02/03/2022
THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE WORk
Every moment of life takes place within an oscillation between opening and closing. We are bound to the parameters of expansion and contraction; of approach and retreat, holding on to and letting go, abiding and growth. Like the snail, which comes out of his house sending his feelers before him when he feels at ease, we too retract hastily into our shell when our ‚feelers’ are rubbed the wrong way. It is part of our nature and is perhaps responsible for our survival. But sometimes we just don’t come out of our shell, even when the ‚rub’ has long gone.
Everything we do has been learned. Life means the accumulation of experiences; learning mainly through successes or failures. From eating to walking to activities like reading, writing, speaking, expressing, using money; all activities have become engrained in our being and become self-evident like a "second nature", and the manner in which we do it all is fortified by habit, becomes automatic, and is, as such almost unchangeable. When a particular automatic behaviour no longer serves our needs well, and possibly becomes irrelevant to lives, it limits the way we function and we look for a way to change it.
The power of habit, almost unperceivably embedded in our activities and experiences, causes in us a growing tendency to contract, and remain so even when it has no relevance in our present moment. A kind of rust settles into our natural ‘opening and closing’, a rust undermining our health and our freedom of action. We tend to sink more and more, losing freshness and vitality, towards a degenerating routine.
The Alexander technique offers a means of observing these dynamics - our natural ‘opening and closing’ vis-à-vis habit – and their interaction. It gives us an insight into the many disorders we suffer from, and a method of dealing with forces within us, opening up an in-depth learning into the human condition and refreshing in turn our understanding of ourselves.
