The Up Side of Tension

As I was just looking through some photos I took of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge yesterday, I thought I'd write a post in support of my good friend, tension, because I get a lot of support from him/her . . . it.                     

Tension gets a bad rap.  Relaxation = good.  Tension = bad.  Tell that to this bridge!  Suspension bridges maintain their support and structure through tension and balance and so do we.  You may associate tension with stress, when in fact, it's tension that keeps us upright.  You wouldn't be sitting at your desk or standing and holding your smartphone, walking, running, jumping or doing anything at all without tension.  

So, what happens when we get stressed?  We end up tensing muscles that we shouldn't be tensing, muscles that are intended for movement instead of postural support.  These muscles are only supposed to work in short bursts and fatigue quickly.  This chronic tensing of muscles that shouldn't be tense all the time often feels uncomfortable and results in strain and pain.  Because of this misplaced tension, our postural muscles, the muscles that should be holding us up all of the time,lose tone.  Postural muscles work to hold us up without any conscious effort on our part.  If you have the intention to stay standing or sitting, they'll work to hold you up without you having to tighten or move them, but they don't work so well if other muscles are doing the work for them.

Then what's the problem here if it isn't tension?  The problem is balance.  Your muscle tone throughout your body gets out of balance when you react to stress by overusing muscles that shouldn't be working so hard all the time.  If you are stressed and straining at your desk all day, holding your shoulders up or pressing them down, tensing your neck, arms, and your thighs, then you will train your muscles and brain to understand that this state is normal and is how you should hold yourself up.

Alexander Technique lessons help people feel that what they are doing normally isn't necessarily natural and may be the source of discomfort and pain.  If you learn to react to stress differently and not tense your moving muscles all day, then you're postural muscles will tone up and sitting and standing can feel comfortable.  We have our own suspension system and if any area is too slack or too tense,the whole structure becomes distorted and tends to pull down and in on itself.  Return to balance and you'll expand up and out, reducing strain on any particular part.  That's the "up" side of tension. 

Good thing that bridges don't have desk jobs!

Mind or Body? Duck or Human?

Yesterday evening I was humbly enlightened by one of my children.  She and her sister presented me with two similar drawings pictured above.  When speaking of the creatures they had drawn, I described one as featuring a human head and duck body and the other as featuring a duck head and human body.  Upon receiving my description, my daughter replied, "A head

is a part of a body."  I laughed at myself and agreed with her, stating that I disagreed with my initial take on the drawings.

This conversation may come across as a debate in semantics, but I think it's much more than that.  The language we use reflects our thoughts, beliefs, and habitual ways of living. People often talk about being stuck "in their head", which keeps them from feeling present and fully embodied.  We often think of exercising our minds and bodies separately as if they were disconnected parts of us.  A split is created between mind and body that weakens our ability to accurately feel what our bodies are doing and makes us more prone to strain and injury.

It's easy to get the idea that since with your head you think, listen, see, hear, smell, taste, that the rest of you, your "body" just takes you around and gets you places and you exercise it so that it will look good.

There's a lot going on cognitively and in terms of our senses in our heads, but our heads are just as much a part of our bodies as everything below.  The more we live as a whole person, the more present we feel.  We feel more integrated and lively, less likely to strain or injure ourselves when working out, and more likely to be aware of our posture when we're tapping away on our electronic devices.

One of F.M. Alexander's books on the Alexander Technique is titled "The Use of the Self".  "Self" gets around the division unifies mind and body.  When learning the Alexander Technique, people learn to use themselves well.  Sometimes the tune of "using yourself" rings oddly to the ear, which makes sense.  It's not something often said if we think of mind and body as separate.

So here's the big question that you can feel free to answer in the comments below . . . Would you rather have a human head and duck "rest of body" or a duck head and human "rest of body".  :-)

Harmony Between the Arms and Ribs. Your Cup of Tea?

Last weekend I enjoyed a meal at Gustorganics in the West Village.  One of the highlights of the meal was the cup of Chai tea that I ordered.  The tea itself was delicious and spicy, but what captured my interested even further was the innovative tea bag and how it gave a lovely example of how the arms and ribcage can work together in harmony.

The arms are easy to forget about when they are hanging by our sides and often become tense and pull up into the shoulders and in turn the upper ribcage or we let the arms hang loosely, which is really no better, as they then drag down on the ribcage.  In either case the ribs are not allowed to move freely as they would otherwise and breathing becomes restricted.  When lifting the arms, it is common to lift the shoulders necessarily and tighten the upper back, also restricting the ribs and breathing. 

Ideally, our arms should be like wings extending like elastic from our backs as if there were a continuous sheet of muscle going from the back, along the back of the arms, all the way to the backs of the hands and the finger tips.  The arms can be lively and consciously engaged, but not stiff, even when they are simply resting at our sides.  

When we use the arms like wing-like extensions of our backs, the ribs can move more freely and expand more during breathing.  The ribs start way up at the collar-bone and most of them wrap around from the spine to the sternum.  I mention this as it is a common misconception that the ribs are only in front.

When the arms and ribcage interact in a unified, connected, elastic way, the result is a springy feeling, rather than a tight or heavy feeling.

The handles on the teabag reminded me of the arms expanding out and allowing the springy fabric of the bag to expand like the ribs.
 

Spatial Intent - Know where you are already going and then figure out where to go.

Spatial intent is different from movement.  It's not a position.  It's not posture, but it determines our posture. 

Our spatial intent is where

we are aiming ourselves and underpins everything we do.  Spatial intent is usually unconscious.

I have a background in acting and I often ask my students what their "super-objective" is at any given moment when they are walking along the sidewalk in NYC.  In acting, a character's super objective is their most basic fundamental intention that colors all other objectives and actions.  When I ask this question, common responses are:

"To get where I'm going."

"To avoid bumping into people."

These examples are objectives, but more fundamentally, a person walking along the street has the intention to stay upright and to breathe.  Many of us can take this for granted and let breathing and uprightness become relegated to background noise.  We manage and get by.  We keep breathing and we don't fall down.  Generally, though people stay upright and breathe inefficiently, with much more effort than they need.

Why?

Because even though they are managing to stay standing, sitting, or to maintain whatever position or movement they wish to maintain in the face of gravity provided by planet Earth, they are aiming themselves down.  Aiming down, diminishes our naturally ability to be springy, creates strain in the neck, back, shoulders and legs, and makes breathing more effortful.

People often search for solutions to problems such as an aching back, a sore neck, or tight shoulders and they search for the solutions outside of themselves.  They try a new exercise, they switch jobs, or they do something relaxing.  There is nothing wrong with any of these things, but they likely won't change that the person is chronically aiming themselves down in space.  

Look at the cartoon image above.  The character is eagerly looking for the right way to go, yet finds himself bewildered.  There are many directions to take, but they aren't labeled and the paths they will lead to aren't clear.  He's looking for something outside himself to point him in the right direction, but take a look at how he's standing and his body is compressed down and simple act of looking up to read the signs distorts his back.  

Perhaps if he understood where he was already going (down) and resolved that issue, he would be able to read the signs and understand where they are pointing.

When people first begin Alexander Technique lessons, they are asked to slow down their movements, do do things more deliberately, and to learn to feel through the guidance of the teacher, where their spatial intent is. They then learn to use their own thinking and internal directing to shift that intention.  

Acknowledging a downward intent and reversing it to aim yourself up is a milestone in achieving presence and clarity, feeling more confident, and releasing tension that causes strain-related pain.  

A Fun-House for Posture!

Many people these days are unhappy with their posture.  Unfortunately, posture is often thought of as a mechanical way that people hold or align themselves, which can be changed by the person holding or aligning themselves in a different way.  This reasoning ignores that posture is an effect of how we go about our lives.

Posture is an attitude, a physical manifestation of how we respond to the stimuli that we encounter every day.  We respond emotionally, psychologically, and physically.  Posture is how our attitude looks from the outside and reflects how we feel on the inside.

