Mastering Semiflexion in the Alexander Technique – Effortless Movement with Seán Carey

In this exclusive excerpt from his new book Exploring the Alexander Technique with Walter Carrington: Lessons and Games, Seán Carey reveals how mastering semiflexion, a simple bend of the ankles, knees and hips, can unlock effortless movement, create better balance and facilitate an energising release in tension.

Semiflexion is a bending movement using the ankles, knees and hips and ranges from a near-vertical to a deep squat. Although the action is straightforward, most adults in the developed world find it extremely difficult to perform this basic functional movement competently due to deeply ingrained habits of shortening or compressing themselves. 

Learning to acquire competence in semiflexion often requires sustained hands-on assistance from a teacher to maintain proper form and prevent the triggering of ingrained habits.

On the other hand, if performed correctly, semiflexion represents a dynamic position of mechanical advantage. As you descend from a fully upright position to an intermediate or even a deep squat, there will be a beneficial redistribution of muscle tension. At the same time, your rib cage contracts and expands elastically and your feet open onto the ground.

When you return to upright from semiflexion, you may experience a powerful release and noticeably improved muscle tone. The dynamism of this attitude has been created by the antagonistic muscular actions of the body parts releasing in opposite directions – ‘head forward, knees forward, hips back, one against the other’ – as Alexander, by way of encouragement, often said.

Each day of the training course Walter offered hands-on work to all students and teachers, which usually involved chair work, but during some sessions he showed me different ways of moving into and out of semiflexion. 

On one occasion he stood to my left and used his hands to help me find a better balance. As my neck column released upward, my back opened out, and my feet released onto the ground, he instructed me to direct my head forwards and up, saying, ‘Don’t do anything, just think it’, and guided me into semiflexion.

Walter then told me to think of releasing my ankles even more so that my shins ‘fell up and forwards’, while directing my thighs ‘back and up’ or towards my pelvis. Still in semiflexion I was also asked to direct my torso to follow the lead of my head.

On another occasion Walter emphasised the importance of lengthening and widening the torso to perform semiflexion. He had me stand behind him and place my hands on either side of his rib cage. 

Next, Walter moved into the position of mechanical advantage by bending his ankles, knees and hips. I could feel with my hands that he was not sinking into his legs because he was maintaining the lengthening of his spine and the widening of his back. 

Walter then guided me through the movement. As I stood, he placed his hands on my rib cage and asked me to direct my back ‘back and up’ as he took me slightly up and back from my ankles. Because my back was elastically releasing this made it very easy to bend my ankles, knees and hips. 

To exit semiflexion Walter gave me two options. First, he recommended thinking of my head moving back to its full height, which would cause my legs to straighten without any clenching or pushing required. Alternatively, he steered my hips back and down, explaining that allowing the tail to drop slightly would cause my head to rise, much like a seesaw. As a result of this guided movement, I discovered I could move my head away from my heels to stand upright without using unnecessary muscular effort.

However, there are other effective ways to transition from semiflexed to upright that you can play around with. For instance, if your back muscles are properly engaged, you can walk forward without wobbling and gradually, without stiffening your neck, lifting your chest or pulling your back in, come upright. You can also walk backwards, directing your back back and then gradually return to a vertical attitude. 

Seán Carey’s book, Exploring the Alexander Technique with Walter Carrington, is now available. This exclusive hardback book offers practitioners an insider’s perspective into Walter Carrington’s profound teachings and approach. 

Order your copy of this limited edition today via the HITE website or Amazon.

Exploring the Alexander Technique with Walter Carrington

NEW BOOK RELEASE 

Exploring the Alexander Technique with Walter Carrington by Seán Carey
ISBN: 978-1-9160728-1-7

Author and certified Alexander Technique teacher Seán Carey, PhD, invites you, in this new book, to go on a journey that explores the essence of the Alexander Technique through the unique perspective of one of its most notable figures, Walter Carrington.

In today’s fast-paced, digitally-driven world, the Alexander Technique holds remarkable relevance. It offers a profound understanding of the body-mind connection, unlocking potential for better coordination, movement and well-being.

Walter Carrington’s journey is a remarkable one. He not only studied with FM Alexander himself in London, qualifying in 1939, but later assumed the role of Alexander’s assistant. He eventually assumed responsibility for the teacher training course after Alexander died in 1955. 

Walter’s legacy has left an indelible mark on the global Alexander Technique community, and Seán’s book brings a fresh and insightful perspective to the subject matter.

