The Alexander Technique

From time to time, a momentary madness overtakes me and I forget I'm 72 years old. Such was the occasion when I encountered two stationary escalators and challenged my 18 year old granddaughter in a race from the bottom to the top. She quickly outpaced me which is not surprising but more disturbing was my body's reaction to this short burst of intense activity. It wasn't good and I know realise that I have to cease and desist from such foolhardiness.

I need to be very cautious and not indulge in any sudden, intense or unusual activities. It's important to gently put my muscles through as wide a range of activities as possible, in anticipation of future exigencies. Lately I've started to do some isometric and limited push/pull exercises for my arms. Due to my thymoma, I've deliberately avoided working the upper body and concentrated instead on my lower body. However, this imbalance needed redressing.

The discomfort caused by my thymoma has gradually increased and seems at time to affect the depth of my breathing. Any overexertion quickly magnifies the intensity of the discomfort and leads to a feeling of nausea and a burning sensation. As I've mentioned before, I must strive to spread my exercises over the course of the day and not concentrate them into too small a timeframe. I still do my ten squats and leg band exercises each day.

Hopefully I can use this blog to catalog my activities and display new exercises and techniques. I've known about the so-called Alexander Technique for many decades now but have not made much use of it in my daily life. I have a book in my library titled "The Alexander Technique Workbook" by Richard Brennan.

Interestingly, it's published in Australia in a street parallel to where I grew up in Brisbane.

I'll attempt to make my way through this book and hopefully gain some insights into how to improve my "health, poise and fitness". The author of the book is still alive and well as his website attests:

Biography of Richard Brennan

Richard Brennan is an Alexander Technique teacher, author and Director of Training at the Alexander Technique Centre based in Galway, Ireland. He is a leading figure in helping people to resolve back and neck problems. His belief is that the root cause of most back pain lies in poor postural habits.

First Career, and Back Problems 

In 1976 Richard developed painful back problems and sciatica while working long hours as a driving instructor. After several years of pain, and having tried various orthodox and complementary treatments, he eventually found relief by having Alexander Technique lessons in 1984. He found the Technique so effective that he soon decided to undertake the three year full time teacher training course in Totnes, Devon, UK, approved by STAT, the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique. He qualified in 1989 and joined STAT.

His work as an Alexander Technique Teacher 

Richard established his first practice in Totnes, Devon, and began lecturing and teaching around the UK and Europe. He began writing his first book about the Technique in 1991, and since then has written six more books, and his eighth book is due to published very soon.

Richard moved to Galway, Ireland, in 1997. He runs a busy private practice there. He founded the first Alexander Teacher Training College in Ireland in 1998. He is co-founder and President of Irish Society of Alexander Technique Teachers (ISATT), established in June, 2004. In 2007 the training course became approved by the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique. It is also approved by the Irish Society of Alexander Technique Teachers (ISATT).

Richard travels internationally, giving talks and courses on the Technique. He has taught the Technique at many educational centres, including Galway University, Limerick University, Middlesex University, London, and Dartington College of Arts. He was a guest presenter at the AmSAT annual conference in San Francisco 2009 and in Los Angeles in 2014. He was a Director of the 10th International Alexander Technique Congress, held in Limerick, Ireland in August 2015, which over 700 people attended. He established the International Alexander Teacher’s Convention in 2013, held in Dublin, Ireland; the next one will take place in 2017.

Books and Articles 

Richard is the author of eight books on the Alexander Technique which are translated into nine languages, and a book on the topic of stress. His latest book, How to Breathe, is due for publication in 2017. He has written many articles on the Technique and has published two CDs.

Richard has featured in several newspapers and magazines including The Irish Times, The Sunday Tribune, The Irish Examiner, Cosmopolitan, Hello and Home and Country. He has appeared on BBC 1 & RTE 1 and has been featured on BBC Radios 4 & 5 and on local radio around Ireland and the UK.

Approach 

Richard has a practical approach to helping people find their own solutions to problems such as pain, stress, and obstacles to performance. His greatest personal satisfaction comes when he can help others to get out of pain, especially when all other attempts have failed, just as he himself was helped after years of struggle in the 1980s by his Alexander Technique teacher, Daniel Reilly.

Richard aims to make the Alexander Technique accessible to a wide audience. He has been a pioneer in helping to make the technique accessible to many thousands of people.

The author says early on in the book that "when you begin to become more aware of yourself you will be astounded at how much effort it used to take to perform very simple actions". I thought immediately of my guitar playing where I have a tendency to press down very hard on the strings with my left hand. The muscles of my fingers are thus very tense which impedes fluidity of movement and causes the fingers to tire quickly. This is one area that I can work on every time I pick up my guitar. I have lots of bad habits.

Source

What stuck in my head over the years, since first reading about the Alexander technique, was  the door handle exercise in which you observe how much force is applied when simply opening a door. It was quite a discovery to realise how much extra and unnecessary energy I put into this simple task.