of the spine that is outside our conscious awareness. Eventually these holding habits feel normal to us and usually we don’t bother about them until we feel pain or discomfort.

In the Alexander Technique, we bring into awareness our good falling, straight down through the bones, or even slightly forward, which activates our plantar muscles, then up the powerful leg muscles, up to the deep muscles of the spine and up to an easy head balance. These are our innate postural reflexes that work best when interfered with least.

We learn to un-do the excess effort, and to balance and re-balance rather than fixing ourselves into one “right position.” In sitting, standing and moving we begin to restore the poise we were born to experience.