How would I benefit from an Alexander lesson ?

Conventional wisdom has it that man’s uprightness is both a blessing and a curse. Conventional wisdom is half right. Man’s uprightness – our ancestor’s ability to see over the savanna, to spot both enemy and prey – was crucial to the thriving of our species. Today a beautifully upright man or woman is a marvel, a living demonstration of economy, grace, and balance. Uprightness is a blessing.

For the great majority of us not so apparently blessed, our problem is not that we are upright. Our problem is that we maintain our uprightness inefficiently. We do too much or too little.

When we do too little, we slump, and in order to remain upright, we compensate. Our feet grip the ground, our knees lock, and we put ourselves in quite a fix. When we do too much; we over-straighten the spine; we tense up. Muscles pass their strain to neighboring muscles and tension becomes systemic.

The desire to change is thwarted by the opacity of habit. The neural pathways that conduct our habits never change; they do not alter over the course of our lifetime. They may, however, be circumvented, and Alexander was the first to suggest a practical way of doing that. He called his discovery inhibition.

He taught himself to give a command, to think in activity, and at the same time to withhold consent for its initiation. By delaying fulfillment of his action, a new response emerged, one unencumbered by habit. He had found a way to circumvent habit, he had found what he called his “means whereby.” In solving his own problem, he had discovered a discipline that has changed countless lives. He had discovered a way to move more fluently, and to live more mindfully, more artfully. Who would not wish for such an experience? And yes, if you embrace such a wish, you would indeed benefit from an Alexander lesson. What are you waiting for?