The environments that we spend time in on a daily basis affect how we feel and in turn affect our posture.  A few years ago, I read an  article in the New York Times about a house that had been built on Long Island by an architect couple that is intended to help maintain health and feeling young.

I recommend reading the whole article, but as you are reading this blog, take a look at the headline photo and you'll get an idea as to what is meant by "tentative": uneven, sloping, bumpy floor, odd angles, and distortion of perception.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/garden/03destiny.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

The architects' intention in creating this home was to create an environment that the inhabitants have a tentative relationship with.  If you are reading this from a comfy couch in your living room, you may find this concept absurd.  Why would anyone want to live in a home that is more like a fun-house than a house?

I encourage you to read the article to learn more, but I will give you my perspective on this phenomenon as an Alexander Technique instructor with insights on posture.  

As civilization has developed, in many ways humans have become more and more "comfortable" and life has become more and more predictable.  Our daily lives are likely to involve walking on many flat surfaces, hours of sitting, and navigating through environments that change infrequently.  We've invented things like traffic lights, that are useful and promote safety, but keep us less on our toes about crossing the street.  We stare at computers and make repetitive movements, tuning out our surroundings.  People send emails while walking on the sidewalk, relatively confident that they won't trip over a tree branch.  We zone out and we get lost in thought or listen to music on our drive or walk home.  The path is well-worn and we don't expect to encounter any lions.  

Sometimes our tuning out of the present moment gets us into trouble, but most of the time we get away with it.  We get away with it for the moment, but we loose receptivity to what is around us and something slowly happens to our bodies.  We physically pull into ourselves and sink down because we lack the energy that comes with alertness.  Then when we need to suddenly focus, we overreact and launch into action with too much effort.  All of this compression and tension puts a lot of strain on the body and results in what we call "poor posture", which can negatively affect health and make us look older.

Alexander Technique lessons can help people reactive the balance that they've lost in their own bodies and help them to stay alert, focused and present without strain.

Even if you've never had an Alexander Technique lesson, something can be learned from simply putting yourself in a new situation.  Take a different route home.  Make an effort to tune into what you are hearing around you as you type on your computer.  Go for a hike and notice how navigating rocks, branches, and uneven ground engages your mind and body in a way that the treadmill at the gym doesn't.  You may even experiment with rearranging your furniture at home once in awhile or if you are brave, purposely create obstacles to navigate.  If you have children, leave the toys out on the floor once in awhile and walk through them without stepping on them.  Use your creativity and challenge yourself.  You may stand up straighter, breath more easily, feel happier, and look and feel younger!

Share your experiments in the comments below!
Would you live in a house like in the New York Times article?  Make sure to read it:  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/garden/03destiny.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0#

Personal Space: Posture and Presence

If you live in New York or any other large city, you likely find yourself in close quarters with many other people on a regular basis, such as on the subway during rush hour, in an elevator around lunchtime, or walking shoulder-to-shoulder along the street.

How do you define your space?  Do you practically tie yourself into a knot on the train as to avoid contact with another human or do you boldly make elbow room for yourself?  Do you smile sweetly at the person in the neighboring seat who has just fallen asleep on your shoulder or do you nudge them awake?

Our sense of how much space that we'd like to ourselves varies from person to person and culture to culture.  Were those tourists who asked you for directions the other day standing uncomfortably close to you, oblivious to your discomfort?

Moving along from rush-hour commutes and other crowded situations, you might also notice how much space you prefer to place between yourself and other person with whom you are sharing a conversation.  If you tie yourself in knots on the subway, you are likely pulling back in some way from everyday conversations.

Start to pay attention to how you use your body in different social settings.  Start with the more extreme ones that involve crowds and then begin to notice your more subtle habits related to the space between you and others.  Do you pull away?  Do you spread yourself out?  Somewhere inbetween?

If you tend to pull away from the folks on the train, watch what happens to your face during a face-to-face conversation.  You may find that you tighten your face, which may come across as reserved or guarded.  If you are tightening your face, then you are likely tightening your neck and the front of your chest.  Your breathing may become shallow and your voice tight.  If you find yourself engaging in habits like these, see if you can allow your face, eyes, chest, and the front and back of your neck to soften.  Don't let yourself sink down or loose your awareness of your feet on the floor in the process.

If you tend to strain toward other people you also can benefit from letting your eyes soften.  Allow the other person to be in your field of vision without straining toward them.  Become more aware of your back.  A simple way of beginning to increase your back-awareness is to tune in to sounds that you hear behind you.

Noticing and adjusting your habits relating to how you hold your body when you are around other people can help you release tension and compression, and improve your breathing, and posture.  You may also become more confident in social situations and find that people find you more open, engaged, and present.  With less restriction in your breathing, your voice can be richer and more resonant.  Alexander Technique lessons can further bring your awareness to your habits and help you to change them!

Please leave a comment below if you have made note of the physical habits that you have developed to define your personal space.

Connect the Dots! You're a Star!

 


Happy New Year!  In my last post, I talked about the challenge of being and feeling more integrated in your body, being able to sense your body as whole and unified as opposed to separate parts that are vaguely linked.

Today's post will walk you through a practical experiment that can help you to feel more connected throughout your body.  Changing how the parts of your body work together is just as mental as it is physical.  We use our proprioceptive sense to feel our position in space and the position of our parts relative to one another.  If you close your eyes, can you can likely touch your nose with your index finger or sense your position in space when walking through a dark room.  That's your proprioception at work as messages from nerves in your muscles are sent to your brain to tell you where you are.  We use our proprioception all the time, but it usually goes on auto-pilot and stays in the background of our awareness unless something goes wrong (like you trip, for example.)  We can turn up the volume on our proprioception just by paying attention.  It may seem like it requires a lot of concentration at first, but with practice and Alexander Technique lessons, it can become second-nature. 

Try this:  Bring your attention to your right hand.  Do you suddenly sense your right hand more clearly?  I suspect that the answer is yes. Now that we've established that you can turn your proprioceptive sense off of autopilot by bringing your awareness to a particular area of your body, go ahead and do the following experiment:

1-Stand with your arms stretched out to the sides and imagine that you are a star. (Avoid lifting your shoulders, but don't press them down or back either.)  Your head is the top point of the star, your arms the two side points, and your legs the two bottom points.  Your torso is the center of the star.  The goal here is to allow all of the points to expand away from the center.  Most people pull the points of their star into their center, which often results in back pain and shallow breathing.  

2- Bring your attention first to the center of your back and then, like playing connect the dots, draw a mental line from the center of your back along the backs of your arms to your elbows, to your wrists and out to your fingers.  

3- Bring your attention to the middle of your upper back and mentally connect the dots from your back up your neck to the joint where your head meets your neck (feel where that is with your hand - it may be higher than you think) and then to the top of your head.  

4-Draw two more mental lines from your lower back down along the backs of your legs to your knees, to your ankles, to your heels.

5-Now put your arms down at your sides and repeat the three steps.  You can still imagine that you are a star, but now the side points are folded.

Make sure that you are just thinking about drawing the lines by bringing your attention to each area of your body.  Do not use muscular effort.  Don't hold your breath.  If you start to feel stiff and your breathing becomes shallow, stop and restart.  Make sure that you are really only thinking the directions.  If you are confused, bring your attention back to your right hand and notice how just bringing attention there increases sensation and apply that to the star directions.

Speaking of directions, what you are experimenting with is what F.M. Alexander called directing.  The word in this context has the double meaning of giving yourself mental directions and for the directions to go in a particular direction - from the center of the body out away from the spine.

The aim of this "connect the dots" exploration is to encourage the body to be more open and integrated, to simultaneously encourage the head/neck and limbs to release habitual tensions and pulls and to encourage them to integrate and work together.

