The Alexander Technique |
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Through the Alexander Technique, relaxation is achieved by a combination of gentle manual guidance and verbal instruction. The Technique is based on awareness of balance, posture and movement in everyday activity, helping students to recognize previously unnoticed tensions and to distinguish between necessary and unnecessary tensions and effort.
In the Alexander Technique, posture is of crucial importance; the way we support and balance our bodies against the pull of gravity as we go about our daily lives. According to Alexander, it is possible to organize this support and balance mechanism without undue effort by a system of natural postural reflexes.
For these to be effective, it is vital that they should work freely, and this is what the teachers of the Technique help their students to achieve, unraveling the muscular tensions and patterns of distortion which have become fixed in the body as a result of emotional and physical stresses and strains, and encouraging the natural reflexes to work again as efficiently as they can be seen to do in small children.
Movement, breathing, circulation and digestion are all improved through the Alexander Technique, whose teachers show students how to help the natural mechanisms function more freely by learning to project simple messages from the brain to the body.
All lessons are individual and usually last 30-40 minutes: for best results, a course of 20-30 lessons spread over 3-5 months is recommended. Qualified teacher's addresses may be obtained from the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique
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