AUSTAT

Applications of the Alexander Technique

How to apply the Technique to various displines and activities

Some of the many applications of the Alexander Technique

Public Speaking

It's true that many people fear speaking in public, reportedly in some extreme cases, even more than death. When we are called to get up in front of a crowd and speak our body seems to go out of control, shaking, perspiring and generally behaving in a most uncooperative fashion. Our mind becomes suddenly confused or even blank. Our whole physiology is over- reacting to the simple stimulus of having to speak.

The Alexander Technique can be a useful tool for reigning in and controlling those reactions because it teaches you about exactly how you respond to all sorts of stimuli, as well as making you much more familiar with your own body and physiology. Once you become more familiar with how you respond to stress and what to do about it, you will be able to generate more choices for yourself.

With the Technique in your arsenal you have access to many skills that will compliment your speaking skills, helping you to become a much more formidable speaker. It will also aid you in developing that indefinable quality that all really good speakers possess - presence.

Martial Arts

Martial Artists are dedicated people. Dedicated to their art and to fulfilling their potential by reaching the pinnacle of their chosen style or system. Like any worthy endeavour it is not always plain sailing. Obstacles are constantly thrown in your path, be they mental or psychological ones, or physical, such as chronic injury. Nothing can be quite as frustrating as the minor, niggling injuries that prevent you from training - except of course, more medium to serious injuries.

Sometimes severe or chronic pain can generate a protective pattern of tension, which can degenerate into a pain-tension cycle. Pain causes us to tense up in various parts of our body, often the injured parts but also parts not directly affected. This in turn can lead to muscle spasm or increased inflammation, which causes more pain, which generates more tension.....and so on.

In order to break that cycle we often need medical help, but we also need to make a conscious intervention to release the protective tension pattern that we may have adopted. The Alexander Technique is precisely the tool for the job! You could view it as a kind of Meta-technique that will enhance all the other Martial Arts techniques that you currently practice. This is because the Alexander Technique is based upon universal principles of movement, and is equally applicable to every kind of activity of life. Becoming better acquainted with how your body and mind work together to produce easy and efficient movement will underpin and support every aspect of your training.

The Alexander Technique can be a great aid in recovering from injury, and it can also assist you to avoid re-injury. At the same time it can help to improve your skill and technique in the Martial Arts while having an overall beneficial effect upon your long-term health and well-being.

Playing a Musical Instrument

Musicians love what they do! Unfortunately, sometimes in pursuing the thing we love we can literally tie ourselves in knots with unnecessary strain and tension! We can become so involved in learning an instrument, or a difficult piece of music that we forget all about ourselves and the result of that is almost invariably, tension, pain and poor technique. Even though a musical instrument is not really alive, creating harmonious sound is a kind of symbiotic process. To really bring the music alive, we need to keep ourselves and our bodily use in the picture, so that both musician and instrument are free to reach their potential.

Unfortunately bad habits can develop quickly and if not picked up early can come to feel 'normal'. Such habits can eventually lead to severe, chronic pain and even having to stop playing altogether. The Technique provides you with the ability to regain the natural ease that allows your body to fully support your arms, your breathing and indeed any activity you care to name that involves creating your music.

The Alexander Technique has been widely used in Music schools and conservatoriums around the world and has helped thousands of musicians to find an easier and more personally ecological way to play their instruments. The harmony that the Technique produces in your own body and mind, naturally reflects upon the quality of the sounds you produce with your instrument.

Acting

Many actors have known about and used the Alexander Technique for years and for good reason. The actor uses their whole self as their creative tool, so it only makes sense to become better acquainted with how your body and mind really work in activity. From the attainment of presence to warm ups, to rehearsal, development of character, and into performance, every second of the actor's creative, technical and spiritual work is positively affected by applying the principles of the Alexander Technique.

Acting is about responsiveness and availability - to the moment, to the partner, to the audience. The Alexander Technique teaches the actor availability because it tackles in a very practical way the physical and mental rigidity that interfere with choice and spontaneity. By applying the principles of the Technique, the actor develops a freer use of the voice and body, ultimately contributing to a high level of performance.

The Alexander Technique is a great resource for any actor. It is a valuable professional and personal skill that directly enhances your existing acting skills. It also has many other beneficial flow-on effects in terms of personal health and well being.

Sports

Applying the Alexander Technique to sport can greatly improve your skills. Whether you run, swim, ride, ski, surf, play tennis, golf or football or do aerobics, the basic principles for using your body correctly are the same.

To be good at any sport you need both skill and endurance. There are two types of muscle fibres in most of our skeletal muscles - those which work for long periods without tiring (endurance) and those used for short, sharp bursts (speed). Sometimes, due to our habitual way of using our bodies, we can recruit the muscles intended for short bursts to do the endurance work of the other muscles, resulting in fatigue, exhaustion and pain. The Technique can help us to begin to identify how we may be misusing our muscular system and stop interfering in the way it naturally works.

When you begin to put the simple and practical principles of the Alexander Technique into practice you will find your body has increased flexibility, coordination and efficiency.

Learning the Technique puts you back in touch with your body so that not only will you be able to use it more efficiently but you will be in a much better position to avoid pain and injury.

Taking preventative measures in this way not only helps you to avoid injury but also helps to increase both your skill and pleasure in the sport of your choice.

Art

Suffering for Art is one thing, but unnecessary pain is quite another! If you tend to use excess tension or poor postural habits to achieve your artistic goals then you can end up in pain and discomfort, which may even prevent you from carrying on working at all. The Alexander Technique can assist you to find an ecological way of working that will allow you, not only to produce the work you want, but will actually benefit you at the same time.

The Alexander Technique can also have a positive effect upon your creative state. Our physiology can have a direct influence upon our perception - how we see, hear and feel the world around us. Artists can have a unique perspective of things and having the flexibility to alter your perceptions through your physiology is a valuable creative tool which the Alexander Technique can facilitate. It works indirectly to free creativity and as you learn to coordinate your whole organism you can begin to have a whole new experience in terms of thought, movement and sensation.

It also has many other benefits in terms of awareness, personal health, well-being and development.

Dancing

Dancers are highly skilled athletes whose flexibility and fitness levels far exceed the norm. They demand a great deal from their bodies and subject themselves to unusual stresses which often leave them vulnerable to wear, tear and injury. It is vital that dancers are able to protect themselves from damage and injury as much as possible.

Good dance training leads to good technique, but technique constantly needs refinement, and as any dancer knows, changing technique, once it has been "physically inscripted" is a daunting task. The Alexander Technique is a systematic way to retrain, to improve technique and performance qualities.

Ideal in the initial training of dancers, it is currently more often used by dancers rehabilitating from injury or wishing to reorganize the look and feel of their body in movement. The fundamental principles of good bodily use learnt in the Technique form the foundation for all dance performance, protecting the dancer from injury and often significantly enhancing their existing skills.

Improved performance presence and injury prevention are two positive outcomes from the lightness, poise and ease in movement that dancers gain from seriously studying the process. Just as significant, and perhaps even more importantly, dancers learn how to look after themselves once they move on from active dance training and performance. This means how to manage their bodies in everyday movement, despite the pressure and perhaps injury they have accumulated from years of loving to dance.