Exploring the Alexander Technique with Walter Carrington is divided into five parts that each present a unique angle on Walter’s lessons and the Technique itself:
1. Meeting Walter Carrington: Read the author’s first-person story of their initial introduction to Walter.
2. A Historical and Contemporary Context: Learn about the origins and ongoing applicability of the Technique using Seán’s learning journey, including advice from other first-generation teachers like Peggy Williams and Elisabeth Walker.
3. Private Lessons with Walter: Through transcriptions of 8 private lessons shared publicly for the first time, you can access the essence of the Technique. 
4. Mastering the ‘Games’: Immerse yourself in 28 engaging ‘Games’ inspired by Walter’s teacher training course, many of which are unique to this publication and each carefully crafted to enhance your practice. They include novel insights into releasing arms with direction, going on to the toes while performing hands on the back of a chair, leaning against a backrest, placing palms on a table or chair to transfer body weight, pelvic rotation and many others. 
An ideal way, in the words of FM Alexander, of ‘informing your whole body with thought’.
5. The Powerful Tools of Inhibition, Direction and Movement: Delve into a thought-provoking exploration of these principles and their application in our digital age.

This exclusive hardback book offers practitioners an insider’s perspective into Walter Carrington’s teachings and approach. 

All Alexander Technique teachers should read this book. Walter Carrington, taught by FM Alexander, had a well-deserved reputation for clarity and simplicity in his presentation of the Technique that shines through here. The simplicity is of the kind that can only come from the deeply lived experience of embodying and teaching the work, which is why this collection of Walter’s thoughts and training practices is valuable.
John Nicholls, MA (Oxon), Alexander Technique teacher trainer and international Alexander Technique teaching and training consultant

Seán Carey continues his project of documenting the practices of the first generation of Alexander Technique teachers for a contemporary generation of students and teachers. The book outlines and revitalises the tradition of ‘Games’ devised and practised by the Carrington teacher training course, showing how relevant they are to us today – encapsulating as they do the Alexander Technique principle in action in a wide range of activities
Gary Ansdell, Honorary Professor, Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Philosophy, University of Exeter

Seán Carey offers another welcome and expertly researched book for teachers and students of the Alexander Technique. Written in an accessible style, he shares insights and guidance on practical ways of thinking and activity, whilst paying a warm personal tribute to the teachings of Walter Carrington.
Virginia Stephens, PhD, Alexander Technique teacher

https://www.hiteltd.co.uk/webshop/books/exploring-the-alexander-technique-with-walter-carrington-lessons-and-games/

The chronic lower back pain conundrum – Seán Carey

Much excitement over a recent article by The Guardian’s medical journalist, Dr Luisa Dillner, in which she canvasses the views of a physiotherapist, an osteopath and a ballet teacher on the vexed topic of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ posture, with a special focus on the latter’s effects on health and well-being.

There were several strands to the argument but the main theme was that so-called bad posture – ‘usually defined as slumping, leaning forwards or standing with a protruding belly’ – is not the primary reason why so many people in the UK experience chronic lower back pain.

This is not a new argument. As I explain in my book, Alexander Technique in Everyday Activity: Improve how you sit, stand, walk, work and run, the reasons why people develop chronic lower back problems are multiple and complex:

‘Although the precise cause of chronic back pain is often difficult to pinpoint, it is usually related to conditions such as herniated disc – the so-called slipped disc – and by a variety of inflammatory processes in the musculoskeletal system, as well as age-related degeneration, especially in those over 65.’

I also highlight that lower back pain is linked to anxiety and stress.

And in my book, I offer some advice to those suffering from chronic lower back pain – namely, that it is very important to obtain an accurate medical diagnosis in order to rule out any existing medically treatable pathological problem of the spine.

Interestingly, the physiotherapist and osteopath interviewed by Dr Dillner did concede that once someone has developed chronic lower back pain ‘posture may affect it’ and that ‘sitting for a long time’ is best avoided.

But what wasn’t mentioned in The Guardian article (though it is covered in my book) concerns an important discovery made in 2006 by a team of Canadian and Scottish scientists.

It is that how we sit on a chair has enormous implications for spinal health. The team, which used an innovative whole-body MRI scanner to investigate 22 adult volunteers with ‘healthy backs’, found at the start of the study that despite being asymptomatic 12 of the group exhibited a significant degree of disc degeneration or disc protrusion.

