Dance and the Alexander Technique Panel Discussion: a report

The panel discussion Dance and the Alexander Technique: Addressing Longevity in a Dancer’s Career, was co-produced by the Balance Arts Center and Movement Research (a part of Movement Research's Studies Project program). It was held at Dance Theater Workshop in NYC on October 15th from 6-8pm. Panel members included June Ekman, Eva Karzag, Shelley Senter, Jennifer Grove, and Katherine Mitchell. Ann Rodiger moderated the conversation.

This event provided clear evidence of how the Alexander Technique works over the long term and how it can affect people’s lives at a very fundamental level.

In preparation for the panel discussion potential questions were circulated among panel members so we would have ideas to contemplate before the conversation and be able to prepare beginning remarks. A few days before the event I started to get worried that we had collected a group of people who were so totally converted to the Alexander Technique way of thinking and that after about 5 minutes of discussion we would fall silent in a collective “Yes, the Alexander Technique is great” and have no where to go from there!

And there was, in fact, an agreement about how great and useful the Alexander Technique is. However, instead of landing on silence, the conversation evolved into something very inspiring and full. There was a shared sense of the power from the process of thoughtful whole mind/body awareness.

It became evident that the Alexander Technique is and has been the basic process, essence, and central core of each of the panelist’s unique dance experience. And the experience of that process had been guiding and informing the choices the panelists have made with technique, teaching, and choreography for a long time.

What emerged is that each person on the panel, all of whom have had quite different experiences of the Alexander Technique, dance training, performance experience, in various geographical locations, had an understanding and shared experience of the movement/energetic flow that is fundamental and underlies all movement we do. Through that understanding they have been able to dance and explore movement for a long time. And they continue to explore dance and movement in creatively satisfying situations.

One might say that if the Alexander Technique helps the dancer dance better and longer, it must really work for those of us who don’t jump around quite so much. It could even be more effective in helping us stay balanced if we aren’t using our body in such a seemingly extreme manner, challenging our balance, going upside down, and hanging out on one leg for so long, as dancers do. The dancer actually puts the Alexander Technique to the test in many ways as they are constantly learning and inventing new movements, movement sequences, and refining their use.

We are all dancers in our own way even if our range of movement and movement vocabulary may be considerably less extensive than that of a professional dancer. Though we don’t spend a huge portion of our lives focusing on sophisticated movement in the way dancers do, we can definitely benefit from the Technique. Thinking of our daily, work, and play movements as movement that can be played with, explored, and improved (no matter what the range of motion) can lead to longevity in everyone’s movement options and life in general!

What that means is that we can each discover a dance of balance and flow of movement/energy, wherever our lives lead us: painting the living room, playing golf, sitting at the computer, or leading meetings, for example. Study of the Alexander Technique gives us freedom and longevity in our activities, so we can fully explore our pursuits.

I also understood from the panelist is that the principles F. M. articulated are so fundamental that they sustain the interest and curiosity of intelligent and thoughtful people dedicated to movement as a profession for many years.

Movement Research posted a podcast and video of the discussion.
Check out the podcast here
Check out a short video excerpt here
Check out Movement Research's website here

The Balance Arts Center will be sponsoring a conference on Dance and the Alexander Technique in New York City in May. Stay tuned!

University of Oregon Commencement Talk

Ann Rodiger was honored to speak at the University of Oregon commencement ceremony for the School of Music and Dance on June 13, 2009, having received a Distinguished Alumni Award. Several colleagues, students, and friends have requested that we post the talk on the Balance Arts Center blog, so here it is!

Thank you and congratulations to the graduates and your families. I am very honored to be invited to speak with you today. It is wonderful to be back on the U. of O. campus and see all of the growth and expansion that has been going on here.

So, what’s next? I’m sure the question is on the table for many of you. Some of you may be clear about your plan of action and some of you may giving yourself some time before you make definite plans.

I would like to use a short article written by FM Alexander entitled “About Golf” as a jumping off point for some thoughts that may be of help to you no matter where you are at the moment. Alexander, who was a movement educator, talks about how, frequently, golfers are told to “keep their eyes on the ball,” and even though they know how important it is to keep their eyes on the ball, they still seem to loose eye contact with the ball at critical moments during a swing. Although none of you will be receiving a degree in golf today, our task is really the same: to keep our eyes on the ball as much as we can.

Our ball, the ball for us as dancers and musicians, takes many forms and comes in many sizes, from the small ball of developing and refining our skills to the much larger ball of our overall purpose.

