About the Technique
The Alexander Technique is an educational method used worldwide for over 100 years. It is a practice that teaches mindfulness in both movement and stillness. It is an ongoing exploration for each student, facilitated by a teacher.
People study the Technique for a variety of reasons. The most common is to relieve pain through learning better coordination of the neuro-musculo-skeletal system.
Another common reason people take lessons in the Alexander Technique is to enhance performance. Athletes, singers, dancers, and musicians use the Technique to improve breath, voice, posture, and speed, accuracy and ease of movement.
The most far-reaching reason people study the Technique is to achieve greater conscious control of their reactions.
Most of us have habitual patterns of tension, learned both consciously and unconsciously. These patterns can be unlearned, enabling the possibility of new choices in posture, movement and reaction. During lessons you’ll develop awareness of habits that interfere with your natural coordination. You’ll learn how to undo these patterns and develop the ability to consciously redirect your whole self into an optimal state of being and functioning. Through direct experience you’ll learn how to go about your daily activities with less effort and more ease.
About 98% of back pain is “use related.” This statistic comes from the medical community. And it means that almost all back pain comes from using your body in an ineffective way, whether that’s exercising in improper form or letting your stress keep you scrunched up and tight, or even from “standing up straight.” When you learn the simple Alexander principles of movement, you can apply them to everything you do, from sitting at a computer, to cooking dinner, to running or biking.
The principles may be simple, but they are not necessarily easy. And it takes a while to integrate them into your life. Most people need about 10 lessons to get a good start on changing the way they sit, stand, walk and do their other activities. New neuro-muscular patterns have to be practiced to become new (healthy) habits.
The Alexander Technique works through establishing the ideal relationship between the head, the neck and the back while in movement. This “core” of the body supports the limbs and provides the structural environment for breathing and the internal organs. While learning to access this natural relationship between the head, neck and back from the inside, students learn body awareness, spatial awareness and movement awareness so that long-held patterns of movement, posture, breathing and muscular tension can be released and new patterns of mind/body balance can be practiced.
For more information about the Alexander Technique, please visit
AMSAT Certified Instructor