The scans then revealed that sitting on a chair with feet touching the floor in either a forward slouch or an upright 90 degrees, ‘good posture’ position, had a significant impact on the vertebral column, since the lower spinal discs in particular were already showing signs of deformity.

In fact, this effect was greatest when subjects adopted the sit up ‘straight’ position. In as little as 10 minutes fluid was leaking out of the inner core of the discs. This finding is highly significant, considering that the 23 sponge-like intervertebral discs constitute around one third of the total length of the spine, and play a critical role as shock absorbers in everyday movement, especially in bending and twisting motions.

From an Alexander Technique point of view sitting up ‘straight’, as most people in our culture understand it, is in fact over-straight. Simply put, it’s just another way of tightening the neck, raising the chest and hollowing the back. In turn, that misuse lifts the sitting bones from the chair and transfers body weight on to the thighs, creating inappropriate downward pressure along the spinal column, including the discs. The alternative of slumping isn’t much better.

Instead, in order to sit upright painlessly and efficiently we need to learn the skill of giving our weight to our ischial tuberosities – the sitting bones at the base of the spine.

Only then can our anti-gravity and non-tiring support muscles transfer the weight of our head, upper body and arms into whatever support surface is available. This could be the ground itself, or a raised surface such as a chair, tree stump or rock, or moving surface such as a horse, elephant or camel.

To make this clearer you can try this experiment. Locate your sitting bones by sitting on a flat surface, such as a wooden chair, and put the palm of each hand under each buttock. Through the skin, fatty tissue and thick muscle you will feel a bony protrusion under each hand. At this point let yourself slump so that your spine assumes a C-shaped curve. You will notice how you roll on to the back edge of your sitting bones and your weight transfers on to the rear of the pelvis and towards the tailbone (coccyx).

Now try sitting up ‘straight’. Chances are that you are now arching your back. If so, you will experience how your support contact moves on to the very front edge of your sitting bones, in such a way that much of your weight is taken by your thighs.

By contrast, see if you can find a way of sitting in balance so that your weight is taken more or less by the middle of the curved arch of your sitting bones, with your double S-shaped spine extending upwards and your head freely poised on top of it.

This is balanced sitting. It’s easier said than done, of course. But it’s the only way to sit to avoid exacerbating chronic lower back pain, while also preserving the long-term integrity of the discs of your spine.

You can read more about an Alexander approach to sitting and other movements in Seán Carey’s Alexander Technique in Everyday Activity: Improve how you sit, stand, walk, work and run

Available through Amazon with free P & P

 

 

Marjory Barlow on lying down work – Seán Carey

FM Alexander provided no written instructions concerning how you or your student should carry out lying down work. This meant that information about the practice of lying down by oneself was mainly transmitted to students in the last few years of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century by Alexander’s early assistants and then from the mid-1930s by the first group of formally trained teachers, which included Marjory Barlow.

It’ s also evident that the vast majority of people who had lessons with Alexander himself in the 1940s and ‘50s were not told anything about the advantages of performing one or more daily sessions of lying down because his focus in this period was very much on chair work. Nevertheless, although as far as we know Alexander never made lying down a personal practice he encouraged his first group of training course students to perform it, though it seems he gave very little information in regard to its frequency or duration. ‘Like a lot of things concerned with the technique FM expected you to work out what was best,’ Marjory said. ‘He wasn’t especially prescriptive. But I’ve found from personal experience that lying down is best performed every day and that around 20 minutes is about right.’

Marjory told me that her group of training course students were instructed by FM to squat to get on to the floor. He advised them to have a slightly wider standing stance than for monkey and exaggerate the turn out of their feet to facilitate bending of their knees. The trainees were also told not to anticipate the movement on to the floor (no surreptitious crouching or stooping, in other words) but rather to maintain their internal length while standing, and then allow their knees to release over their well-turned-out toes to go into a deeper and deeper squat so as to arrive on the floor using their hands and knees for support. The students were then instructed to put both knees to the left or right to lie on their side, their legs straightening as they did so. Alexander then invited them to pause and roll over to place their head on a small pile of books that they had previously placed on the floor.

The next task involved bending one leg at a time so that they ended up with both feet flat on the floor, toes pointing out slightly and knees pointing towards the ceiling. As the students discovered for themselves bending the knees without disturbing the head, neck and torso relationship (especially not over-activating the abdominal muscles) was not at all easy to accomplish.

