Alexander Technique in Manchester and Cheshire

In Praise of Fellside

James Crow — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 15:47:56 +0000

In Praise of Fellside
Nestled on the slopes of Kendal, gateway to the Lake District, lies Fellside, home of Cumbria Alexander Technique Training School.
I trained there, and it holds very fond memories for me. Not just for the range of teachers, and the skill with which they teach Alexander Technique.
The views are magnificent. Many a morning I’d find myself looking out of the broad, tall windows across Kendal to the old Castle on the other side.
I trained with some great teachers there….
Michael Hardwicke, who teaches beginners and advanced alike at Grange-over-Sands, and at Lancaster University, as well as being joint director of the Alexander Technique teacher training school here.
Michael has a wealth of patience and the strength to share his skill without judging. Michael is a master at teaching anatomy and regularly runs workshops and weekends in this beautiful town for the public and for trainee teachers – check them out.
Michael shares this mantel with Jamie McDowell, the other joint director. Jamie complements Michael perfectly with his detailed understanding of the working of the hands and wrists.
Jamie was previous chair of the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique, and brings a wealth of experience to teaching beginners and to trainee teachers alike.
Supporting Michael and Jamie is Vida Hedley, a movement and dance expert who studied at the Laban Centre and brings her joy of movement to the regular movement classes at the school. Vida’s classes were always a hit when I was there.
Also there’s Zohar Peleg-Hartley, brilliant at helping you feel more expanded and helping you be aware of yourself in true relationship to your surroundings.
And Joan Diamond, a massively experienced teacher who offer refresher courses to Alexander Teachers from all over the globe. I make recorded CD’s for Joan that are always very popular with the Alexander community.
And that’s all not to mention guest teachers who float in and out now and again from all over the world… Misha Magidov, Avi Granit, Patrick Gundry-White, Malcolm Williamson, Penny Ingham, Robert Taylor, Jean Clark, Rivka Cohen, Bernadette Riley, Joanne Thompson, Glenn Swift and other too many to remember. I’m grateful to each and every one of the brilliant Alexander Technique Teachers I’ve mentioned above. Next time you’re north of Manchester make sure to look them up. Each teaches from a slightly different angle, and each has something to add. So if you’re ever thinking of training to be an Alexander Technique teacher yourself, in this fascinating and infinitely rewarding field, then you can’t do better than checking out Fellside.
Come back soon, I’ll be talking about how different learning styles affect the way people teach and learn Alexander Technique, and how I implement these styles to make sure you learn the technique quickly and get to apply all the benefits it has to offer.
Bye for now,

James.

Surgeons and the Alexander Technique

James Crow — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 15:46:52 +0000

Surgeons benefit
Yesterday it hit the news that American surgeons are benefiting from learning the Alexander Technique, as reported in Urotoday.
They reported that
All of the subjects reported a subjective improvement in their overall posture following the AT training session.
And that
The subjects also demonstrated improved ergonomics and improved ability to complete the skill sets with the PostAT load time test, suturing and cutting demonstrating statistically significant differences.
So its good news if you’re a surgeon who wants to improve your skill, and reduce your pain.
Of course, this is well know to Alexander Technique afficionados, whether for improving sport, acting, music, presenting, you name it.
And we see a lot of dentists and hairdressers, who like surgeons spend a long time leaning over their clients.
So whatever your job, I’d urge you to find out how you can get better at what you do, and do it with less pain!

Oprah and the Alexander Technique

James Crow — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 15:46:00 +0000

Oprah Magazine recommends Alexander Technique
Just a short post, for those of you who follow Oprah, her mag has a short article that recommends Alexander Technique for back ache, here.

Experiences of the Alexander Technique

James Crow — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 15:27:11 +0000

What’s it like?
I liked this video about people’s experiences of the Alexander Technique.
I have to admit, often when I’m asked “what is the Alexander Technique”, the answer I give depends on the situation at hand, and the person asking the question.
This video shows a sequence of people’s experiences, and starts with a quote from Mary Holland that sums up the problem…
It is an illusion if we think that one day the perfect paragraph will be written explaining what the Alexander Technique is… We know that not everything can be expressed in words, otherwise why would we need music, art and dance.
The authors add to this, that…
This film does not define what the Alexander Technique is, nor did it ever intend to. It is rather an attempt to capture an impression, a rough sketch of Alexander’s discovery with a mosaic of voices.
For those who have had lessons, these voices will surely resonate with a sense of familiarity. For those who have never encountered the Alexander Technique, perhaps these voices will spark a curiosity to learn more.
You can’t put it clearer than that. Although some of the video is subtitled, it’s still well worth watching.
I hope you find the video inspiring enough to come and try a lesson….