During Alexander Technique lessons, students learn how to clearly sense and direct their bodies so that they can sit, stand, walk, and do everything that they do in a more fluid, integrated way.  Benefits are a sense of feeling both calm and energized, freer breathing, and reduced pain related to strain.  People also often feel more confident and engaged with the world.

If you did the exploration above, I encourage you to share how it went in the comments below!

Assembling the Mind/Body Puzzle - Part 1

The Alexander Technique demonstrates that the way the body optimally supports itself is clear, simple, and elegant. To many new students, the concepts make sense intellectually and sound simple, but can feel kinesthetically overwhelmed or at first. This is a normal beginning to the process of being and feeling more integrated and whole in your body.

A comment that I hear frequently is something like "there are so many things to be aware of and think about." That is usually true, but it is not because good posture and coordination is complicated. People learn and develop habits that cause them to perceive their bodies as pieces, parts, or sections that are disconnected from one another. When they begin studying the Alexander Technique and heighten their physical awareness, they will at first sense the pieces as separate. It might be difficult to focus on more than one area at a time. They may wonder if they will always have to be aware of their head, neck, back, arms, legs, hands, and feet. It may seem overwhelming.
 
This sense of keeping track of all of the pieces is temporary. With persistence, the pieces start to come together and feel integrate and the whole body feels like one piece.
 
Try this: Bring your attention to your left foot, right hand and the top of your head all at the same time. Do you find that challenging? Do you feel like you have to concentrate very hard and bounce your attention around from place to place? Can you keep your attention in all three places at once.
 
When I first began taking Alexander Technique lessons, I felt like I had to concentrate a lot and I had trouble focusing on my whole body and the same time and paying attention to whatever I was doing. My experience evolved and I soon sensed my body more fully without having to consciously concentrate on it and I could still focus on whatever activity I was doing without loosing my sense of my body. I had to go through the phase of identifying putting together the pieces. Think of your body like a big puzzle and you have to account for each piece before you get the whole picture, but once you have the whole picture, it's yours!
 
Students who have the most success are those who embrace the process, look at it with wonder, and laugh at themselves when they aren't sure which way is up, literally.
 
The benefits? You'll have more energy, feel more relaxed, have an easier time concentration, deal with stress more constructively, and be less susceptible to straining your muscles.
 
Read next week's post for some simple suggestions that will help you to fill in the gaps in your mind/body puzzle and to sense your body in a more whole,integrated way.

Image by Petr Kratochvil: http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=19960&picture=hands-holding-jigsaw

Put on your thinking cap and "do"!

It's a pretty amazing thing when you think of how many words make up a language and therefore how much common ground there must be to communicate and to comprehend.  I order a small coffee with soy milk and I receive a small coffee with soy milk (most of the time).  Pretty amazing.  Also, pretty simple and not too hard to mess up.  Nonetheless, what we hear passes through a filter of what we already understand, which leaves a lot left up to interpretation.

For example, on Saturday, I visited a local cafe in my neighborhood in Brooklyn.  I asked for soy milk in my coffee.  They were out of soy milk, which they generally have in stock.  The woman behind the counter asked another employee to go and purchase some soy milk.  I didn't mind waiting.  He came back five minutes later with two quarts of Lactaid and was promptly sent back to the grocery store to return them.  He thought that "soy" was a brand like "Lactaid" is a brand and that they were essentially the same thing.  My initial thought was, "Does this guy actually not know that "soy" is a bean?", and then realized that if someone had never made any effort to limit dairy intake, that they may not even be aware of what the non-dairy options are.  Long story short, I bought the coffee and added my own soy milk at home.

If you've been following this blog, you've noticed that I encourage people to expand or change their concept of what "good posture" means.  In today's blog, I'd like to work on expanding the understanding of the following two words: "thinking" and "doing".

Before reading any further, write down five words that you associate with the action of "thinking" and five words that you associate with the action of "doing".  The words can be verbs, nouns, adjectives . . . any part of speech that you'd like, so long as they are associations that you make with those actions.  Don't think to hard about it.  Write down what pops into mind.  We'll come back to these list in a moment

If you've taken Alexander Technique lessons or read about the technique, you have likely heard ideas like:

"Think, don't do" or to aim for "Non-doing" 

I've said these words myself and stand by them. 

Last week I came across a tweet by Marie Forleo, a business coach who I follow on Twitter.  Here's what she tweeted:

"Clarity comes from engagement, not thought. Take action now, you’ll find your truth."

I equally agree with Marie's statement.  I see the two ideas as similar and complimentary.  The first statement refers to avoiding "doing" too much in your body. Often when I ask a new student to stop tightening their neck, for example, they react by tightening it more.  The reason for this is that people are so accustomed to being asked to do something that they want to do the right thing and find the right position.  Asking someone to "think" instead of "do" is encouraging them to use their thought to release over-tense areas and to consciously bring their bodies out of collapse and into expansion.  

The thinking involved here is different from the thinking involved in making a grocery list or doing a math problem.  It's conscious embodied thought that increases our kinesthetic awareness.  Our minds affect our bodies constantly, but we are often unaware of the connection.  This process makes the connection conscious.  At the beginning of a series of lessons, students sometimes find it challenging to learn to consciously think in a way affects their bodies.  Why?  Because they've separated their idea of mind and body and have limited their understanding of "thinking" to activities like math and grocery lists (ie. strategizing, planning and such).  

Looking at Marie's tweet, I understand that the type of "thinking" that she refers to as the strategizing, planning, and day-dreaming kind.  People can get stuck in their heads in this way and spend all of their time considering how to go about taking action, yet never actually do it.  I agree with Marie's advice to "do" as opposed to "think".  In the context of learning to change habits through the Alexander Technique, I agree with learning to "think" rather than "do".  Same words with different meanings in different contexts.

Here's how these two ideas fit together.  If you can "think" (aka consciously affect) your body in order to free yourself of mind/body habits that are holding you back, you'll be able to get out of your head and gracefully and pointedly spring into action while employing neither too much nor to little effort. 

Now take a look at the words that you associated with "thinking" and "doing".  Have you now broadened your concept of these two actions? 

Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com   

Ten Reasons for which I am Grateful for the Alexander Technique

Inspired by the Thanksgiving Holiday last week, I've mused on how I've used the Alexander Technique to change my life.  

 

Ten Reasons for which I am Grateful for the Alexander Technique

1. I'm not half bad a ping pong.

Last year, I picked up a paddle at a holiday party and to my surprise, I really held my own.  I hadn't practiced in many years and had never considered myself particularly skilled at ping pong or anything that involved hitting or kicking a ball or birdie, but I surprised myself at my adept hand-eye coordination.  My improved overall coordination allow me to calmly focus specifically on the ball and to simultaneously be aware of the space around me.  I could clearly sense where the ball was going and respond appropriately without over or under reacting and knowing where the ball and paddle were at all times.  It was a cool feeling - like I actually had more time to strategize my next move.

2. I don't fall when the subway jerks forward as I'm sitting.

I feel relaxed, energized and aware of where my whole body is at once.  When I sit, I fold instead of plop and keep my weight over my feet.  This makes it easy to decide halfway down that I'm going to pause or stand back up instead of coming crashing down on the lap of the person in the next seat.

3. Public speaking no longer terrifies me.

This may sound odd because I'm a trained actor, but I have been terrified of public speaking for most of my life.  I've taken on a roll for AmSAT (The American Society of the Alexander Technique)over the past two years, which has required me to speak on a microphone (yikes) in front of an auditorium full of people (gulp).  I've surprised myself and actually found these occasions quite enjoyable.  I realized that what would help me most would be to be open and receptive to the audience as opposed to fearing them and trying to shut them out.  When I allow fear to set in, I a create a wall of tension in myself, which leaves me short of breath, and then in turn, more anxious and vocally stifled.  As for the microphone, I used to hate to hear my own voice emerging from speakers.  The voice coming out of the speakers now sounds less foreign.  

