Where is Your Focus?

Where is Your Focus?

Last week during the floor class we indulged in a long, tangential discussion that is now changing the way we all work during the class. We begin each floor class by establishing a free neck, tongue, jaw, eyes, a lengthened back, and free breathing while lying on our backs. Knees are up with feet flat on the floor, as in a traditional Alexander Technique “lie down.” Our detour came at the beginning of class with one of the first movements of bringing a knee up to the chest. A student’s question led to a wonderful, revealing discussion.

The question was, “what am I supposed think about, what part of the body should I focus on, while I move my knee?”

It became clear that focusing only on the knee coming up to the chest disturbed the rest of the student’s body and disrupted his head-neck freedom along with the length and width of his back that had just been established. His neck tightened, breathing stopped, lower back arched, and his leg was heavy.

When his focus stayed mainly on freeing his head and neck along with maintaining the length and width of his back, his knee came up much more easily. The knee came up in relation to the active direction and alignment of the back and torso and was not the primary focus of movement even though it was the part moving through space. It took practice for him to move his knee while continuing to give attention to the parts of his body that “weren’t moving.” Likewise, it took practice to keep the active direction in the whole body and not do the opposite of what he was doing by pushing his lower back into the floor, which would also lead to tightening his neck and holding his breath.

As the focus of the movement became clearer, the movement became easier, and there was no sudden moment of “umph” or muscle contraction when the movement started. The movement of the knee and leg came from the ongoing flow of energy moving throughout the whole body.

This tangent revealed something we often do while moving:
We become enticed by the body part that is moving through space, and we lose track of what is happening to the rest of our bodies. This happens often and in many situations.

This “tangent” actually came at the perfect moment, because as we talked, the reason we start class on our backs and why we establish the head, neck, and back relationship (Alexander’s Primary Control) before we do anything else became clearer and clearer. And it was clear why we do seemingly simple movements at first: We do them so we can learn how to maintain the Primary Control while moving.

The discussion turned to how easy it can be to focus only on the moving part and how that can throw us off balance in almost any situation, causing us to lose the support for the entire movement. This applies to dancers moving their legs, squash and golf players swinging the racket or club, as well as to simple movements like bringing a fork or spoon to one’s mouth.

Practice:
Try it yourself while you climb the stairs: When you lift your leg up for the next step, keep your neck free, torso long and wide, and let the leg move in relation to the rest of your of your body. Allow the leg to come up to the next step while you keep your main focus on keeping your head over your supporting foot. This will keep you supported while transferring your weight up on to the higher level.

Play with how you use your attention. You have many choices. Notice which choices make the movement easier and effortless.

The Real Instrument

Marie Bessesen

Instrument n. 1 tool or implement, esp. for delicate or scientific work. 2 device for producing musical sounds. 3a thing used in performing an action. b person made use of. ………

Vehicle n. 1 conveyance for transporting people, goods, etc., esp. on land. 2 medium for thought, feeling, or action. 3 liquid, etc., as a medium for suspending pigments, drugs, etc.


While I was working with a student as she played the clarinet her sound kept getting clearer and more resonant. Seemingly small adjustments to her head and neck made a significant difference in how she was playing, which, in turn made a difference in the sound she was producing. Suddenly she stopped playing, pointed a finger at herself and said with certainty, “I am the real instrument.”

“YES” I said, “That is it!”

That is the crux of the Alexander Technique – realizing that how we move and use ourselves, and how we think about how we move, makes all the difference in the outcome of what we are doing. We are the instrument or vehicle for any thought we have and any action we perform.

Sometimes people talk about Alexander’s main discovery as being that of primary control (head, neck, and back relationship and direction), and I agree that it is very important. I think however, the most important discovery he made was prior to that specific discovery when he realized that he was causing his vocal problems by what he was doing and that he could actually change himself by paying attention to how he was moving and reacting to a stimulus. He didn’t say “oh, that is just how I am” or “things can’t change.” He took the time and initiative to figure out how his participating in the process made a difference. He realized he was the true instrument and he set about figuring out how to “play” his own instrument in the best way possible. That realization led him to his discovery the primary control.

