Interview from alexandertechnique.com

Had great fun in this twenty minute interview with Robert Rickover. Robert takes care of www.alexandertechnique.com for decades now. He’s published a number of things I’ve written over the years on his website, but only recently he began doing .mp3 interviews of various teachers featuring their personal stories of how they work with the students [...]

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Describing Perception

How do you perceive yourself? Well, you just do it. That’s an inadequate answer, but it is all most people have.
It’s my business to be teaching people to perceive what they take for granted by teaching Alexander Technique. I use the often ignored kinesthetic sense as a medium, rather than the visual or auditory…but maybe [...]

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Stories Show Need

For decades of my life I have specialized in adopting rather unpopular and sometimes “outdated” as well as completely new “cutting edge” ideas about ways of doing things. The value that attracts me has been that well-placed effort has a greater benefit and it is of greater benefit than a massive amount of misdirected effort. [...]

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Teaching Principles to Kids

It is only recently that A.T. teachers are figuring out how to teach Alexander Technique in classes. Until we do more work in that field and codify it better so people can teach themselves effectively without hands-on, A.T. is probably not going to be something that gets into schools – yet. Even then, there are [...]

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Your Ideas: Illustrations for Captions

I’m illustrating ideas of thinking strategy & perception in some educational writing about Alexander Technique in the form of an e-book.  Useful would be a bunch of ideas how to illustrate abstract concepts in pictures.
As thinking skills are, this subject is a challenge because it is a process. It is similar to how people get [...]

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Sensory Amnesia

Sensory perception registers relationship and tells you what is going on in relationship to the norm. Perception is relative, meaning it is not absolute fact. This is why such a surprise occurs as you are hearing your own voice when it has been recorded playing back – or seeing yourself on a video camera.
Let’s say [...]

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One Size Doesn’t Fit

People ask me, “How can I convince someone to study A.T. who I think could benefit from it?”
There are a number of approaches. Make an appeal of benefits, taking into account what is important to the person themselves. The other approach is to relate how Alexander Technique has helped you personally. If they know you, [...]

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Teaching Attention

Observation is the perceptual ability to collect first-hand information. It’s determined by the way a person uses their mind and attention to direct their investigating. Similar to the way that the selection of a question directs the mind toward where to gain results, attention has qualities of perception that direct the way it can may [...]

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…After 30 Years of A.T.

Those who study Alexander Technique have come to appreciate the ability to change oneself. A.T. has been a means to reveal assumptions that I never knew that I had, both mental and sensory. Alexander’s principles have taught me compassion, persistence and patience, along with the value of effortless movement.
Compassion came with knowledge about how so [...]

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Enthusiastic Prostelitizing

I’m not sure if older Alexander teachers remember how Alexander’s work used to be taught with an attitude of paradoxical belittlement. The famously confounding British humor delivered completely arrogant intimidation and humiliation, along with stupefying physical freedom. All the while the Alexander teacher is telling the student, “dare to be wrong.” That was quite a [...]

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Not Merely Sit-Up-Straight School

One way to start teaching about the Alexandrian ideals of “use” is to give people an appreciation of it. I got a suggestion to have people watch each other move and see if they can describe each other’s posture. Compare “good” to “bad” use. Maybe people can learn to spot and admire “good” use, for [...]

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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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Teaching Kids Abstract Thinking

Most kids are familiar with how things they want to do a certain way will sometimes happen as if by magic. But it can be very tricky for them to figure out how to duplicate what they want to happen again.
To rouse interest when presenting Alexander Technique principles to kids, using any action a kid [...]

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Recognizing Meaning

How would a person recognize for their own benefit a larger important change or fulfilment that may be taking place moment-by-moment? This skill seems to be related to the ability to select important points that is most commonly used in today’s culture as the ability to tell an interesting story. For instance, a movie will [...]

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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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Why Are Habits Hard to Change?

It should be possible to recognize a habit – specifically enough to be able to undo it, stop it or substitute a better response. Why is this so challenging?
Within the intention of making a habit useful is the design for habits to become innate by disappearing. Then the next habit can be chained on, to [...]

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Notes on Teaching Kids

If I were presenting the principles of Alexander Technique to kids, I would start with basic thinking skills of revealing assumptions. I would teach what is an assumption as being a habit of a ground rule in games. I’d outline some basic thinking strategies as strategy in game play. I’d go through some common decision-making [...]

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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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