2 Students’ Experience: A Year of Alexander Technique Lessons
For this article I asked some of my students for their perspective of the Alexander Technique, just as the process and outcomes have been in their personal experience. What have they gained and why have they committed for the whole year? Why would somebody start taking lessons?
My students come to Alexander Technique (AT) lessons to get help with many different physical and mental symptoms: PTSD, depression, ADHD, eating disorders, back pain, tension headaches, RSI etc. However, the sessions have been as important for those who have „found a breath of fresh air in life“ and, „found themselves to connect better with the world“.
It is true that our problems are seemingly different. How is it then that AT can work for such variety of issues? As any mind or body problem will be communicated via the nervous system to the rest of the organism, different systems are inseparable and overlapping each other. The only logical way to help the organism is to manipulate the nervous system into regulating it in a restorative and healing way. Two of my students – a 51-year-old male teacher and 36-year-old female carer - have both been taking weekly lessons about a year and reflect back on the outcomes of this process.
Similar Effects Both Online and In-Person
Dan’s lessons take place online on Zoom. Prefering the convenience of his South-London home, he has never had traditional Alexander hands-on lesson; whereas Annaliisa has been coming to my teaching room all the way from Hampstead to Shepherd’s Bush, West London.
As I call my work BodyMind Integrity, most students of mine come with the goal of wanting to feel more integrated in themselves, calm their mind and find focus. It is mostly physical pain, tension, inability to relax, and stress that keep them disintegrated. Main challenges we face in achieving their goals are habitual intrusive thought patterns, often developed from a young age; insecurities; fears; and being disorganized or even unable to set any goals. Physical pain and posture quickly lose their position of importance as being mere symptoms of the root issue.
Expectations
When asking new students about their expectations or hopes towards AT, they mainly look for guidance and practical advice in relation to the mind-body relationship and issues arising within it. In Annaliisa’s words: “I didn't have great hopes as I did not want to set myself up for disappointment, however I feel it has exceeded any expectations I could have had, as it has been a mind-blowing body and mind integrating experience. I feel more centered and able to focus. I feel more energetic and stronger both in spirit and body.”
Our work together has succeeded people’s expectations often after the very first session with more insights following. Dan verbalizes the outcome of his lessons as surprisingly quick and transformative: „I feel I have more awareness of how my mind and body reacts to current stress and also in relation to past trauma. This enables me to deal with things differently and prevent the escalation of panic, fear and anxiety.“
Insights and Breakthroughs
Having previously always been pacing herself too fast, often rushing towards burnout, afraid of conflicts and her own shadow, Annaliisa has built some backbone in a slow but long-lasting process. She says she is now “learning to do things at a "lagom" pace [lagom: the principle of living a balanced, moderately paced, low-fuss life], not wanting to do everything fast but as long as the process needs to take.“ There is a sense of calm and vitality about her that comes from having lessened her suffering by becoming more accepting of her shadow. “I have made peace with my internal rage which I have been suppressing in the name of calm. Before I have felt too vulnerable to face conflicts.”
Neither of the students share much of the changes in their posture or physicality. Not because it hasn’t changed, but because the built-up of resilience makes you almost forget how it used to feel in the body. Tension, pain and bodily discomfort seem to lessen without any trace and memory of the previous struggles. However, life gets easier because being in the body becomes easier.
Safety
The key element here is that this re-wiring of the nervous system has been founded on the sense of safety. That is deliberate. Human mind is consciously or unconsciously looking for experiences of safety and as health professionals we can help clients use this condition to promote healing and restoration. Alexander himself wrote that „no learning can take place when fear-reflexes are excited“. The reason for it is that any stimulating event keeps the nervous system in the state of alertness – to be ready to take actions. What we want is exact opposite – events are going to happen, but you get to stay observant without being in the state of excessive alertness.
Being centered, grounded and calm is the most restorative state for the system. Its long-lasting effects include fading of many symptoms of tension. „I was surprised at how quickly I began to feel safe in the sessions and how much more enjoyment I got from daily life,” says Dan.
