A new lens on Alexander Technique and the things around it
Most people put too much effort into everything they do. Here’s a good example from Kristijan around tension in his hands when touching and holding things: Something clicked about inhibition and non-doing (in Alexander Technique), and the strongest effect has been a relaxation of my hands. Like
Some people with ADHD have reported benefits in applying some of the ideas from my materials. What could be going on here? My interest in Alexander Technique’s potential relevance to ADHD arose because quite a few people with ADHD who have engaged with my materials have reported improvement
Just like computer programs, it seems humans have functions. When functions run, the world can get less vivid while reducing your agency. I'm going to explain a human phenomenon that Alexander Technique plays with, using an idea from computer science:  functions . I'm not a developer,
As a little experiment, I'd like you to 'scrunch' yourself. Consciously tighten a bunch of muscles in your face, neck, shoulders, back, wherever, and hold for a couple of moments. Get a sense of what you're doing to add all this tension to your
In a recent YouTube video talking about his experience exploring Alexander Technique, Tasshin came up with the term couldness as a way of capturing a way into a particular way of being that my own Alexander Technique teacher calls 'aliveness'.
I recently came across the concept of target fixation on a walk around Wikipedia. Target fixation is an attentional phenomenon observed in humans in which an individual becomes so focused on an observed object (be it a target or hazard) that they inadvertently increase their risk of colliding with the
I'm fascinated by the felt experience of rushing, because It seems that rushing can be a sneaky two for the price of one type of deal; we may mean one thing by it, but we usually get something extra as well, something that's easy to miss.
There’s a particular way of being we inhabit when dancing. Dancing is a kind of availability, a capacity to respond to the invitations of each moment in a receptive, fluid and open way. When dancing without a partner, say in a club or at a concert, the music
A few years ago — during a road trip from Boston, MA, to Burlington, VT — I noticed the engine of my hire car was working quite hard and the steering was heavy. When I stopped at a farm to investigate, and to sample some maple syrup and cheese, I
I want to unpick a challenge that was presented to me: why do I say non- doing , which can confuse people, instead of something more clear like non- forcing ? Non-doing or non-forcing? Indeed, Alan Watts himself preferred the term forcing in translating the ‘wei’ in ‘
This is one of the lessons from my Fundamentals of Alexander Technique course , which I'm reproducing here because it's something I want to be able to link to on the public web. There are times in life where we catch ourselves ‘doing’ things that
I’ve wanted to explore the intersection of awareness and society for a long time. I have a hunch that there’s a rich and valuable line of inquiry here, and it seems that the best way to mine it is to simply start digging, so here we
What does it mean to be truly natural, to have that quality of spontaneity we had as children? Most of us have lost access to that state and would like to have it once again, but there is no turning back now. We can only go forwards and find it
Notes from Michael While I can say many things about Alexander Technique that I think will be helpful, I think it's often more accessible to hear experiences from students who are earlier on their own journeys. Kofi Baah kindly shared this great post in the forum associated with
I'm working my way through The Master And His Emissary , written by Iain McGilchrist, which I expect one day will be considered one of the most important books of all time. You may know that the brain is lateralised into two hemispheres, left and right. This has unfortunately