4. I successfully lifted a bowl of hot chocolate with one hand.

If you've taken lessons with me, it's likely that you've heard this story. Prior to becoming an Alexander Technique teacher, at a time when I was taking regular lessons, I discovered something.  I was doing a lot of the work of my hands, arms, back and legs with my shoulders.  When I'd lift something, I would automatically lift and tighten my shoulder before even using my hand.  As a result of this habit, my hands and wrists were weak.  This issue became especially evident to me when I would lift a bowl of hot chocolate into a microwave on a high shelf.  (I was living in France at the time where the custom is to prepare hot chocolate and cafe au lait in bowls).  I was not able to lift the bowl into the microwave with one hand.  I was lifting with my shoulder and at a certain height in the lifting, the shoulder couldn't do the work anymore.  This realization was discouraging to me, but was an encouragement to keep on with my Alexander Technique lessons.  One day I found myself lifting the bowl one-handed.  What a triumph!   

5. I stopped worrying so much about germs.

I used to be what one might call a hypochondriac.  I may not be totally over it, but the Alexander Technique has helped immensely.  I used to be so afraid of contacting the world for fear that it would infect me, that I would pull into myself to "get away from it".  One thing that I'd do was to walk on the sides of my feet when I was barefoot.  I thought that if less of my feet touched the floor that I was less likely to pick up germs from it.  As I started to feel my body expand when I began taking Alexander Technique lessons, I quite quickly realized that my pulling into myself was likely causing me health problems.  It was restricting my breathing and resulting in a large amount of strain and tension in my body.  Realizing that my response to fearing germs may be making me more succeptible to them, I quickly changed my habits.  The first thing that I changes=d was to let my feet completely contact the floor.

6. I don't crash into door frames (as much)and my jeans don't look strange.

I grew four inches in one year at the age of 13.  I had scoliosis, which worsened significantly during the growth spurt and I found myself wearing a back brace for a good portion of each day for five years.  Moving into adulthood, I realized that I hadn't really grown into my body.  I was 5'8",but used my body as if I were 5'2".  This was always most clear to me when one of my shoulders would crash into a door frame and I knew that I must be much broader than I perceived I was.  I also used to take off my jeans at the end of the day and be totally baffled at how low the indentations were from my knees.  It didn't feel like my knees were actually that low.  I had a false sense of the length of my thighs and the height of my knees - and indication that I was using way to much effort in my thighs to walk instead of efforlessly allowing my knees to bend.  Now that I let my knees bend with less effort, I accurately sense their location.

7. I no longer cringe when I see myself on video.

Like with the microphone example, I'm generally not surprised by what I see and hear when I watch myself on video.  How I sense myself isn't so different from how I view myself from an outside perspective.  This was not always the case!

8.  I feel angry.

Or rather, I allow myself to feel angry.  I used to shut down feelings of anger by tensing my upper body.  I've learned to feel anger and other emotions more completely throughout my whole body as opposed to shutting them down with tension.

9.  It's fun.

Not much more to say than that.  The Alexander Technique helps me sense everything that I'm doing more clearly and to be more present and engaged in the world.  It continues to be a source of exploration and discovery.  A great Alexander lesson almost always involves laughter.

10. Oh, yeah, I stand up straighter. 

And a by-product of all of this is that I don't slump and my scoliosis is hardly visible now.  Sitting and standing up straight is the most comfortable position to be in and doesn't feel stiff or rigid.
Posture is a result of how a person goes about their life, acting and reacting and involves the coordination of the whole body, mind, and how one focuses and interacts in the world.

If you've benefited from the Alexander Technique, please feel free to add what you are grateful for in the comments below!

  
Image couresy of http://www.squidoo.com/thanksgivingimages

Alexander Technique for All Ages: Aunt Myrtle's story

Alexander Technique for All Ages:  Aunt Myrtle's story 

Check out this short animated video about The Alexander Technique.  In it, you'll learn of the benefits of AT and the problems that it helps to resolve.  Throughout the video, you'll follow the story of a young adult who just can't figure out how to sit, stand, or move about life comfortably and longs for the natural way that he used his body as a young child.  Thinking that he's doomed to progressively compress and slump his body as he ages, like his dear Aunt Myrtle, he finally realizes that he can get back into the driver's seat of his own body and reclaim the natural good use of his body that he enjoyed as a kid.  

As it turns out, hunching and slumping are habits that tend to worsen as we age, as opposed to an inevitable state that a person get into as they get older.  

Light bulb goes off for our young hero!  He takes Alexander Technique lessons and changes his habits!  He's no longer compressing his body!  He has better posture and simultaneously feels more comfortable!  He can now sit, stand, move, and age gracefully!  Yay for the young hero and yay for The Alexander Technique!

I was heavily involved with getting this video made on behalf of The American Society for the Alexander Technique and have been hearing/reading questions and comments over the past month since its release.  One question that has come up is, "What about Aunt Myrtle?"  We see that that hero escapes her fate of hunching over during old-age, but what about Aunt Myrtle herself?  Is she too old to get back into the driver's seat of her own body?  The Posture Police caught up with Aunt Myrtle, who has been taking Alexander Technique lessons on the advice of her enthusiastic nephew and asked her about her experience.
(Aunt Myrtle is a fictional character.)

Posture Police:  Posture Police here.  Aunt Myrtle, may I ask you a few questions?

Aunt Myrtle:  Was I driving too fast?

Posture Police:  No, not at all.  I just have a few questions regarding how you've improved your posture.

Aunt Myrtle:  I've been taking Alexander Technique lessons for several months now.

Posture Police:  How did you find out about The Alexander Technique?

Aunt Myrtle:  From my nephew.  He's been raving about it for a couple of years now and suggested I take lessons since I'm always complaining about being hunched over.  At first I laughed and said that there was no way I could learn a new way to hold my body at the age of eighty.  He insisted that he thought I could if I stuck with lessons for awhile and remembered to practice on my own.  

Posture Police:  So did you take lessons then?

Aunt Myrtle:  Well, no.  When he said I'd have to practice, I got discouraged.  I don't like doing exercises.

Posture Police:  So, how did you change your mind?

Aunt Myrtle:  Well, he brought it up again a few months later and I told him that I doubted that I'd keep up with the exercises.  Apparently I had misunderstood what he'd meant by "practice".  He then went on to say that there aren't any exercises.  

Posture Police:  Aha!  

Aunt Myrtle:  He said that the only "homework" I'd have would be to lie down for 15-minutes each day and I could certainly manage that.  Otherwise, I'm to remember to apply what I'd learned as I go about my day.  I don't have to stop what I'm doing to practice.

Posture Police:  How convenient!

Aunt Myrtle:  Oh, it is.  It takes some focus to remember at first, but the more I do it, the more it's like second-nature and I don't have to remind myself so much.  It's fun and helps keep my mind sharp and I'm less tired.  I feel like I'm floating when I leave my weekly lessons.  I used to feel like a ton of bricks.

Posture Police:  Can you maintain that floating feeling?

Aunt Myrtle:  Not at first, but after a few lessons, I started to be able to.  All of my friends have noticed the difference in my posture and want to know what my secret is.  They all say that I look younger.  I'm still a bit hunched, but my teacher says that even if I don't come up fully straight, that I can still feel more relaxed and expansive, as she says, even being a little bent over.  The technique is more about allowing your body to take up all of its space than to make yourself have perfect posture.

Posture Police:  So, "perfect posture" might be a result of Alexander lessons, but not necessarily for everyone and that's okay?

Aunt Myrtle:  Yes, that's right.  I'm happy that I look better, but even happier that I feel better and I'd rather keep feeling better than standing up straighter.  I used to think that standing up straight was something that I had to strain to do, but now I realize that I stand up straightest when I don't try so hard.  It's really more of a matter of using your thinking to affect your body than to maneuver yourself into a position.

Posture Police:  Well, thank you Aunt Myrtle!  There you have it folks.  Aunt Myrtle, back in the driver's seat of her body at age eighty!

