Professional Documents
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Alexander Technique
Tips
Leland Vall
www.freeyourneck.com
Description of the Alexander Technique
What is the Alexander Technique?
The Alexander Technique is a set of ideas that can be described as a
discipline for understanding, recognizing and preventing habits of excess
tension, especially in relation to posture and movement.
How is it taught?
The Alexander Technique is taught through gentle, manually guided
movement and verbal instructions.
Benefits
The Alexander Technique offers a continuous feeling of increased
lightness, ease and strength throughout the body. Its ability to remedy
specific ailments relates to the amount that you are contributing to those
ailments.
These Tips
These tips are organized loosely by concept, but there is no hierarchy of
importance. Each tip is meant to suggest the possibility of all the other tips,
and all tips are similar in intent.
Awareness begins
behind you.
Worse Better
• Think a smile.
• The appendages of the body include the head, arms and legs. The
jaw is an appendage of the head.
• The arms attach to the back of your torso, not the front.
Better Worse
• Think of your legs as reaching to the floor from the bottom up.
When standing, imagine that your legs just barely reach the floor.
• When walking, keep your weight over your standing leg until your
new foot is on the ground.
Place each foot down lightly while also leaving your torso over the
rear leg. Walking exercise Link
• Avoid taking your feet off the floor in order to put them on the floor.
When people want to feel more grounded, they often shuffle their
feet or otherwise pick them up off the floor. Recognize instead that
if your foot is on the floor supporting your weight, there is nothing
more you have to do in order to connect it more firmly to the floor.
It is already there. Similarly, to feel more grounded, avoid shifting in
place.
• Leave your feet on the ground when the ground is within their reach.
1. Leave your feet on the floor as if you are standing throughout the
movement.
2. Bend at the knees, hips and ankles.
3. Avoid pulling on your head.
Worse Better
• Allow your ribs to soften so that they can swing with your breath and
in relation to your pointing spine.
• How to Breathe
Most problems in breathing come from gasping and otherwise
rushing the inhalation before the end of the exhalation. Improve
your breathing by learning to enjoy your exhale, allowing it to
lengthen, and by gaining a perfect confidence in the eventual
arrival of your next inhalation.
• Let the sound of your voice escape from your body; avoid holding it
back.
• As you speak, allow for liveliness in your lips and the tip of your
tongue.