With our nervous system quietened through inhibition and “re-wired” with conscious direction to maintain the optimum relationship between neck, head and back, our response then to the idea to do something, eg. sit, bend, carry, walk, play an instrument, sing, dance or whatever, can become expressed through a more ordered body-mind, our directed self. This makes the activity qualitatively different. The “good use” of ourselves implicit in this process enables better functioning at all levels - physically, mentally and emotionally.
The role of the teacher is to teach the pupil to recognise and stop their old ways of doing things and to choose instead a different path of response, one which is governed by a well-co-ordinated neck-head-back pattern.
How Does It work
The Alexander Technique
The Alexander Technique gives us a way to change our habitual reaction patterns.
The first step is to stop our automatic stream of reactive behaviour. This is called “inhibition”. To inhibit in an Alexander sense is to pause and allow a state of mental and physical quiet.
In this neutral place we can re-calibrate a key aspect of our active selves – the relationship between the neck, head and back. We enable this to happen by mentally allowing the neck to be free, the head to go forward and up, and the back to lengthen and widen, with the knees to go forward and away. These are known as “the directions”.