Kinesthetic Confusion in Brooklyn

New York City Subway Stairs from Dean Peterson on Vimeo.

You're trudging your way up the subway stairs after a long day, thinking about what you're going to pick up on the way home for dinner as you . . . oops, trip on one of the steps.  You regain your footing and continue up the stairs to the sidewalk without thinking twice.  Has this ever been you?  Hold that thought.

A few weeks ago, I was discussing the concept of proprioception in a small group class that I teach.  "Proprioception" is essentially akin to "kinesthesia" and is a sense.  We're all familiar with sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell, all relating to how we take in sensory input from outside of ourselves.  Proprioception is how the body senses itself. 

Here are two examples of proprioception that you can try right now. 

Put your left hand behind your back.  Do you know that it's still there?  That's your proprioception at work.

Close your eyes.  Can you touch your nose without looking?  Again, your proprioception.

Proprioceptive nerves reside in your muscles and send signals to your brain explaining where you are in space, where the parts of your body are relative to one another, and how much effort you need to do things.

Write the words "heavy" on a big box and ask friend to lift it.  If they swing the box up high very quickly and loose their balance, you will have tricked their proprioception.

The thing is though, is that most of us are constantly tricking our proprioception without really knowing it.  We compress ourselves, tense, and strain and we may or may not be aware that something is awry.  We may experience pain, but not know exactly why.  We become helpless in the face our own habits because by habitually holding our bodies and moving in inefficient, straining ways, we've become kinesthetically "blind" to them.  Studying the Alexander Technique is like putting glasses on your proprioceptive sense, but even better because the clarity that is gained is through awareness and change.

In my group class, we were looking at ways in which our proprioception might be "off", like a compass that isn't pointing north.  For example, if you were to guess what part of your face the bottom of the back of your head (where your head meets your neck in the back) lines up with, what would you guess?  Most people guess their chin.  The bottom of the back of the head is actually much higher and lines up with the cheekbones, just below the eyes.  F.M. Alexander called this phenomenon "debauched kinesthesia" at the turn of the 20th Century.  I like to call it "kinesthetic confusion". 

What does it mean if you think that your head (meaning your skull) reaches all the way down to chin-level in the back?  It means that you are likely tightening your neck.  The area of the back of the neck that goes from your cheekbones to your chin is being "labeled" by your brain as part of your head.  Because of this kinesthetic "mislabeling", you are probably locking your head and neck together, which starts a downward chain reaction of compression through the whole body all the way to your feet. 

A funny example of my own kinesthetic confusion is that I used to tense and narrow my shoulders so much that I had no idea how broad they were and was constantly colliding into door frames.  Ouch!

As we were going through a variety of examples of kinesthetic confusion in my class, one of my students mentioned a news report on a particular subway station in Brooklyn that has gain attention for its stairs and the tendency for people to trip on them.  Check out the video above and see how many trips were captured over the period of one hour.  According to the article accompanying the video, "one of the stairs leading to [the subway station] . . . is a 'fraction of an inch' taller than the others. This causes a great deal of stumbles, trips and falls."

You can probably figure out why someone would be likely to trip on a step that is slightly taller that the steps leading up to it.  You'd become used to the height of the steps and without even thinking about it would expect to bend your knee and raise your foot the same amount to reach the next one.  This is proprioception at work and a great example of how our proprioceptive/kinesthetic awareness is "on" all the time and goes on auto-pilot - a good thing, since we wouldn't want to have to be thinking about exactly how much to bend each knee and lift each food every time you took a step.

So, how can we avoid trips or at least trip more gracefully and not totally wipe out.  If you're walking up the stairs and you are already in a state of kinesthetic confusion just in relation to how you are holding your own body, your ability to adjust gracefully to something unexpected (ie. an unusually high step on a flight of stairs or an unexpected step on what you thought was even ground) is impaired.  Not only do people tend to tighten and compress their bodies habitually, but people tend to consciously disconnect from their bodies.  This is often referred to as not being "in the moment".  You might not be able to be aware of your feet on the ground, the stair in front of you, and your thoughts about what to pick up for dinner in a way that you can react quickly to the unexpectedly high stair.  Kinesthetic confusion is a psycho-physical phenomenon (relating to mind and body).

The kinesthetically confusing subway station is 36th Street Station in Brooklyn, a station that I pass through nearly every day to change trains, so I'm not so familiar with the stairs that lead to the street! 

Check out the video and feel free to leave comments about your own experiences of kinesthetic confusion.

Physical, Mental, Emotional, & Spiritual - Are they they same? How do they relate to posture?

With Autumn arriving in two days, I'm officially closing my summer series, "Sleeping on Sandwiches" and looking ahead to how this blog will evolve.  I began The Posture Police as an exploration of the concept of posture.  What do people think posture is?  What does it mean to have good posture?  Is it just about how you stand and sit or is it something deeper and relevant to everything we do and how we approach life?  

A common theme among my posts in this recent summer series is the concept of "attitude".  An attitude can be physical, emotional, and mental and these three parts of ourselves are not so much parts, but instead ways that we divide ideas that we have about ourselves that may in fact distance us from understanding ourselves as unified, whole, beings.  People talk about exercised their bodies and minds separately, feeling emotions, and nurturing their spirits.  These terms can be useful, but they are labels that we create to describe perspectives of essentially the same thing.

Here's an example.  Let's take multiple looks at this one activity:

I go for a run every morning.

Here's what the person who runs every day might say about the experience:

It feel energized.
I feel more alert and focused
I  feel calm for the rest of the day and free from anxiety and worry.
I feel connected to the universe.

The four comments above could be described as physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual respectively and they are all talking about the same activity.  The common thread is that each comment about the experience of running is just that, an experience, a feeling.  Regardless of how each feeling could be categorized, each one is nonetheless a feeling, a felt, physical experience.  Based on those felt experiences every morning, the person moves through the rest of the day with an attitude that is informed by the feelings that they derive from running.  They'd likely approach the day with a different attitude if they sluggishly crawled out of bed and downed a cup of coffee or spent the morning stuck in traffic.

Here's a different activity that might at first glance be considered less physical than the previous on.  Instead of calling it "more mental" or "less "physical", let's call it "less athletic".

I sit at a desk for eight hours per day looking at a computer screen.

I feel slumped.
I feel in a fog.
I feel stressed and anxious.
I feel disconnected from the world.

Again, the descriptions of this activity area all felt, physical experience that could be categorized as physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.  Though moving much less compared to when running, a person's body is just as present when sitting and just as (or perhaps more) susceptible to injury (like lower back pain).  

These two examples demonstrate that we divide ourselves when we call certain activities "physical" and certain activities "mental".  The same could be said for "emotional" and "spiritual".  Within activities, we then divide our experiences of them into different categories, thus furthering this notion of dividing ourselves.

Circling back around to the word "attitude".  Our attitudes are reflected in our emotions, our reactions, and how we react to perhaps the most constant stimulus around . . . gravity . . . and how we react to gravity is how we hold ourselves, how we sit and how we stand, which is often called posture.  One way to think about posture is your general attitude in life and how you react with that attitude to gravity, a force that pulls down.  The design of our bodies should counteract gravity in a way that leads us to feel springy, but many of us work against ourselves and give into gravity instead of working with it.  

What is your postural attitude?  Does it change?  Are you generally allowing yourself to spring up or are you pulling yourself down?

Time Travel with the Posture Police II - Alexander Technique Trivia

If you are an Alexander Technique history buff or want to be one, you could win a complimentary or discounted Alexander Technique lesson!

Take a trip back in time and answer these three questions!  The FIRST person to answer all three questions correctly will win one complimentary private lesson with me at my studio in the Flatiron District.  The next nine correct answers will all win $20 off of their next lesson.  You may find some answers or clues on my website:  lindsaynewitter.com  

Post your answers in the comments field below or send them to me in an email (lindsay.n@gmail.com).  Please include your email address so that I can contact you. 

