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Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
In the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris there was a woman, Valarie Allman, a discus thrower who embodied everything the Alexander Technique teaches when she threw the discus,
AND SHE WON.
What was also fascinating is watching her as she competed against a Chinese discus thrower who embodied everything the Alexander Technique teaches NOT to do.
Her Chinese competitor had no center. She muscled the discus. As she wound up to go into the spin before the throw, there was no sense of being centered, no UP in her body.
What do I mean by UP?
A very basic principle in the Alexander Technique is the concept of UP. What this means is in an activity the head leads the spine into lengthening as a core center of strength in the body.
This means that the discus thrower is actually physically taller than in just standing, so that the discus thrower is spinning around with a head leading the spine upwards into lengthening right before the discus is thrown.
When the Chinese discus thrower was spinning right before she threw the discus, she was hunkering down and wobbling off center, but keeping control muscling her body.
When Valarie Allman was winding up before her movement into spinning to release the discus, she went totally UP with an incredible sense of center and released the discus out and and away from herself, her center, like shooting a bullet out of a gun.
I do not know if Valarie Allman know she embodied the Alexander Technique when she threw the discus, or even knows what the Alexander Technique is, but in the moment she was the Fred Astair of discus throwing.
You may be wondering why I mention Fred Astair here? Fred Astair was the penultimate example of what the Alexander Technique teaches when he danced in his movies.
He was pure UP as he danced more elegantly than any other dancer in any other dancing discipline has ever danced.
The sad thing is, in later life Fred Astair did not consciously know he was UP as he danced, and in later life lost this quality of movement in his body.
If Valerie Allman was to consciously internalize UP in her body in everyday life and in discus throwing, she could possibly win Olympic discus throwing into her 60s.