Having an external measure, such as the quality of sound while playing a musical instrument, gives immediate feedback about how we are using ourselves. It is a lesson to all of us about how our own use makes a difference in what we do. And although many of us aren’t playing such an obvious external instrument, we ARE in a sense “playing” whatever we do. We are interacting with our environment and there are outcomes and consequences to HOW we do that.

You can use his own voice for example as your musical instrument.

Try an experiment with your own voice to see how this all works. The next time you speak to someone, think about the fact that you are creating those sounds and vibrations with your body. This may seem obvious but many of us haven’t stopped to think how we are producing the sound and how we might do it “play ourselves” better. We do what is familiar and what kinesthetically “feels” like “our voice” and unless we lose our voice or get a sore throat, we generally go on automatic pilot and just talk. Notice what happens when you give a thought to the following:
• Leave your neck easy when you talk. Include your three-dimensional neck and the part of your neck up behind your jaw.
• Make sure the air is moving out while you speak-- This doesn’t mean make a breathy sound. It means make sure your air is vibrating your vocal cords rather than making the sound by muscularly pinching your cords.
• Leave your tongue alone. Obviously it is necessary to use your tongue while forming consonants and vowels. Otherwise make sure it is not pushing down in your mouth or on your jaw. This will allow the air to move more easily up and over your tongue on the way out and you won’t be pressing down on your vocal folds.


The invitation of the Alexander Technique is really then to explore how we go about things and how, when we refine our instrument and thus refine our interactions with our environment, we “play” our entire instrument- the full mind-body. The challenge is to learn how to play yourself in the best, most efficient, most effective, useful manner to serve your chosen actions. (Yes, the AT will help a bank robber be a better bank robber – the choice of what you do with it is up to you; that is another discussion.)

As you start to play your own instrument you will experience how amazingly subtle we can be with our awareness and how amazing it is that what we perceive as such a small change or shift in how we do an activity can make such a large difference in the outcome (like what was happening with the clarinet player). This is totally fascinating and can open up a whole world of awareness and perception that is enormously satisfying and useful.

And then a most fascinating thing often occurs. The act and process of playing, continuing the discovery process and refining the means of doing an activity, becomes the goal. The outcome will occur and improve, but the juice, the rasa (essence), is in the flow of the action and activity rather than just the accomplishment.

Handwriting

Pen and Paper

Surprise, surprise, some people are still writing long hand. The topic of handwriting seems to be in the air as I just heard a piece on writing on NPR today! http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100980086. And, a student came in yesterday wanting to work on just that. Her goal is to write long hand for as long as she would like (often many hours) pain-free. (She is in the middle of a dissertation that will become a book – deadlines are looming). She writes everything out on paper before entering it in to the computer (writing at a computer is a topic for another time) and does all her edits long hand too. Although this is probably much more time with pen and paper than most of us are spending, it is still worth considering and discussing.

Writers who still handwrite find that it provides a different sense of time in the writing process that allows for different ways of thinking, perhaps providing more time for contemplation than writing at the computer. I imagine there will always be people who handwrite and that manner of writing will always be around.

Here are a few ideas to consider while handwriting even if you just jot down a few notes to yourself on a napkin or on the back of an envelope.

Most of us operate in a set, habitual comfort zone of force and pressure while we do an activity. We have developed a “feeling” or “sense” of what it is to do something and we routinely carry out tasks in that familiar way. However, because we use that familiar amount of force doesn’t mean that it is necessarily the appropriate amount of force needed to do the task. We often end up (unknowingly) setting ourselves up to use excessive force to accomplish simple tasks, even tasks as simple as handwriting.

The next time you pick up a pen check to see how you are picking it up.
• Are you aware of the weight of the pen?
• Are you using more of your arm/hand more than necessary? For example, is your shoulder involved in picking up a pen? Did your wrist tighten?
• What happened with your elbow? Did it bend?