(Any discount obtained from this contest is not valid in conjunction with any other discount.)

Question 1

During what year was FM (Frederick Matthias) Alexander born?

Question 2

What problem did FM Alexander encounter that led him on his path of self-discovery?

Question 3

FM Alexander taught some prominent figures of his time.  All of the following people except for one took Alexander Technique lessons with him.  Which one did NOT take lessons with Alexander?

a) George Bernard Shaw

b) Moshe Feldenkrais

c) Aldous Huxley

d) Sigmund Freud

e) John Dewey

The winners will be contacted Tuesday, November 1, 2011. 

At the beginning of the year, I took this blog on a trip back in time to take a look at me from ages 18 months to 18 years.  Check that one out if you haven't:  http://posturepolice.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_archive.html

Posture Tips for Dummies: Don't stand like this!

Walking along Lexington Avenue on Tuesday evening, I passed by three ladies in cocktail dresses.  I tried to issue these fashionistas a warning, but they were unresponsive.  They were so nonchalant and all "whatever" that I don't even think they realized I was speaking to them.  I was concerned that they would suffer from herniated disks before even reaching their dinner destination or if they did manage to get there, they were asking for trouble down the road.  After several failed attempts at alerting them to their problematic posture, I stepped back and paused for a moment.  Something wasn't quite right.  The had appeared to have mastered the art of blasé so effectively that they hadn't moved for two solid minutes.  Then I noticed the glass in front of them and discovered that I was talking to a trio of dummies.  I guess I sound like the dummy in this situation, but they just looked so real.  I mean EVERYONE stands like this.  It's become completely normal to be totally slumped and like you know, "casual".  See how the mannequins' necks look like they are sagging down, their shoulders and upper backs rounded and stiff, their lower backs arched and their pelvis' thrust forward?  Apparently if you want to look good in these very expensive clothes, you have to slump and hang back.  It has become fashionable and sexy to slump!  And it's not just a physical thing, but an attitude is certainly being conveyed here - passivity, detachment, apathy.  Posture and how we use our bodies is intimately linked to what we think and our attitude.  So what's the big deal?  Aside from the negative social ramifications of people aspiring to detach themselves, there's some very concrete physical danger here.  Slumping down creates compression in the spine and can cause all sorts of trouble such as back pain, sciatica, and herniated disks. 
So why did I mistake these folks for real people?  Because so many real people stand like this!  And not just fashionistas!  Spend hours in front of a computer and it's easy to become slumped and detached from the world beyond your screen.  The slumping becomes so habitual that we forget how to stand upright without straining.  The Alexander Technique helps you to discover what's gone wrong and to allow for change so that you can stand up straight efficiently, without an unnecessary and uncomfortable effort.  Rediscover how to naturally stand, sit, walk, move and do "like whatever" you do.  Time to get up from my computer and take a walk!

Thoughts on Nutrion Provide Parallels to How we Use Our Bodies. Nutrition? Will The Posture Police be fined for going off-topic?

Posture Police:  Hello blog readers!  I'd like to share a book that I just finished reading with all of you.  It's a nutrition book and . . .

Posture Police Police:  Let's not get off topic here.  Please abide by the blog code and stick to the topic of posture!

Posture Police:  Well, I maintained excellent posture as I was reading it. 

Posture Police Police:  Does the content of the book relate at all to the theme of this blog or are you using this blog as a soapbox for book that you happen to like?

Posture Police:  It's thematically relevant.  Trust me.

Posture Police Police:  You are risky a hefty fine by going off topic you know.  Does eating vegetables reduce back pain? 

Posture Police:  I don't know about that.  Will you get down off of my shoulder and please let me get to the point?  Thank you!  Sorry for the distraction!  Hi!  Yes, The China Study is a book on nutrition, more specifically on in-depth nutritional research on the effects of a mostly plant-based diet.  It is called the China Study because one of the major studies discussed was a large-scale study in rural China.  You may be wondering why am I bringing this up on a blog about The Alexander Technique that is focused on how we use our bodies and redefining posture.  Are you about to be convinced of the value of adopting a plant-based diet, you ask?  No.  If you want to be convinced of the benefits of that, then read The China Study. 

The book points out as flaws in research as well as flaws in how people typically think about nutrition.  I think that these are the same sorts of problems that come up in regards to how we view and care for ourselves in regards to injury and pain.  Campbell (the author) points out that nutrition is often studied one nutrient at a time as opposed to studying the effects of whole foods on our health.  In some cases, the nutrient may differ from one food to another (for example animal protein vs. plant protein).  Also, each food contains many combination of nutrients, all of which interact in your body in such subtle and complex ways that studying individual nutrients doesn't tell the whole story.  Studying each reaction to a particular mix of nutrients in anyone's body at a given time based on the combination of foods they've eaten may be impossible to research completely since there are so many potential combinations and outcomes.  The China Study and other studies of it's kind look in a very practical way how diet patterns affect health.  In this case, the bigger picture seems to give more useful information than the fine details.

In the same way, we tend to divide ourselves up into details and look at knee pain as the result of a knee problem, lower back pain as the result of a lower back problem, wrist pain as the result of a wrist problem, breathing trouble as a result of a breathing problem.  These types of issues often arise from wear and tear on the body based on a general coordination problem, a problem with how a person is using their body in every activity that they do.  Using your body in ways that create compression or excess tension results in strain.  People are often told that they have poor posture, but they may not realize that their poor posture is really a problem in their total coordination pattern that results in lower back pain, knee pain, shallow breathing, or any of a variety of strain-related issues.  Focusing only on specific areas of the body often masks a more general postural coordination issue, just like focusing on only specific nutrients in food masks more general trends in diet, such as the types of foods we choose to eat.

Think about the following:  If you thrust your neck forward and pull your head back (this may feel like sticking your chin out), you are pressing your head back and down into your spine.  If you look in a mirror or watch someone else do it, you'll see what I mean.  Now let your head drop down as if you've fallen asleep on a bus.  Your head is heavy, isn't it?  So, if you are pulling your head back and down into your spine, you are pressing the weight of your head (about 10 pounds) down through your back and legs.  This posture creates compression and distortion all the way down to your feet.  So, releasing your neck up instead of tensing it and pulling your head back will relieve a lot of pressure on your back and even as far down as your knees and ankles.  Most people pull their heads back and down into their spines without even knowing it and take this posture with them into any activity they engage in.  When humans were hunter-gatherers, we probably did this when we suspected there was a predator around the corner.  It's a startle-response and most people are stuck in it unknowingly, creating pressure in their backs and legs, yet trying to address the back and leg troubles by exercising or having surgery on those areas.  Why not address the source of the problem and stop tensing your neck?  The Alexander Technique helps people to address strain issues at the source and really solve the root of the problem.  Like Campbell's findings on nutrition in The China Study, looking at the big picture and at how everything works together will give a person more useful information that addressing fine details out of context.

Want to read more?  Check out the abstract and short video about the 2008 large-scale back pain study that was published in the British Medical Journal.  Chronic back pain sufferers who spent 21 days out of the month in pain reduced their days in pain to three after a series of 24 Alexander Technique lessons.  That's an 85% reduction in pain.  Pretty phenomenal, but not surprising.  When strain-related pain is address within the context of how a person uses their body as a whole, during their daily activities the unconscious habits that are causing the pain become evident and the person is empowered with the tools to change them.  Check out the study . . .http://www.bmj.com/content/337/bmj.a884.full

Time Travel with the Posture Police

Back in Time!

