Alexander Technique

In an Alexander lesson, the path to effortless poise starts when your teacher helps you recognize a habitual pattern, such as raising your shoulders any time you move your arm. This habit could be so ingrained that you don’t even realize it’s part of a more complex stress response called “fight or flight”.

Your teacher helps your pin down your habit so you can do something about it. “Name and tame, if you will.”

But How Do You Change an Ingrained Habit?

It’s not easy but it is simple.

The tools for change help you “get our of your own way”. FM Alexander put it like this“stop doing the wrong thing let the right thing do itself”.

First You Stop the Automatic Response

So, if you were going to move your arm to pick up the reins, your teacher would help you stop “revving the engine” before you move it in your habitual way.

She would help you establish connection and balance in your whole body, starting with gentle hands on your head and neck, to encourage the fight or flight stress response NOT to kick in.

Then You Think, and Choose a Freer Way

She would remind you that your spine can lengthen with a mindful thought. Your sitting bones can release easily down into the saddle, as your head balances freely on your lengthening spine.

With intention and ease, your fingertips lead the way, and you easily pick up the reins without the stress and strain you had before.

Our thoughts and perceptions really do create our physical reality. Once you recognize your habitual responses, you can make a choice to change.

The dictionary says force is “compelling, constraining, or obliging (oneself or someone) to do something” or “driving or propelling against resistance.”

When Force Doesn’t Work Anymore

The use of mental or physical force implies a fixed mental attitude “It’s my way or the highway” and a rigid physical attitude “I have to make this horse go”.

If you have a fixed mental attitude with your horse, it’s likely you have a similar attitude regarding yourself.

You might not even be conscious that your attitudes are boxing you in or that they’re contributing to tension in your body.

If you’re struggling with muscle tension that keeps your skill level at a plateau or chronic back, neck, arm or leg pain that impacts your pleasure in riding and daily life, keep reading because there’s no way pain and tension have to rule your riding or your life.

You can learn to allow an attitude of cooperation between your own mind and body that will positively impact:

• Your relationship with your horse
• Your reaction to muscular tension and pain, so you can lessen or eliminate it

Start Allowing the Flow of Ease and Coordination

Alexander Technique is a unique method of using the mind and body to recognize totally unnecessary habits of muscle tension, and release them easily, before they have the chance to contribute to pain.

These habits build up gradually over the years, and put the brakes on your natural poise, grace and flow within yourself and with your horse. With an instructor’s help, you can unlearn the old habits.

Then you can use your new consciousness to remind yourself that other choices are available which don’t involve tension and pain. You begin allowing your body to reclaim its natural poise, rather than forcing it.

No Movement Happens in Isolation

Have you ever wondered why it’s sometimes hard to coordinate the top half of your body independent of the bottom half, for instance? Because when one set of muscles tenses up, it affects all the others. You don’t have to be a slave to tension though.

An Alexander teacher uses gentle listening hands that link to your nervous system and help calm down your automatic tension response that kicks in when you’re under mental stress.

Once your muscles are no longer on high alert, your teacher can guide you to find balance with your head, neck and back. Your head becomes poised and balanced, your back becomes supple and springy, and your limbs release.

Pain and Tension are a Vicious Cycle

When you have pain, it becomes difficult if not impossible to move freely, and the more you hurt, the more you tense away from the pain. The cycle repeats and your pain gets worse. Your Alexander teacher helps you stop the vicious cycle of pain by helping you realize where you tense up in response to it.

Stay Active at Any Age

Mid-life doesn’t have to be the cue for your health to start falling apart. If you’ve always been active but are starting to notice aches and pains, you can do something about it. But doing something doesn’t have to mean forcing yourself to work harder, push through pain, or do more exercises. Using Alexander Technique to allow freedom and ease will serve you for decades to come.

I have a confession to make

Even though my life’s work is teaching equestrians solutions to stress and tension with the Alexander Technique, a couple of weeks ago I totally lost my cool and wound up picking up the pieces — literally.

I’m fairly new to the Portland area, so networking with riders, riding instructors and other practitioners is high on my priority list.

One of my new contacts invited me to have an Alexander Technique lesson with her teacher who was visiting from New Mexico. So of course, I jumped at the opportunity to meet my new contact in person, expand my network and have an Alexander lesson myself.

But perhaps even more than that, I wanted them to “like me, really like me” (as Sally Field said in her Oscar speech), and respect me without even knowing me.

In my hunger for outside approval, I got totally disconnected from myself

With plenty of time to make it to Beaverton, I dropped my stuff in the truck and strolled over to the mailbox to send off a bill. When I came back, you guessed it, the keys and my phone were locked in the truck!

As a friend of mine once said: I “indulged in panic”

My negative self-talk went off the charts:

• You’re an idiot
• You never do what you say you will
• You’re never going to amount to anything
• They’ll think you’re a joke
• You’ve already wasted the entire day

I got so worked up, believe it or not, I even shed a tear or two. When I was done crying, I regrouped and told myself, “there must be a way to get into this truck!”

I tried to wedge open the “wing” windows on the sides of the cab, even though I secretly knew I wouldn’t be able to reach the lock in the front seat.

I opened the camper shell and climbed into the truck bed. The window looking into the cab was open but the back window of the cab was closed. and I pried and prodded and budged it just a little…

But I’m sure you know how this story ends: glass shards all over the back seat, and still no way to get the doors open.

My husband came back from his errand, reassured me that I wasn’t a crazed lunatic, and let me in to the truck.

I collected myself as best I could, called and left a message that I’d be late.