When you start to write, what amount of force are you using to move the pen across the paper? Make sure you have a pen that has the potential to move easily across the page. (My dad reminded me that while using a fountain pen if you used pressure on the tip the ink would come out too quickly so you had to regulate the amount of force used. This was before the invention of the ballpoint pen that allows for much more pressure).
• Are you pushing down into the paper with pressure to form the words?
• Is your hand tightening while you write across the paper?
• What is happening with your mouth and jaw?

Do an experiment. See what happens when you:
• Use only the amount of force necessary to hold the pen. This is most likely less than you are using now.
• Hold the pen with your fingertips.
• Move the pen with just your fingertips without tightening your shoulder, wrist and elbow.
• Keep space in your palm. Sometimes it helps to put a small ping pong ball inside your palm while you write so you can’t squeeze your palm.


• Continue to be aware of the width across your back to your other arm, elbow, wrist, and hand while you write.

Also stay back from the paper. Make sure you sense the spatial distance from the page back up to your head and eyes. That will help you keep you from leaning in to the paper so that your neck, shoulders, and back can be easy and support your arms while you are writing.

I remember when I first started taking Alexander Technique lessons. I would write something down and I couldn’t remember if I had written it down or not. For me, the memory of writing something down was so associated with the amount of force I was using, and the action didn’t seem to imprint on my brain unless I used that same amount of force. In this instance, the connection between the mind and body was SO clear to me. Once I realized what was going on I could work with it. I could continue to use less and less force with the goal of not having any “set” amount of force needed but to accommodate to the needs of the particular pen and paper I had a the time.

Extra tip: let the light and words from the page come toward your eyes. Leave your eyes easy and remember the understanding of the words takes place in the visual cortex of your brain at the back of your skull rather than with your eyes – they just receive the light.

Going Up Stairs

Last week when I heard on the news that it was the day for the Empire State Building Race I immediately emailed my student Ben Oliner to see if he was participating in the 86 flight race as he did last year. A few minutes later I received an email that he had won the race for amateurs. (Who knew there are professional stair climbers.) Ben is a professional squash player so is in exceptionally good shape physically. In any case, racing up 86 flights of stairs is no small feat. Go Ben!

Ben and I agreed that his work with the Alexander Technique helps him with both squash and the stairs. He literally flew up the stairs taking several stair steps at one time keeping his focus on going up up up – following the lead of his head.

Although most of us go up the stairs one step at a time, the same head leading- body following principle that worked for Ben will work for us non-racers. The head leading and the body following is one of the main principles of the Alexander Technique.
This is the same principle that applies to a fish as it swims or a baby as it crawls. The whole body organizes itself around the eyes and the head.

Try this while you are going up any sort of step; a curb, subway steps, stairs in your house, or 86 floors in the Empire State Building.

The key is to take a moment to notice what you are doing and to think about what you are doing BEFORE you take your step. Notice what you are doing with your head and neck. If you are preparing to take the step by tightening in any way or shrinking in stature, chances are that you are going to feel heavy and you will have to push with your legs to get you up the stairs. (Obviously your legs and whole body are muscularly engaging in some way – but there is a difference between pushing with your legs to go upstairs and letting your legs carry your torso from one step to the next). If you are shortening yourself, you are effectively pushing yourself down into the ground and making yourself heavier. Then you are trying to go up the stairs with a heavier body and are pushing up against a downward pressure that you are creating. It doesn’t really make any logical sense to do such a thing, but that is exactly what most of us do when we go up even one step.

Try using yourself as an experiment and see what happens when you keep yourself free and easy in the neck, gently send your head up, and let your body follow your head up the step. Allow yourself to move in a new way and see what happens. This really works.

You may not fly up the stairs like Ben did but it WILL be easier. Perhaps one of you will give him some competition next year!

One more thought: Make sure your tongue is also easy and free and not pushing down along with your head and neck.

TMJ Alternative Treatments; response to NY Times article by Jane Brody

Here is some of my response to Jane Brody’s article on TMJ in the Tuesday 2/3/09 NY Times.
We can start the discussion about the Alexander Technique any place and since I have been working on a response to the article I thought I would post it here as well. I think it is very important that the Alexander Technique be seen as an educational process rather than as a therapy. Alexander students are invited to participate in the process of discovery so they can take away concepts and experiences to integrate in to all of their activities.  