Eleven years ago I was an acting student at New York University.  This was before I had become a "Posture Police" officer (my best roll yet!) and was just discovering the Alexander Technique through an introductory course that was part of my program.   I began to become aware of the terrible way I was using and holding my body and I have been on a path of undoing those bad habits ever since.  Over the holidays, I jumped in my Delorian ("time machine" in case you missed "Back to the Future") and took a trip back in time to see what went wrong and try to figure out why.  Check out the photos that I took along the way.  I made sure to disguise myself adequately during my travels so that I would be unrecognizable to my past self and avoid tearing a hole in the space/time continuum! 

First stop, 1980!

Year:  1980

Age:  18-months

Here I am.  A red-shoed toddler crawling up a flight of stairs.  My head leads.  The rest of my body follows.  I bend at the major joints (hips, knees, and ankles).  I'm alert and aware of my surroundings.  Life is a piece of cake.

 

Year:  1983

Age:  4

Wow, look at that linoleum!  And here's Lindsay sitting on her sit-bones, upright, straight as an arrow. Head easily balanced on top of the spine.  Shoulders relaxed.  Legs free of tension, smiling.  Sitting up straight and feeling comfortable.    

Year:  1986

Age: 7

Smell the fresh air of that school photo backdrop!  Second grade.  My third year of school.  Shoulders pulling down.  Chest and ribcage sinking down.  Neck poking forward.  Head dropped forward compressing down onto spine.

 

Year:  1988

Age:  9

This is the summer between third and fourth grade.  Yikes!  Shoulders dropped forward even more.  Visible tension in the neck, upper back and shoulders.  Head locked back and down onto the spine.  Face tense.  No looking so happy here.  I recall experiencing chronic anxiety at this time and developing an obsession with avoiding germs. I was having trouble focusing in school and was tested for Attention Deficit Disorder, which it was determined that I had.  Medication was recommended, but my parents decided against it.

Year:  1988

Age:  9

Same summer as the previous photo.  Having a little more fun here!  I think that this is at Universal Studios in LA and I'm pretending to lift a car that is tilted onto two wheels for just such a tourist photo opportunity.  My faux-lifting reveals severe misuse of the body and demonstrates how I tended to actually lift things.  I'm taking all of the weight into my shoulder, stiffening my torso, tensing my opposite arm, and tensing my thighs. 

Year:  1993

Age:  13

Aloha!  That's a little nicer than that school photo background.  Here I am in Honolulu. Look at those palm trees!  The breeze! 

I'm enjoying this lovely weather and scenery while corseted in a plastic back brace (under my clothes) to treat scoliosis.  I had a 25 degree lateral (sideways) curve in my lumbar spine.  If I look like I'm holding in my abs, it is because th brace is holding them in.  It's hard to breathe like this!  Many cases of scoliosis are idiopathic, meaning that there is no know cause. 

Year:  1997

Age:  18

This is the day that I moved into my dorm as a freshman drama student at NYU.  I'm out of the brace at this point.  Look at my right (your left) side.  See how I'm compressing into the lateral (sideways) curve in my lower back.  My right hip and leg are lifted.  My right shoulder is pulled down.  Still a great deal of shoulder and neck tension and a general sense of disunity and awkwardness.  I generally felt uncomfortable and anxious.  My first two years as a drama student were very difficult.  I was unable to change or even recognize my ingrained physical habits.  

In 1999 I discovered the Alexander Technique in a group class in school and soon began taking private lessons.  I finally started to understand and feel what I was doing that was problematic and how to change it.  I began to excel in my classes, feel more at ease in my body, and focus with less strain.  I was finally enjoying the program I had been so eager to enter.  I felt happier and less worried.  My GPA went up.

So why did I start off so well and succumb to misusing my body so severely?  Was it the pressure of school and sitting still in a chair for hours at a young age?  May it also be related to all of the television that I watched?  Could it have to do with being taught to fear?  Fear germs, other people, traffic . . . 

Here is a photo of my youngest child that illustrates excellent use of the body and posture.  Will she maintain this good use?  How can I help her and her older sister to avoid interfering with good use, good posture, and optimal functioning in a world full of stress and danger?

What do you notice about how you use your body?  Why do you think you do so? Look through your childhood photos and see if you can see the way you misuse yourself developing.

Take a look at what I talk about on my website about Children, Learning, Focusing and School:

http://www.lindsaynewitter.com/children-learning-focusing/

Miniature New Yorkers Spotted At Prince Street! Tiny people also exhibit good and poor posture!

Miniature New Yorkers Spotted At Prince Street!  These tiny people also exhibit good and poor posture.  Evidence of the inseparability of physical and mental states!

 

While waiting for the R train at Prince Street station in SOHO, I noticed that in addition to the commuters filling up the platform, there were these tiny little people milling about on the walls, like miniature versions of the folks on the platform.  I wondered if they were miniature versions of New Yorkers who had wandered in from another dimension.  I tried to speak to a few of them while I was waiting, but they must have still been at least partially in their own dimension because they didn't appear to hear me.  I blew my police whistle with no effect.  I gave up communicating after several attempts and instead took a few photos.  As I was photographing them, I noticed some model examples of good and poor posture (or what F.M. Alexander called good and poor "use") and I discovered that I was collecting some pretty clear evidence that physical and mental states cannot be separated.  My train arrived and as I boarded, I wondered if a miniature train would pull into the station that the little people would all board.

Exhibit A: First, I noticed an older woman exhibiting typical signs of age - a compressed spine, resulting in a hunch.  The downward pressure from her upper body clearly affected her legs, as her gate was stiff and she shuffled her feet.  Her gaze was focused downward and all of her attention appeared to be focused on making sure that her feet stepped where she wanted them to step, as if she didn't trust that they would obey her commands without her looking at them.  What this woman is doing might be viewed by many as a condition of old age, whereas she likely created this condition herself through years of misusing her body.  

 
Exhibit B:  I glanced to my right and saw an encouraging, though less common site - what appeared to be an older woman who carried herself more upright than most teenagers.  Her head was poised atop her spine and she maintained her full height without compressing herself.  She exuded confidence.  She looked relaxed and aware of her surroundings.  Becoming as compressed and physically disconnected as the first woman is not an inevitable symptom of age.  If we use ourselves well, we can continue to maintain good use.  Now, here's a question . . . Who would you be more likely to ask for directions?  The woman standing more upright, right?  Why?  Probably because she seems more like she knows what's going on.  I would expect the first woman might be confused, afraid of falling, and so narrowly focused that she might have trouble answering a question (also, typically symptomss of old age, no?) - clear evidence that the physical and the mental are inseparably intertwined and that how we use ourselves affects how we function.

Exhibit C:  Next I spotted a young woman walking briskly.  She employed a great deal of strain to move about.  She appeared to be leading with her chin and thereby tipping her head back and down (rotating the head back), resulting in tightness in her neck, upper back and shoulders.  Her lower back looked tight and it seemed as though she was squeezing and compressing all of herself in order to move forward.  She appeared to be taking the weight of the bags that she was carrying into her shoulders, further exacerbating the problem.  Interestingly, there was nothing unusual or extreme looking about the way that she was holding herself or walking, yet she was using herself quite poorly.  

Exhibit D: Next I spotted a second young woman walking briskly, also carrying an object - quite a heavy-looking object!  She appeared to be exerting no excess effort to hold the chair that she carried in her right hand.  She didn't tighten her shoulders and the weight of the chair seemed to be evenly distributed throughout her body.  She walked upright,at her full height, and did not stick her chin forward and rotate the head back.  She maintained an straight, yet relaxed torso and she easily stepped about as her legs weren't stiff.  She appeared to be moving and reckoning with the weight of the object in her hand with just the right amount of effort.  Lovely to see, but a rare sighting!  Who would you be more likely to ask for directions?  I would ask the woman carrying the chair.  Even though she may be walking quickly, she appears more present and like she might be able to easily answer my question without becoming frustrated or slowing down.  The first woman looks as though she would be disturbed by someone stopping her and annoyed to have to think about my question while carrying bags and trying to move along quickly.   