Of course everything worked out fine in the end. I had a great Alexander lesson and met new contacts in the equestrian world.

But I berated myself needlessly, endangered myself, and what for?

I don’t know if you’ve ever put all your self-esteem eggs in one basket, but I’ll bet you have.

Have you ever been in a situation where you:

• Focused rigidly on only one “acceptable” outcome?
• Poured on the negative self-talk like Niagara Falls even though it was totally untrue?
• Totally gave up when you didn’t get your way?
• Did something dangerous even though you knew in the back of your mind it wouldn’t really help the situation at all and might hurt you?

Next time you get between a rock and a hard place, you could (and I could have):

• Stopped for a moment to breathe out (reasoning: this isn’t what I wanted to happen, but an ok solution will come to me)
• Asked for help (gone to the neighbor’s and called AAA)
• Laughed and savored the irony (while freaking out, I embodied the insecure person I didn’t want others to see)

As the Alexander teacher mentioned in my lesson, after I’d released the tensions that literally wound me up, there’s always something to learn. I agreed, “life’s cool like that.”

If you’re dealing with chronic pain like this, you can probably relate:

• Back pain
• Neck pain
• Shoulder pain
• Traumatic injury
• Tension headaches
• and more

Chronic pain is real. It takes strength, perseverance and being kind to yourself to get through it.

But what is pain costing you?

To my mind, when I was dealing with neck, back and wrist pain every day, It cost me time. Time off work, time separate from friends and loved ones, time not being happy and enjoying life.

I believe time is our most precious commodity. For me, learning the Alexander Technique gave me tools to use that helped eliminate my pain, and what I got back was time.

What have you given up because of pain? What have you found that helps?

I’d love to hear your comments!

• Are your shoulders creeping up toward your ears when your hands are on the keyboard?
• Do you have a turtle-neck (chin jutting forward, head tilting back) from staring at the screen?

Both of these are signs of the startle reflex, also called the “fight or flight” reflex. This reflex comes into play naturally when we are in danger or afraid.

Our shoulders come up, our head tilts back, and cortisol (the stress hormone) and adrenaline are released. This increases heart rate, constricts blood vessels, and dilates air passages so we are able to fight or run.

Unfortunately, many of us are so stressed and out-of-balance we’re in a permanent state of fight or flight. We might not even realize that we are, because the pattern is so ingrained in our being.

Fortunately, you can do something about it, in or out of the saddle

5 Tips for Undoing the Startle Reflex:

1. Just pause wherever you are for a moment. Bring gentle attention to your shoulders and neck without trying to change anything. Just notice. Rest your hands gently on your lap.
2. Bring your attention to the sitting bones of your pelvis. They’re like rockers, and let you move forward or back easily. Get a sense of them connecting with the chair.
3. Bring your attention to the space on either side of you, the space behind you, the space over your head, and the chair, floor, ground and planet beneath you. Often we’re aware of only what’s in front of us (especially if it happens to be a screen).
4. Now, notice where your feet are. Are they wrapped around your chair? Place them flat on the floor, about hip’s width apart. If your feet don’t reach the floor, scoot forward a bit on the chair seat until they do.
5. Next, think of your head resting gently on the top of your spine. Place your fingers right behind your ears. Nod your head very slightly a few times. Think of your whole head rotating on the axis between your fingers. Think to yourself: “let my neck be free”.

Do you notice anything different? Maybe you notice you’re not holding your breath. Maybe that twinge in your neck has subsided. Perhaps you’re not hunching so much or you feel less stressed.

Try these tips the next time you mount up, and see what you notice!

We all know that suppleness is one of the basic principles of classical riding as it applies to the horse.

But what can suppleness mean for a rider?

Dictionary Definition of Suppleness 1

Easy and fluent without stiffness or awkwardness.

Dictionary Definition of Suppleness 2

The gracefulness and beautiful carriage that is pliant and flexible.

These two definitions are no-brainers. We all want ease and grace … But how do we achieve it? This brings up more questions than answers. (Or the answers are negative tapes playing in our heads.)

• Is suppleness something we’re born with?
  (“Wow, she’s just effortlessly graceful.”)
• Is it something that can be drilled into us?
  (“Sit up straight! You have to work hard!”)
• Does an injury prevent suppleness from ever coming back?
  (“You have to live with your limitations.”)

I believe we are born with suppleness, but we forget it as we grow up, accumulate injuries and not-so-helpful habits.

I believe that suppleness can’t be drilled into us — drills, “shoulds”, and “you have to work hard” got us into a state of tension, awkwardness, pain and lack of confidence in the first place.

Suppleness can’t be taught

That’s a very strong statement. But what I do believe, with every fiber of my being, is that tension, awkwardness, poor confidence and poor posture can be UN-learned so that suppleness can be un-covered and rediscovered.

In my Alexander Technique practice I see it all the time … someone who thought their hip was locked forever letting it move like butter.

The key to rediscovering suppleness

Dictionary Definition of Suppleness 3

Adaptability; the ability to change (or be changed) to fit changed circumstances.

Adaptability involves looking at what is happening now (“I have a twinge in my low back. Could that be making me hold away from the saddle?”).

Not what we wish was happening (“Boy, I sure wish my back didn’t hurt–I can’t wait to have a cup-cake and make it better”).

Not what happened in the past. (“Twenty years ago I never had back pain”).

Having a supple attitude means coming into the moment and lovingly acknowledging what is. A supple attitude lets you look at your options in the moment and take the best action. Change is possible, but we have to start where we are now.

Suppleness of attitude is the first step to achieving suppleness of the body.