Dear Ms. Brody,

Recently I read your article on TMJ in the February 3, 2009 edition of the New York Times. Your explanation of the condition seemed very accurate to me. It is fascinating that TMJ symptoms show up more in women than in men. Did any of the studies give a reason for this phenomenon?

I would like to take this opportunity to offer a suggestion. The next time you write about TMJ (or any other condition involving chronic pain or tension) it might be interesting and helpful to your readers if you could include among the options for helping the situation the concept of re-education. In the case of TMJ, the possibility of re-educating the patient's use of their jaw, as well as an explanation of the functional movement aspect of the TMJ situation would be useful. When education is stressed a person can take some responsibility for the situation and take action to prevent it from happening again in the future.

As a teacher of the Alexander Technique I have grown to understand that the way in which people move their jaws makes a huge difference in their TMJ issues and in how their body functions as a whole. I see, as well, that many people can learn to make different choices about how they are moving their head, neck, tongue, and jaw and these different choices then lead to relief of some, if not all, of their TMJ symptoms. The Alexander Technique can directly teach the ability to “rest” the jaw and to find the appropriate amount of muscular tone needed in order to move the jaw and use it for chewing.

One might think that the jaw is only able to move in one way; it is my experience, however, that people manage to perform a great variety of movement patterns with the jaw, especially in combination with the tongue, neck, head, and face, leading to a great variety of states along the spectrum between balance and imbalance. Just as one can have more or less coordinated ideas and habits about how to walk or run, one can also have more or less coordinated ideas and habits about the use of the jaw when speaking, laughing, or eating. One example of the simple ways in which a movement pattern and mental understanding can affect the body's structure can be seen in how a person chews. It is not necessary or desirable to the body's optimal functioning to tilt the whole skull back when opening the jaw to take a bite (like
a 'pac man' who moves its upper and lower jaw at the same time). That action often pinches the back of the neck, puts stress on the jaw and causes a tightening up of that entire region of the body. In the Alexander Technique the student learns to understand how the jaw functions and learns to move it in a way more corresponding to its structure.

I find that if a student is in a cycle of chronic tension it can be very useful to look at how the student approaches the movement of his or her head, neck, tongue, and jaw. Although massage may be useful in relieving muscle tension and provide pain relief, in my experience, it can be even more helpful follow up that relief with a discussion and “coaching” on how to develop a better way of moving the head, neck, tongue, and jaw.

Releasing can be seen as the first step – a state of release from which a freer movement can take place. The released state enables an essential moment of awareness and gives the possiblity of making a new choice. If, having found relief from immediate tension, one then moves in the same habitual way, this familiar choice leads one right back into the pattern that caused the situation in the first place. If, on the other hand, one becomes aware in that moment of relief and chooses a different movement pattern there is a much greater chance of longer-lasting relief and of utimately not ending up in the same TMJ situation again at all.

The Alexander Techinque gives the student both the relief from the stressful pattern and offers an education on how to improve his or her use in any given moment, leading to long-lasting change and in some cases, dramatic relief from long-held movement patterns and painful conditions. The focus on education is what makes the Alexander Technique different from other types of body work.

This work is most often done in a one-on-one setting by a certified teacher who has gone through a thorough training of more than 1600 hours. The teachers works both verbally and hands-on with light touch to give relief to the student. This interaction also brings the student's awareness to the array of movement options available to them that can result not only in pain relief, but also, in many cases, in a much more balanced and graceful use of their own bodies in day to day situations.

I have been a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique for more than 25 years, teaching privately and giving workshops and master classes here in New York City, as well as abroad in Europe and Japan. Because I believe this technique would be a great interest to you and your readers, I would be more than happy to offer you a complimentary lesson at my New York studio to help you experience the Alexander Technique first hand.

Thanks for your interest.

All the best,

Ann Rodiger