You can read more about how Marjory Barlow taught lying down work in Seán Carey’s new book, ‘Think More, Do Less: Improving your teaching and learning of the Alexander Technique with Marjory Barlow’, which has been written for Alexander teachers, trainees and advanced students. It is now available through Amazon or HITE.

Going up the wall – Seán Carey

FM Alexander told Marjory Barlow and the other students on his first training course group that once they had qualified as teachers they would find wall work very useful to perform in the intervals between lessons, especially if there wasn’t sufficient time to lie down on the floor or table. One reason why wall work is so valuable, FM went on to explain, derives from the sensory feedback that becomes available by lightly placing the whole of one’s back against a firm surface, such as a smooth wall or door, head freely poised on top of the spine and, then, using inhibition and direction, to make one or more carefully-thought-out movements.

Going on to the toes is one such movement. With your head leading, slide your body upwards (in stages if necessary) – ‘take plenty of time,’ Marjory advised me when I performed the movement in her teaching room – so that you go on to the balls of your feet and then your toes, without pressing back against the contact surface or bracing back your knees or holding your breath. Having arrived on tiptoe, it’s a good idea to pause at this juncture and release any unnecessary holding or excess tension in the buttocks, lower back, knees and ankle joints made while moving upwards. (When first performing the activity most of us will find that there’s often quite a lot of tension to discard. But definitely one way you can help the process along is by directing your heels to release away from your sitting bones or hip joints.) To return to the floor maintain your light contact with the wall or door and allow your ankles to release very slowly so that you maintain your internal length.

You now have the task of coming away from the wall without using some sort of leverage – for instance, by not succumbing to the desire to push with one or both of your buttocks or employing a quick flick of your shoulder blade. That, of course, is easier said than done – a true test of inhibition and direction.

You can read more about Marjory Barlow’s Alexander teaching techniques in Seán Carey’s new book, ‘Think More, Do Less: Improving your teaching and learning of the Alexander Technique with Marjory Barlow’, which has been written for Alexander teachers, trainees and advanced students. It is now available through Amazon or HITE.

Marjory Barlow’s ‘Dimple Test’ – Seán Carey

Alexander told the students on his first training course that one very effective way to encourage the musculature of their back to work was to come back as an integrated unit in small movements from the pivot point of their ankle joints.

 

The big problem for most of us attempting the activity on our own is that before initiating the movement back from the ankles it’s necessary to be reasonably well-coordinated – your head needs to be going forward and up, your back lengthening and widening, and your knees releasing forward from your free hip joints and slightly away from each other while maintaining a good connection to your feet. That’s often not the case, of course. Many of us obtain an upright stance not by lengthening the stature but by shortening it – specifically, pushing the pelvis forward, pulling the tailbone (sacrum-coccyx) and buttocks upwards towards the lower back, and also locking the knees, hips and ankles. One major result of this tangled malcoordination is that the pelvis is pulled down on to the legs instead of it being an integral part of the torso. As FM Alexander’s niece and first-generation Alexander teacher Marjory Barlow observed if someone is standing in this very common pattern of misuse and then attempts to come back from the ankles this will only serve to amplify or increase the degree of their stiffening.

The dimple test

Marjory suggested that if you have a habit of displacing your pelvis forward and hollowing your back, it’s useful to get a measure of that misuse, ideally with the aid of a mirror, by using what she called ‘the dimple test’. It’s very simple and straightforward. While standing, without raising your shoulders or pulling your head down to your neck, place the palms of your hands, with your lengthening fingers extending downwards along the outside of your thighs so that you can feel the dimple or hollow on the outside of your buttocks. With the heels of your hands you are now aware of the bony prominence of the greater trochanter of your thigh bone (femur) of each leg on the outside of your hip joints. (Note, the greater trochanter, a lever, acts as an attachment for two of your three gluteal muscles that stabilise your hip joint and enables you to extend, rotate or lift your leg sideways.)

Marjory then suggested investigating what happens when you keep your hands on your dimples and then deliberately stiffen your knees so that they turn inwards and backwards. ‘My husband, Bill, used to call this inward-rotating knee movement “squinting”,’ she recalled. ‘But what’s interesting is that a relatively small movement of the knees has a very big effect on the hip joints, which you can feel very easily with your hands.’ If you try this out you will also notice that as you brace back your knees your tail and buttocks are pulled upwards towards your torso (in other words, you are pulling

 

your back in) and you stiffen your rib cage. In addition, your ankles and the arches of your feet compress and stiffen. Furthermore such a simple experiment concerned with feeling how the hip joints work are not just food for thought for Alexander teachers or trainees – they can be a revelation to students who mistakenly believe that their hip joints are positioned just below the waist.

