Understanding Unfamiliarity By Filling In the Blanks

On the Alexander Google list server group, it turns out that I’ve gotten a reputation for being able to explain things that others find difficult. So I thought that I would explain how I can read something that has lots of confusing or unfamiliar words in it and still get something out of what is [...]

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Why Did I Do That?

Do people make deliberate choices for negative reasons?
I used to imagine they do. I used to think I did. But as I have come to be able to watch myself in action making decisions and as I have come to watch my students deal with decisions they have made and habits they have put in [...]

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Hands-On, A.T. Style Described

“AT talk seems to not mention what happens when teachers use their hands on people but talks a lot about changing thinking by using thinking. What happens to the teacher and the pupil with the hand contact?”
The answer is – many things. Putting hands-on is a performance art of demonstrated, factual intention being carried into [...]

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Approaching Pervasive Habits

This article was written in response to a question posed on the Alexander Technique Email Discussion Group. Although the question is about piano playing, the issue it raises applies to just about any activity. In this answer, there are some useful suggestions for any student of the Alexander Technique who is working on their own.
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Habits and How to Know What You Desire In Spite of Habit

Alexander Technique addresses the ways people come to notice the need for problem solving. It also has something to say about the ways people deliberately choose and design exactly how they might move to respond – as opposed to the actual content of these thoughts. Sometimes content is important, but only to the extent that [...]

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Noting My Style of Writing Down Ideas

Since I’ve been spending time with an eight year old lately, I’m beginning to think about how I would teach her age group Alexander Technique.
Since I’m writing my ideas that follow on the fly from here on out to get them down, I’m going to apologize in advance for the disconnected way these ideas [...]

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Describing Relationships for Alexander Technique

Describing relationship is an honorable goal, because it is in relationship that AT shines. The structure of English is very tricky to maneuver to articulate relationships. I think misunderstandings come as we try to make a generalization specific as we explain. Getting English to describe relationships is not quite suitable to its natural structure in [...]

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How is Primary Control Taught?

How does a person who is trained to teach Alexander Technique actually show people how to learn Alexander’s principle of “forward and up”? This may only make sense to you if you do already have some experiences with Alexander’s work, but you can also see what happens as you read and try this out [...]

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Explaining How Habits Can Be Undone

Lately, I’ve had great success explaining that the Technique is about the behavior chains of building habits, which is how we adapt and learn. Building habits are what makes skill possible. Trouble comes when a person forgets the habit is there, or trains a short-sighted building block of habit, which is a “pitfall” built into [...]

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Asking Really Great Questions

As a topic in general, good questioning has many examples in every field. It pays to study the process of questioning as a separate subject, as if you were going to design an FAQ for your skill. Not only can it make you a better learner, but a better teacher.
If you are a teacher, you [...]

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Ideas Without Ego, Questioning Motives

Quite a few people imagine that removing a person’s habitual ways of moving amount to the experience of losing the ego. A.T. lessons often result in a feeling of “do-less-ness.” Some people think of that as an experience of egolessness. So somehow they get the idea that Alexander Technique is all about minimizing the ego.
It’s [...]

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Articulating & Describing Qualities

I’ve always had the ability to observe. At 16, I was invited into a inventor’s problem solving ‘club’ after I untangled a fisherman’s line at Sunset Cliffs in the dark. With a flashlight, I carefully observed the mass of tangled line for about five minutes and then pulled one thread; the whole mess came untangled [...]

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What Feels Wrong Is Probably Pointing at Freedom

>> If every one did AT, there would have been no world war – true or false?>True, But if everyone did any one of a number of things there would be no war.
I don’t agree. I used to think this about Alexander Technique when Iwas in my twenties, but now I have had enough proof [...]

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End-gaining

Today I’m thinking about the “evoke experience” strategy that many people use. This is where someone notes a state of mind by using a phrase or a word the experience evokes. Then they seem to attempt to create a sort of internal filing system or anchor for the experience. When they would like to re-experience [...]

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