Exhibit D:  Next, I happened upon two folks engaging in a popular activity of late.  Using a cell phone!  They were likely texting or checking email.  Prince street is one of those stations that I always get reception in.  Very convenient!  I immediately noticed differences in the posture and use of these two people.  The person on the left appeared closed in on herself, focused on her phone at the expense of everything else.  She dropped her head down, dragging her neck and back with it and adopted a similar stance and attitude to older woman in Exhibit A.  The person to the right looked down at his phone, but allowed his head to rotate up and over to move down instead of just dropping down.  The result is that he moveed his head and neck down in space without compressing down in himself.  He seemed relaxed and composed.  The person to the left seemed stressed and agitated.  As in the other comparisons, I would likely ask the relaxed, upright, composed person for directions.  I would expect that he'd be able to pause reading an email or writing a text message, calmly answer my question, and then return to his phone.  I'd expect that the person to the left would be frustrated about having been interrupted and might have trouble going back to what she was doing.  The act of focusing need not involve strain and a complete narrowing of one's perspective.  It is possible to remain composed, alert, and concentrated on a task.


There were many more tiny people to observe on both platforms at Prince Street.  Take a look yourself if you happen to be in the station and let me know if that tiny train ever shows up!

Explore Useful Resources for Better Posture

For more information about the Alexander Tehnique, visit:

www.lindsaynewitter.com

www.alexandertechnique.com   

www.amsatonline.com

Surgeons and Actors spotted taking Alexander Technique lessons!

Surgeons and Actors spotted taking Alexander Technique lessons!?!?  Librarians across the globe are dizzy with panic in regards to how to categorize this mysterious technique with such a wide array of applications.  Rumor has it that they are organizing to stage a protest of the disruption of their carefully-constructed classification systems.

Surgeons at have recently been reaping the 

benefits of Alexander Technique lessons to improve their job performance according to a recent study at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.  Cat A. Gory, a librarian who had filed "Alexander Technique" under "Acting", panicked at the prospect of re-cataloging literature on the subject.  After discovering that surgeons were studying the Alexander Technique, she did some Googling and found that all sorts of people take Alexander lessons and find them useful, from actors to athletes, to office-workers, to dishwashers.  She has reportedly spent the all past week hunched over her computer, looking for a proper way to file literature on the technique and is now suffering such severe neck and back pain that she's filing for worker's comp.  

Ms. Gory placed a call to the Posture Police to see if she could get some help.

Posture Police:  Hello, Posture Police.

Cat E. Gory:  Yes, My name is Cat E. Gory.  I'm a librarian at the district library and I'd like to make a  request, no, really a demand of Mr. Alexander.  His new Technique has wreaked havoc on my classification system.

Posture Police:  Mr. Frederick Matthias Alexander?  The Alexander who developed the Alexander Technique?

Cat E. Gory:  Yes, that's him.

Posture Police:  Mr. Alexander's Technique is around 100-years old.

Cat E. Gory:  Hold on, let me Google that.  Oh, yes.  I see.  I see.  Yes, now I recall reading that.  Oh my!  It's been filed incorrectly all this time!  Dewey isn't due to be revised for another two years, so I can't change the classification categories.  I've got to find a way to fit it in and it's just impossible!

Posture Police:  Do you mean John Dewey, the renowned American educational philosopher and contemporary of Alexander's who was an avid proponent of Alexander's work and the significance of it to education?

Cat E. Gory:  No, I mean the Dewey Decimal Classification System devised by Melvil Dewey.

Posture Police:  Oh, yes, of course.

Cat E. Gory:  Though what you just said complicates things even more.  Educational philosophy!  My word!  I was moving toward the "Health" category again.  Is this about health?  Education?  Posture?  Acting?  Ow, my neck.  (sigh)

Posture Police:  All of the above, really.

Cat E. Gory:  I was afraid you'd say that!  I'm really trying hard to get this subject to fit neatly into a category.  Would you please help me?  I was already in a bit of a tizzy when I tried to put it in the "health" category, but then I found out that not only did it have something to do with health, but it was also related to education.  I mean, really, why would someone want to be educated about their health?  Then I began to wonder if it had something to do with saving time, like, I don't know, getting vaccinated for measles while doing Math homework, so that health and education would be happening simultaneously.  I was relieved when I discovered that F.M. Alexander was an actor and that the technique is offered as a course in many acting school.  I figured the whole health thing was a rumor, so I stuck it under "Theatre Education" next to Stanislavski.  I had just started feeling ok with the whole thing when that study from Cincinnati came to my attention.  (gasping for air)  I just I just couldn't handle it!  Surgeons and actors using the same technique to improve their jobs!  What on earth could they have in common?  (Choking back tears).  Things really began to unravel when I googled "Alexander Technique" and discovered that all sorts of people use it who have absolutely nothing in common.  I mean absolutely nothing! Oh, God my neck hurts so badly and I've hardly moved from this computer for the past week!  What on Earth could I have done to it?  So, after reading the study, I was looking a the Health classifications again, but now you're talking about educational philosophy and I've just about had it.  Anyway, my neck and back hurt so badly.  I guess it's from all the stress of trying to figure this thing out, though I don't really know.  In any case, it hurts so badly that I think I'm going to have to stop working.  I demand that Mr. Alexander present me with a proper Classification of his work that will fit into the system.

Posture Police:  Ms. Gory, F.M. Alexander passed away in 1955.  

Cat E. Gory:  Oh, yes, that's right.  I'm reading that now.  Well, what should I do.  Who can I blame for my neck and back pain.

Posture Police:  I suggest that you take some Alexander lessons and learn how to stop your neck pain and how to avoid it in the future.  Hello?  Hello?

(several minutes later)

Cat E. Gory:  Hello Doctor.  My neck and back are in terrible shape.  Could you proscribe me some pain killers.

Doctor:  Why do your neck and back hurt?

Cat E. Gory:  I don't know.  I've been working very hard at my desk all week and I'm in agony.  Could you prescribe me something?  I'll need surgery, won't I.

Doctor:  I suggest taking some Alexander Technique lessons.  I was just reading some recent research on the technique.  I think that it could really help you.

Cat E. Gory:  Oh.  Thanks.

(several minutes later) 

Cat E. Gory:  Is this the Posture Police?

Posture Police:  Oh, it's you again.  We must have had a bad connection.  Did you find your answer.

Cat E. Gory:  I'm going to take an Alexander Technique lesson and find out about it for myself.  My doctor says that it will help my neck and back and maybe I'll finally understand how to file the topic.  Can you tell me where I can find a teacher?

Posture Police:  Of course.  Visit www.lindsaynewitter.com

Cat E. Gory:  And one more question.  What on earth do actors and surgeons have in common?  I must know.  There must be something!

Posture Police:  They are all human, and like most humans they tend to misuse themselves by creating unnecessary strain in order to maintain upright posture.

Cat E. Gory:  Oh my.  The answer was right under my nose.  I'm so sorry that I hung up on you earlier.  I don't know where my mind went!  Of course.  We're all human, so we must all have some common issues regardless of our professions.

Posture Police:  Yes, but I should amend what I said about all actors being human.  My cat is a pretty good actor sometimes!

Performers (actors and musicians) have know the value of the Alexander Technique for a long time.  Most MFA acting programs include The Alexander Technique in their program of study.  The Alexander Technique deals with how we use ourselves on a very fundamental level.  Therefore,  it  is just as much an acting or singing technique as it is a walking or running technique or a technique for doing the dishes or maintaining comfortable posture while performing surgery.

Click below to read "Artistic Discipline Meets Modern Technology to Enhance Surgical Proficiency"

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/artistic-discipline-meets-modern-technology-to-enhance-surgical-proficiency-104198763.html

"Minimally invasive procedures require surgeons and assistants to maintain awkward, non-neutral and static postures of the trunk and extremities. This limits the natural shifting of their posture and can lead to discomfort, fatigue and even injury."

Image credit:  <p><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=2692">Image: taoty / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></p>