Experience Speaks for the Alexander Technique from Thomas Glen Cook on Vimeo.

Human Computer Interaction

James Crow — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 15:22:54 +0000

Human-Computer Interaction
I’m currently writing a paper on the crossover between Alexander Technique and it’s elation to human-computer interaction, and even brain-computer interfaces.
As a cognitive scientist (BSc. Hons) I’ve always wanted to bridge that gap. Vision, audition and consciousness are all under the microscope at the moment in Universities around the world, and as our world becomes more and more virtual, it’s massively important to understand how we relate to the technology around us. You’ll probably notice you’re being ‘dragged in’ slightly to this page to read it, probably pulling the head down and towards these words. In a world where external stimuli are becoming faster, more urgent and more demanding, its paramount to manage how you react to these things!
For example, this article in the Daily Mail about text-neck (which is very much an advert for chiropractors) talks about the bad posture and pain caused by too much smart-phone use. While a chiropractor will crick and crack you to release some of the tension such habits cause, most people are powerless to change the behaviour themselves (one reason why chiropractors see so much repeat trade). However, learning the Alexander Technique would give you the skills to not end up with the problem in the first place. Or if you do have this issue, you can unlearn the bad habits causing your pain (like I did to get rid of RSI), so you get an intelligent fix for life rather than a short-term fix that fades. The choice is yours of course.

Awareness

James Crow — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 15:15:38 +0000

I was working with a client this afternoon, a specialist nurse who’s gone from strength to strength. She now has no back pain, and she’s enjoying being able to sleep, uninterrupted, on her back again after so many years of pain and discomfort.

A good night’s sleep. Priceless, and just one of the many benefits of increasing your self-awareness.
Whilst I hear this all the time (or at least a lot of the time), it’s always really refreshing to hear my Alexander pupils talk about the benefits they’ve gained. So I asked the question “What’s been the biggest change for you?”
She told me this:
“Awareness! It’s like an attitude change. I’m now aware of my body again, and what I’m doing with it. And even if things go wrong, now I know what to do about it.”
Great! Well done you, I’m really pleased! There was a survey some time ago, by the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique, of Alexander pupils, asking them what the biggest change was. And the most common answer was the same. Awareness.
It’s by becoming more aware of ourselves that we can avoid all those bad habits, the bad sitting, the bad typing, the bad grumpy same-old responses to the same-old problems.
I always put it down to my Rule Number One.
Rule Number One: You’re the boss. Not the computer, not the car, not the chair, nor the tv. Not the relatives, not the tension, nor the pain. You. You are the boss of you.
Which means you get to choose how you react to things. You get to choose how you sit at the computer, or how you hold your phone or tablet. Not the computer. Not the phone. Not the tablet.
By becoming much more aware of your body, you’re much, much more likely to handle it in a better way.
So the question I have to ask of you today, as you’re there staring into this screen, is this…
“Who’s the boss of you?”

The Robots Are Coming!