You can read more about Marjory Barlow’s Alexander teaching techniques in Seán Carey’s new book, ‘Think More, Do Less: Improving your teaching and learning of the Alexander Technique with Marjory Barlow’, which has been written for Alexander teachers, trainees and advanced students. It is now available on HITE and through Amazon.

Rounded shoulders and the relevance of the Alexander Technique – Seán Carey

Biker posture ©Shutterstock

I’m driving slowly along Commercial Street in London’s ultra-fashionable East End when a young female cyclist passes me on the inside. Her expensive-looking bicycle has drop handlebars, though I observe that she is not using her hands to grasp or rest on the lower parts, the curving ends, but the central sections attached to the stem. Nevertheless, I notice that rather than maintaining the length of her spine by leaning forward as a unit from her hip joints, she is curving her back and pulling her head back and down on to her neck as she lifts her face to look forward. She is also pulling her shoulders up and forward so that they appear ‘rounded’. (You can see the same effect in the stock photo attached)

A number of my Alexander students are keen cyclists so I always point out to them that they should think about and organise themselves well if they are to avoid practising unnecessary stiffening while they are out and about on their bicycles. Why? Well, if they are using unnecessary tension and effort to cycle, they are not just adversely affecting their functioning (including breathing, circulation and digestion) but they are also affecting their structure, especially the structure of their spine, rib cage and shoulder girdle, more generally. This can have long-term consequences. In fact, I have been struck over my many years of teaching how stiff in the torso, shoulders, arms and hands almost all my enthusiastic cycling students are.

But it’s not just cyclists who are prone to stiff upper limbs, pushed-forward necks and rounded shoulders. This pattern of mal-coordination tends to affect anyone who uses their arms and hands to touch or manipulate objects. For example, people obliged to sit in front of computers for most of the working day exhibit a similar pattern – postural collapse involving distorting their double-S shaped spine resulting in pushed-forward necks and rounded shoulders. Alas, these poor habits do not magically disappear when someone stands up and goes for a walk or goes down the gym – instead, they become part and parcel of people’s everyday psycho-physical repertoire, affecting everything they do.

Which is why the Alexander Technique is so relevant. Here it’s useful to point out that FM Alexander, the founder of the technique, never made the mistake of thinking of the shoulders as specific entities to be manipulated, but rather he considered them to be part of a total neuro-muscular pattern that required kinaesthetic re-education. That said, he recognised that sometimes the shoulders did require specific attention. In his early years of teaching in the UK Alexander sometimes invited students who were rounding their shoulders to give their ‘orders’ or ‘directions’ for a better integration of the neck-head-back relationship and then add on another order for the shoulders to release ‘back and down’. However, after discovering that this order encouraged most people (no doubt influenced by popular concepts of ‘good posture’) to actively do something rather than simply give their mental directions he then opted to provide the relevant kinaesthetic experience without accompanying words. In short, he decided the less said the better.

Of course, one way of diminishing the amount of unnecessary muscular tension in your body, including undoing rounded shoulders, is to regularly perform Alexander-style lying down – what’s popularly known as the semi-supine position. This involves lying on a firm surface, such as a carpeted floor, with your head supported by a pile of books, your knees pointing towards the ceiling and your feet flat on the floor, comfortably near your pelvis about shoulder-width apart. Your arms can be placed by your sides. Lying down in this way uses gravity to good effect and helps to decompress your spine, and uncurl your shoulders without you having to ‘do’ anything.

For more information on rounded shoulders and the effect of Alexander-style lying down read Seán Carey’s Alexander Technique in Everyday Activity: Improve how you sit, stand, walk, work and run

Available through Amazon with free P & P

Have you walked 10,000 steps today? by Seán Carey

I’m sure you’re aware of the recent flurry of articles regarding John Hopkins University’s Dr Greg Hager who queried the general usefulness of fitness apps, especially those which encourage the wearer to take 10,000 steps a day. “Some of you might wear Fitbits or something equivalent,” said Dr Hager, a computer scientist, “and I bet every now and then it gives you a cool little message ‘You did 10,000 steps today’. But why is 10,000 steps important? What’s big about 10,000?”