A small ball, for instance, might be:
1. feeling the weight of the violin bow and then using the right amount of effort to move it across the string
2. working on the initial movement of the foot in a tendu and following through the metatarsals to pointed foot
3. or finding the suspension of your breath before you sing a phrase

A middle sized ball might be:
1. expanding your field of awareness and
2. understand how to connect with the other players in a string quartet or the other dancers in your piece of choreography.

And a very large ball, which is the most important ball, is to keep our overall global purpose in mind and remember what we have to offer as performing artists.

In looking at this largest ball I think we are all very fortunate to have found a profession that we ourselves are passionate about and enjoy participating in. And, we have found a profession that has the direct potential to be uplifting and life changing for many other people. We are involved in providing opportunities for people to step away from their daily lives to gain a different perspective on whatever is happening in their lives at that moment.

Recently I had the opportunity to attend Wagner’s complete Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. This event was comprised of four evenings of opera, sometimes up to six hours each night, within one week. As we, the audience, were taken on a journey through this long tale, I felt myself and saw others around me being washed again and again by the sounds of the orchestra and voices. Everyone around me was moved and touched very deeply by the experience, at all levels - the physical, emotional, intellectual and the spiritual. That is the potential that each of us in the performing arts has to offer to others.

In order to offer this transforming experience to others we have to be clear and honest with ourselves as to our individual focus and motivation. We have to know what our ball is, so we can keep our eyes on it! We need to find out what is important to us as composers, choreographers, performers, and educators, what motivates and inspires us. Where is the juice? What is essential? What is it about operating in the non-verbal, aural and kinesthetic senses that is attractive to us and is so vital?

I invite you to look underneath your immediate response to that question and to explore what is at the core of your personal ball. There is no doubt that there is something underneath your initial response that is a driving force. Steadfastly pursuing this understanding is what is going to lead you to whatever comes next. It will allow you to take what you have learned and experienced here at the University of Oregon and guide you to something very satisfying.

Let’s return to the golfer. The golfer’s aim is to get the ball onto the green and into the hole, ultimately in one stroke. The strong stimulus of this goal can sometimes become a trap, in that the desire to achieve the goal creates habits that limit the choices the golfer makes. Taking his eyes off the ball happens again and again because the golfer doesn’t recognize that there are other choices he or she can make to accomplish the goal. Perhaps he repeats his habitual actions more forcefully and in a more entrenched way as he thinks that is the only way it is going to work. This is what gets the golfer in to trouble. He doesn’t realize that he has to be available to make new choices as he sets up the shot, addresses the ball and takes the swing, choices that might even feel wrong or unfamiliar or unknown.

This same principle applies to us. We need to allow ourselves to be flexible, creative, and open to new approaches, to our desires and aspirations. Alexander is asking us to suspend for a moment our knee jerk responses to what we want to do. Stop the automatic pilot. In other words, don’t just whack the ball. Pause and take a moment to notice what you are about to do and see your various choices and possibilities.

I didn’t know what the Alexander Technique was, or even that it existed, when I left the University of Oregon, and I had no idea I would be practicing it now in New York City. By following what I love to do and sticking with that, I found my way to a profession that incorporates all the things that I find to be juicy: movement and dance, sound, vibration, the “ah ha” moment of understanding, discovery, and expansion. I now work with dancers, singers, musicians as well as others, including golfers, with their awareness in action. I work with their whole being to refine their thinking and movement coordination so they can best express themselves and accomplish their goals with more ease, balance, and fluidity.

In closing, let’s look again at what we offer as performing artists: our largest ball.

We create the space and time for people to learn, grow and connect with themselves at the deepest levels, to understand at that unspoken essential, vibrational place where we all connect as a whole. As we stay in touch with and hold that field of awareness, we create situations where others can find that flow and experience the field it creates for them. This is the field of possibility and creativity, and the field where one can experience his or her essential being-ness. This awareness is invaluable. You have a wonderful stance from which to start and the skills to make a difference in your own life and the lives of many others.

Keep going. Keep learning, keep practicing and going to class. Keep reflecting, recommitting, and reconnecting with the essence of what you do and what you want to achieve. Keep your eyes on the ball as you take you next swing, and remember your purpose for doing so, as that will sustain you through whatever comes your way.

Anticipation and Preparation

One of my students is recovering from an injury to her big toe that she sustained while dancing nearly 14 years ago. She had surgery and Physical Therapy and is still recovering in that she struggles to use the right and left sides of her body evenly while she moves. She is very aware of her body and senses that when she is working unevenly she has more tension in her body, that she isn’t able to think as clearly as she is otherwise able, and her entire mental/emotional state is affected by the imbalance.