James Crow — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 14:41:27 +0000

The Robots Are Coming!
I noticed a really interesting article in the new scientist this week. It was talking about how people are starting to use motion capture technology like the Microsoft Kinect, to measure the quality of activities such as lifting weights. This is great! But I’ve been racking my brain to think how I can apply this to the Alexander technique. When I work with people as an Alexander technique teacher, I’m assessing the quality of their movements constantly. An area of particular interest is the neck. The quality of the relationship of our head to our neck and back, tends to determine how easy movements are, how conscious we are of them, the quality of the movement, and the likelihood of it causing is pain. I assess this visually (using my eyes, of course!), and physically, using my hands (erm, obviously!). This relationship of the head to the neck and the back is really important in activities like how we sit at a computer, how we move from sitting to standing and vice versa, and in highly skilled activities like performing surgery, playing musical instruments, and playing sports at a professional level.
The authors of this paper used a Microsoft Kinect together with some software they’ve programmed to be able to feedback to people, who are lifting weights, whether they are doing so correctly, or if they’re likely to hurt themselves by moving badly. If the sensitivity of this system is good enough to be able to tell if someone is compromising the ideal relationship of their heads to their neck, in theory it would be enough to provide feedback to correct themselves when they’re sitting at a computer or even performing their highly skilled activities. However, there’s a problem here. People tend to assume a new posture, particularly one that they think is correct, by adding muscular tension and holding themselves in a particular position. When we apply the Alexander technique, rather than sitting rigidly or moving rigidly, we’re actually expanding rather than tensing in order to make movement as fluid and painless as possible. This usually results in a feeling of effortlessness and lightness which is very pleasant to experience. If we were being monitored by a system that told us when posture was bad, and then put effort into adopting a rigid posture in order to please the system, it would likely lead to more tension, and end up causing even more pain.
I was also recently excited to see a new software system that can spot other very small changes in the body. For example, using that system it was possible to be able to measure someone’s heart beat by noticing minute variations in the colour of their skin. Eulerian video magnification can spot subtle changes of colour or movement that the human eye would struggle to see. Theoretically it would be possible to pay attention to the back of someone’s neck using this system and hence be able to tell when the neck was tensing before an activity. Using this as feedback it could be possible to train people not to tighten their necks before and as they perform an activity. This is one of the key functions of an Alexander technique teacher as they train people to be more skilled in the activities of everyday life and adopt consciousness of the body’s position in space.
As a die-hard cognitive scientist, I’m longing for the day when feedback systems are good enough to be able to help us learn Alexander technique with more ease. I just hope it doesn’t put me out of a job!
I would love to work with the professors and Ph.D. students at the universities that are creating these new systems, and find ways to help it easier to learn the Alexander technique. But at the end of the day it all boils down to that mind-body connection, and how we react reflexively and instinctively to the stimuli of everyday life, like answering the phone, or typing an email.
I’m due to spend some time investigating these systems, it’s well overdue but I’ve been to busy to get researching, and I’ll be figuring out how I can apply these to the act of teaching the Alexander technique so we can make it even easier for people to learn how to live without hurting their backs or their necks or their shoulders – by forgetting their bodies as they going about their day.
That’s if I get a spare second!

The 5 ‘P’s of the Alexander Technique

James Crow — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 14:16:14 +0000

The 5 P’s of Alexander Technique
I spent some time thinking about this and came up with 5 P’s. Over the weekend I received a comment from Ever-Eloquent-Hawaii-Based-Franis (from the Big Island), who had looked at my website and noted the benefits of Alexander Technique. It was a real pleasure to read through but somehow didn’t show up as a comment on this site itself, so I’ve added her ideas here and take no credit for the fine touch she added.
But first, what are the 5P’s of Alexander Technique?
1. Posture
2. Pain-Reduction
3. Performance
4. Presence
5. Poise

So here’s what Franis had to say…
Yeah, Alexander Technique sort of sounds like snake oil, doesn’t it?
Good for whatever ails ya!
What all these definitions have in common is they address what people have trained themselves to do by accident. Unintentional habits can be learned or retained while someone was intending to deal with another priority.
This is why we Alexander Technique teachers feel it’s so important to think of A.T. as educational.
In posture A.T. would address the unnecessary tension and postural attitude unintentionally retained.
In pain-reduction A.T. would address the cumulative effects of multiple habits pulling at odds against each other.
In presence A.T. would unify intention, calming internal distractions of thought and response, as an awareness discipline.
In performance, A.T. notes progress & reveals specific refinements with a template for constructive objective self-observation & teaching ability.
Poise describes the impulse control, elegance and non-reactive qualities of A.T. Poise also implies a stillness, economy of movement and a sense of self-possession and alertness. Poise describes the “grace under pressure” stress reduction, the psychological effects that the practice that A.T. offers.
All these benefits come along with being able to indirectly influence and update one’s own movements that have been taken-for-granted, allowing you to rebel against the ordinary!
If I’d pick one word to describe Alexander Technique, it would be “poise.”
Thanks for this elegant list of “Five Peace.”