Good questions.

Dr Hager went on to tell his audience at the American Association for the Advancement of Science that 10,000 steps was a very arbitrary goal based on a single study of the movement pattern and estimated 3000-calorie burn of Japanese men some 50 years ago. “Imagine everyone thinks they have to do 10,000 steps,” said Dr Hager, warming to his theme, “but if you are not actually physically capable of doing that, you could actually cause harm or damage by doing so”.

Quite right.

Nevertheless, there is obviously a danger that some people will interpret Dr Hager’s warning that because the target of 10,000 steps is ill-founded they should give up walking for exercise. That, of course, would be like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. In fact, the general consensus based on current scientific research is that walking is highly beneficial, not only because of its cardiovascular benefits but also because of its mood-regulating effects. For example, it helps to stave off or reduce depression and anxiety, partly by releasing the stress hormone adrenaline stored in the muscles, and partly by stimulating circulation and breathing.

Walking has also been shown to reduce the risk of dementia by around 20 per cent, improve sleep quality and contributes to whole-body bone density. Yet whatever the motivation and benefits, the important question from an Alexander Technique point of view is: what methods should you employ in walking to make it as efficient as possible in order to get positive health benefits without incurring damage or injury to your musculoskeletal system?

In a brief account of walking in his first book Man’s Supreme Inheritance, FM Alexander complained about the widespread tendency of “civilised peoples” to adopt a “rolling gait” (side-to-side movement). “Nearly everyone I examine or observe in the act of walking,” he wrote, “employs unnecessary physical tension in the process in such a way that there is a tendency to shorten the spine and legs, by pressing … down through the floor.”

The “rolling gait” detected by Alexander was most likely the dominant pattern of walking amongst middle-class Edwardian Londoners. In fact making a side-to-side swaying movement remains remarkably prevalent amongst people in contemporary Europe and North America, although nowadays it is matched by a pattern of over striding, in which the foot lands too far ahead of the trunk, the head is pulled down on to the neck, the lower back is pulled in and the rib cage stiffened. This pattern of malcoordination in part reflects the amount of time many of us spend in slumped, C-shaped sitting, a practice which causes contraction throughout the body’s musculature and interferes with our kinaesthetic sense, but also in part reflects or expresses the many hard-to-escape time pressures embedded in post-industrial societies.

When Alexander made that observation about a rolling gait, he reckoned that the basis of efficient walking was to put one foot either behind or in front of the other making an angle of about 45 degrees between the feet, with the body weight supported mainly by the rear foot. This allows the knee of the forward leg to bend so that a small step can be taken with the front foot. At the same time, the ankle of the rear foot should bend a little so that, as Alexander explained, “the whole body is inclined slightly forward, thus allowing the propelling force of gravitation to be brought into play”.

Later on in life, Alexander had simplified and refined what was required sometimes saying to a student at the end of a lesson: “Up to put the foot down because we all think down to put the foot down.” It’s a succinct summary of what’s involved in biomechanically efficient locomotion.

You can read more about an Alexander approach to walking in Seán Carey’s Alexander Technique in Everyday Activity: Improve how you sit, stand, walk, work and run

Available through Amazon with free P & P

We know about the head but what about the feet? by Seán Carey

FM Alexander famously said that improved coordination comes ‘from the head downwards’. Does that mean that he neglected other parts of the body, including the feet? Definitely not. He knew from observing himself using a three-way mirror arrangement that while standing (and in motion) that as well as interfering with the balance of his head on his neck he was also making unnecessary muscular tension in his feet. In fact, he was contracting and bending his toes downwards in such a way that he was throwing his weight onto the outside of his feet, creating an arching effect, which in turn interfered with his overall balance.

Many of us will be able to identify with that or a similar type of misuse. For that reason we need to keep in mind that we do not possess the flat, extremely elastic and prehensile feet of ot
her primate species, such as apes and monkeys, which are so useful in tree climbing. In fact, one very important function of your parallel aligned toes is for balancing and feeling the ground. You can explore this by standing on one foot and then flexing your toes upwards so that none of them are in contact with the floor. It’s difficult to maintain balance, isn’t it? Your toes also play a vitally important role in locomotion. So you can also experiment with walking forward or backward with similarly upwardly-flexed toes on both feet. You will discover that this results in a tightening of your leg joints and torso and a pattern of movement which is very stiff and awkward.