Her big discovery in our lessons together came when she realized that much of the tension she has in her body is created in response to the anticipation of knee pain that sometime occurs. She tenses her body before moving because she is trying to “do something” to prevent the potential experience of pain. In other words, she makes a sudden contraction just before moving that prevents her from her easiest and most balanced movement. If left unresolved, this contraction accumulates into a more permanent state of tension in and throughout the body. Her compensations are now affecting her jaw by creating tension more on one side than the other.

When she was able to stop the moment of contraction she could feel her weight on the floor through the injured foot more clearly and she could direct her whole body, head-neck-back more easily. The knee pain that was caused by avoiding movement in the toe is eliminated.

This act or moment of anticipation and preparation was also clear with another student as he played the piano. His piano teacher has been talking to him for a while about letting his forearm soften and be freer while he plays. It turns out he has the same pattern. Just before he strikes the key he tightens his forearm and hands breaking the flow of energy and movement into the keys. When he stopped the tightening preparation the sound he was making changed immediately. His fingers were more articulate and he could feel his weight on the piano bench.

We often think we need to “do” something extra or use more force to “make” a movement occur. Certainly some movements and activities take more force than other activities. When we don’t anticipate what is needed we allow ourselves to accommodate to the needs of the action rather than decide beforehand what might be needed.

Eiko Kanamoto, who trained in the Alexander Technique here at the Balance Arts Center and now teaches in Tokyo) used to talk about this as going from neutral into an action; “neutral” meaning the state of being when your “motor” is already running with an easy flow of directions. This allows you to move from one action to another, or one gesture to another, speeding up or slowing down without turning off your engine in between (in other words not collapsing or tightening between movements). Starting a movement from an already free and directed flow of movement allows one to continue directing smoothly through to the next activity. This way you can pick up the necessary speed and effort along the way WITHOUT jumping into the next gear before the action happens. You might end up in 4th gear if you are lifting a cement block for instance (we practice this in the training class) and you arrive there “as needed” in responses to the weight of the block.

The moment of tightening before we do an action can go by really quickly if we aren’t paying close attention. It goes by even more quickly if we have jumped ahead to the end of the activity (Alexander calls this end-gaining) in our minds and bypass the process of how we are getting there.

Look at the cement block in the photo with this blog entry.
• Imagine yourself picking it up.
• Notice what your body does even as you imagine the activity.
• Now imagine picking up the block and staying in “neutral” as long as possible.

Notice how little force and preparation you can use when doing the following activities. Notice if you are anticipating the action and see if you can bypass that moment of doing something extra.

• As you strike the computer keys.
• As you begin to get out of a chair.
• As you start to say something to someone.
• As you put your foot on the gas pedal.
• As you lift a bag of groceries.

Habits, Habits, Habits

One student recently described her learning process as having to trust thinking and moving in ways that seem to be “counter intuitive.” In leaving her normal way of doing the task to do it in a new way, she described it as feeling “quite odd” or “just wrong” even though it was so much easier to do. She was working on finding the movement of her air to support her singing voice. It was very obvious to both of us that her sound was much freer and stronger when she vocalized in the less familiar way.

Her statement led to a discussion about how her singing was markedly easier and was clearly better coordinated and “right” when she chose this new way of working. Even so, it was unfamiliar and the pull of the familiar was SO strong that she had to pay very close attention to avoid going down that road again and again- continuing to choose the less coordinated and harder way to sing.

It might seem that once one has had the experience of how easy something can be and how obvious it is that the old way isn’t really working he/she would be able to immediately change course and follow the new pathway. It would be so nice if changing habits was as simple as having a new understanding of how to do something. In fact, it requires both a new understanding and practice in applying this new understanding until we break from the persistence of the habit. In practice we have to keep on top of our actions and monitor what we are doing to bring them in to what F.M. called “conscious control.”

Another student recently said, “I’m not telling it to do that.” in reference to how he was folding (or not) his hip joints as he sat on the chair. Right – he wasn’t consciously telling his hips not to bend but at some point (conscious or not) he adopted this habit. Then, again probably without awareness, he went on to automatic pilot and has done it in a similar manner for years.

The real answer is yes, we ARE “telling it to do that” at some level that is probably deeply buried in our habitual patterning. And if we want to change we need to create a situation where the older, less efficient habit has a chance to change.