Understandings
Deepening understandings about different states of functioning of the organism (fight/flight; shutdown; „rest and digest“), and its impacts on human life, is empowering. Part of building one’s resilience is becoming aware of individual physical reactions and tensions in the body. This gives us more accurate feedback about situations of overwhelm, anxiety and fear. The increased knowledge and understanding of how the physical dimension affects our ability to better cope with emotional issues, is greatly appreciated by Alexander practitioners.
That resilience manifests itself in abilities of being „more honest and authentic, strengthening one’s backbone in setting boundaries and fulfilling one’s needs in the forefront“. „Most importantly“, adds Dan, „it helps us to prevent things escalating to something that feels less manageable or unmanagable.“
Prevention of Things Escalating
How the Alexander Technique works is through developing one’s capacities of prevention. I say deliberately „capacities“ instead of „abilities“, pointing towards prevention as the capacity of the organism, not a clever choice of the person. When the nervous system has certain strong neural pathways turned on in the parasympathetic state, the watchfulness and alertness of anxiety won’t be there. From that state it is not people choosing to prevent their reactions to life events, but their organism’s own capacity of not reacting. Even today sometimes that capacity hits me like a splash of cold water: „wait, how come I didn’t react just now when this has triggered me my whole life?“
As Dan describes it: „It feels like having more time to take internal inventories when thoughts and feelings of overwhelm, stress and vulnerability take over.“ I am sure this is the main reason why people are often baffled and amazed by the technique: they are seemingly doing nothing to make calm happen, but things just work out in an easier way.
Coming Back to Body
Using mostly exercise and having also tried yoga and meditation to stay centered, Dan finds our lessons most useful for getting out of his obsessive mind. That busy and worrying mind is what we typically bring along to the meditation class, jogging, work or even holiday. That same trying mind needs to be addressed before starting to use it in meditation or calming exercises. For Dan and many others, it has made a huge difference. “I have a different focus now. I am more in tune with my body and more aware of how our physical, emotional, and mental aspects affect each other. Before I was solely focussed on my thoughts and thought processes.”
What is the Alexander Technique?
So, what is the Alexander Technique in the eyes of regular students? In Annaliisa’s words: „As I have read up on the technique and have also been to one of the training schools of teachers (ATTS in London) and spoken to other teachers, I think the overall aim is to regulate the nervous system and interrupt habitual patterns, inviting space into one’s body and life.“
Dan describes it as following: „It is a practical approach which helps us build a better relationship with our minds and bodies and which gives us effective strategies which we can use in daily life.“
My own definition here would be the following. There is a certain innate wisdom of the organism that leads us (F.M. Alexander called it „primary control“). That wisdom is being interfered by the reactions that contract our bodies and awareness. Alexander Technique shows you how to stop that interference to restore the self-regulation of the organism.
Satisfied With the Process
When inquiring more about Dan and Annaliisa’s experience with BodyMind Integrity, the platform through which I am offering my service, I was glad to hear that they would definitely recommend lessons to their friends and family. „BodyMind Integrity has been invaluable – definitely worth the cost and so much more. I think I’m already annoying some of my friends by recommending it to everyone for everything. I find it hard if not impossible to find a fault or ways to improve your service. It has been an incredibly transformative and positive experience as a whole,“ confirms Annaliisa.
In addition, Dan appreciates the way we work: “I feel that new ideas are introduced at the right pace which makes it possible to feel that everything is absorbed.”
From Control to Ease
It is an opportunity to practice giving up control but in such safe environment that it doesn’t push you into a frenzy. Let us end up with Annaliisa’s words about how that feels like.
„It has a slightly ethereal feel at first as the work is a lot about not doing. About being able to give over the control of your body to someone else in the least invasive way you can imagine. I think with different teachers you will be having a slightly different process and approach, because all of it is very individual. I would draw comparisons with learning how to sing - your vocal cords are the only instrument which you can't really see when you use them. You seem to work with the unknown in both cases. To produce something pleasing and effortless, your whole body must engage in the process finding the sweet spot between complete relaxation and tension to create sound or movement with ease.”
And as my other student said - "who wouldn’t want that?" Find yourself an Alexander Technique teacher to give you the experience.