The big problem is that most of us stand with too much weight on the front of the feet. However, this often goes with a pattern of general postural collapse – pulling the head down on to the neck, pulling the lower back in and stiffening the ankles, knees and hips. So if that’s what you’re doing in everyday life then you need to find a way of coming back from the pivot point of your ankle joints in such a way that the three contact points of the feet – areas around your heels, big toes and little toes – are equalised. But this is not just a matter of thinking of your feet in isolation; instead, it is a function of your general coordination. Put another way, balancing on your two feet is achieved not by ‘doing’ anything specific with your feet but by giving directions for your head, neck and back and then adding on suitable orders for your ankles, knees and hips joints and making a movement, such as walking forward, backward or sideways, so that as you move all your body’s joint surfaces are opening away from each other and your feet are releasing into the ground. As Alexander told those on his first teacher training course: ‘Everything in the body should be moving away from its nearest joint starting from the head.’

For more information read Seán Carey’s Alexander Technique in Everyday Activity: Improve how you sit, stand, walk, work and run

Available through Amazon with free P&P

Secrets of the Moving Body

Eric the skeleton, in trilby hat, looks bemused as a lady mounts a chair and stands on it whilst her torso is bound diagonally in red and yellow tape. Ted Dimon’s workshops are nothing if not graphic. The tapes follow the muscle spirals identified by the anatomist and Alexander Technique devotee, Raymond Dart. “Secrets of the Moving Body”, a 2-day HITE seminar in April in London, mirrors Dr Dimon’s latest book: Neurodynamics: the Art of Mindfulness in Action.

 

He begins by breaking down some of the more intimidating technical language which can obscure rather than aid understanding and mostly describes simple everyday shapes. He is not an anatomist, he says, but had to penetrate the mysteries of anatomical language himself in order to pursue his research and teaching in the Alexander Technique. Dimon aspires to offer a field of knowledge, a theoretical structure, which is specific to the Alexander Technique, and the special dimension of anatomy and physiology which he presented was felt to help everyone understand better what is happening in a lesson. No unnecessary jargon was used, only plain English, with liberal touches of humour.

 

We are suspended from the head, he says, with a perfectly designed system of levers (bones) and motors (muscles) which work together, and curves which counter-balance each other to sustain upright posture and absorb shock – a Lamborghini on orders of magnitude, he remarks.

 

He takes us through stages of evolution with entertaining illustrations of how we arrived at what is arguably a perfect tensegrity structure cooperating with gravity. We must allow it to function properly, respecting the working of the musculo-skeletal system, and this significantly depends on a constructive partnership of head balance and sacro-spinalis lengthening. The sub-occipital muscles and the hyoid bone also play key roles in our self-management, says Dimon. And primary control, a concept specific to FM Alexander’s work, is closely related to the autonomic nervous system.

 

So why does it go wrong? Why, with a body designed for effortless movement and daily tasks, do we unwittingly inflict harm on healthy muscles, ending up with chronic muscle pain? Do we need little men on the ground holding us up by guy-wires as in one of the illustrations, or a course of AT sessions to help us to make more reliable judgements about how we’re using our body? Mindfulness, says Dimon, must be grounded in an understanding of psychophysical functioning and not just in meditative practice.

 

Dimon manages to steer you from the simple to the complex in a painless way, richly aided by the illustrations . He has an engaging teaching style, with anything important being presented several times in different ways. He believes in frequent short breaks and there is never time to get tired. Participants appreciated this and also the opportunity to ask plenty of questions at the seminar – including many they’d never dared ask before. Participants who had read his books felt that this seminar brought them to life.

 

People attending the event came from an unusually wide range of backgrounds: physiotherapy, shiatsu, osteopathy, chiropractic, rheumatology, as well as students from the 3-year Alexander teacher-training courses and experienced Alexander teachers. Surprisingly the teachers were few, perhaps not realising that this seminar would offer new material. Writing as a teacher of the Alexander Technique I always appreciate Dimon’s passionate commitment to the work and take away new ways of explaining and teaching it. He feels that teachers of any subject would benefit from applying the principles involved in this work.

 

It was gratifying that so many different professions were represented and that their evaluations were extremely positive. Conversations overheard in the toilets suggested that non-AT professionals were enjoying the seminar, learning new material and would be thinking differently about the Alexander Technique in the future.

 

There was a plentiful supply of tea, coffee and tasty biscuits, a hallmark of HITE’s events which always goes down well.

 

Anna Cooper, MSTAT