Another student remarked that it seemed funny to tell his knees to bend – he felt as if they were remote objects out there somewhere that should already know what to do. Same thing. His habits are running his movement, and, in this case, jamming his legs up into his torso causing some lower back pain. At some point he learned, possibly through imitation, injury recovery, stress or trauma response, or some other reason, to move in this way. And in reality, his knees are not so remote. They are part of him, and he can have conscious control over how they move.

Much of the work in the Alexander Technique is bringing those habits that are often unconscious to the surface of our awareness so that we can consciously direct ourselves to change them and by doing so, maintain a better use of ourselves.

It is not necessarily important to know how we arrived at our own unique constellation of habitual movements. What is important is that we realize we can do something about them and they don’t have as much of a grip on us as we think they do. They don’t have to run the show.

One might ask if it is worth spending the mental energy on directing themselves and changing their habits. Yes of course it is.

In all of the cases above the unconscious habits are directly affecting their movement performance and quality of life. They are subtly and not so subtly determining the freedom of movement and thought.

In the first case of the singer, her vocal performance and thus her career hinges on this information.

In the second case of the new hips, the student has a whole new relationship to the ground and it has given him at least another inch in his back, frees up his neck, and literally gives him a new perspective on things (from that higher view).

In the third case of the remote knees, his whole gait changed and his back immediately started feeling better once he bent is knees. That nagging back pain stopped taking up his mental space so he could be more present with whatever task was at hand.

What a relief!

It is important not to judge ourselves as we uncover some of these habits that have been dragging us around. Students have said things like, “I’m doing THAT?” or “What am I doing that for?” or “Why do I think that (the old habit) is easier?” and so on. It is not necessary to know why we developed a certain habit. What is important is to move forward with a new awareness and willingness to change for the better. The contrast between the new and old patterns will sometimes uncover the cause of the previous pattern if it is important in the context of the new.

Take an activity that you do every day probably many times a day like sitting down. Focus on the following things and see if it becomes easier:

• There is no need to muscularly pull yourself down into the chair.
• Lengthen out your body before you sit down.
• Send your head out over your knees as you sit down, letting your whole torso follow your head.
• Make sure your hips, knees, AND ankles are all bending (all 6 joints) while you sit.

Neck Free

NECK FREE

During my recent trip to teach in Berlin, I realized again while working with a group of singers, that many of us think we need to hold our head on to our body. This is not to say that German singers or those living in Germany have a particular habit unique to themselves. It sounds odd to say this, as the head is obviously attached to the spine and body, but it does seem to be the case that many of us are subtly holding our head on to our body. This literally holds us down by pinching the cranial nerves (to the eyes, ears, face etc.) as well as restricting our breathing and adding weight to and compressing our entire structure. And, in the case of the singers I was working with in Berlin, it compressed their sound as well.

It also seems that when people think of keeping their neck free they mainly think of the back of their neck, the part that can be touched and seen, and they forget to keep the front of the neck and spine free up in front of the ears and behind the nose at the back of the oral cavity. Remembering the three dimensional spine and neck helps keep the natural curve in the spine and neck that are necessary for cushioning, shock absorption, and overall mobility of the body.

The first of the classical Alexander Technique directions is to keep the “neck free” which lets the head go and releases any holding of the head on the spine. It also lets go of any urge to “fix” or “position” or “hold” or “clamp” the head on the neck. Once the neck is free, we can direct the head up and slightly forward off the spine and the whole body can easily follow.

This discussion was particularly critical for the singers I worked with in Berlin. When they understood that keeping the neck free included the front part of the neck up inside the body, their sound instantly changed. It allowed their air stream to come up behind the tongue and gave a sense of the air coming up behind their eyes. Their sound was clearer, more focused, and less forced. Their whole head was vibrating and participating in the sound production.

Keeping the neck free and taking the pressure off the body is critical for all of us, even if we are not singing. It can change our speaking voice and also opens the connection between the head and the rest of the body, allowing for better oxygen and blood flow and less restriction and pressure on the nerves. It allows for more range of movement in the neck and for more possibilities of experiencing the body as a whole organism responding to gravity.

Experiment with the direction of “allowing your neck to be free” and see what happens. Give yourself the direction and then after you have your first response repeat the direction so you let go more and more and more. Notice that when your neck is free you will sense the ground underneath you more clearly. And the ability to give a gentle upward direction of the head comes very easily and is a natural response to letting the neck go.

• What image comes to mind when you think of your neck?
• What have you been considering your neck to be?
• What have you been thinking when you give yourself the direction to allow your neck to be free?
• Are you remembering that your spine and neck come up behind your jaw?
• What happened when you think of keeping your throat free?
• How does your tongue fit in to this thinking?