This ebook, Taking Care of Yourself and Your Students: Alexander Technique Guidelines for the Music Teacher, is published on this website in a PDF format. It is very detailed and practical. It will give you the physical tools you need to take the limits off of your ability to teach with great posture, ease, and comfort.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A.
IF YOU’RE GOING TO DO SPECIALIZED ACTIVITIES LIKE PLAY A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT, OR RUN, OR PLAY GOLF WITH EASE AND WITHOUT INJURY, THEN YOU NEED TO MOVE WITH EASE WHEN YOU WALK, EAT, SLEEP, AND USE A COMPUTER.
What I just stated is what makes the Alexander Technique unique. Think about it.
HOW CAN YOU DO SPECIALIZED ACTIVITIES TO THE BEST OF YOUR ABILITIES, IF MOST OF THE DAY YOU MOVE POORLY WITH POOR POSTURE AND EXCESSIVE TENSION AND/OR SLUMPING?
YOU CAN’T!
So, the Alexander Technique teacher looks at everything you do physically, and teaches you how to do what you do without harming your body.
Here’s an example of how an everyday activity can affect a specialized activity. You brush your teeth right before you play the violin. You brush your teeth hunkered down to the sink with a tight shoulder and a locked neck.
When you’re through brushing your teeth you begin practicing the violin. If you’re applying Alexander Technique principles of good body use to your violin playing, you want your shoulders to be at ease and mobile and your neck released as your head rests on the violin.
How well you’re able to create a free neck and released shoulders as you play the violin is determined to a large extent by what you’re doing with your head neck and shoulders when you’re not playing the violin. If you’re locked down in your torso most of the day, you simply cannot apply your deepest, most balanced release and high energy to your violin playing.
HOW CAN YOU TRULY BE AWARE OF THE TENSION LEVEL IN YOUR BODY WHEN YOU PLAY THE VIOLIN OR WHEN YOU RUN, IF YOU DON’T HAVE A CLUE AS TO WHAT YOU’RE DOING TO YOUR BODY TWENTY HOURS OR MORE A DAY AND NIGHT?
YOU CAN’T!
When you apply the Alexander Technique principles of great body use to most of your everyday activities, at first it can be tiring. After a short while, if you’re diligent, you will consciously create good body use on an ongoing basis. You will begin to sustain great body use unconsciously, because you have reeducated your body and established new movement habits. You will feel physically good, because you aren’t damaging your body.
The Alexander Technique is extraordinarily directive of the student and extraordinarily focused on teaching the student to be able to take care of him or herself. We teach the student to become their own troubleshooting Alexander Technique teacher, so the student can solve movement problems in everyday and specialized activities or when simply doing nothing on their own.
Specialized and everyday activities are learned with very different intentions.
Everyday activities are the way we brush our teeth or eat or shower or walk, usually learned early on with absolutely no concern for how well we do these things ever.
When you do a specialized activity, there is usually a minimum level of awareness as to to how you play a musical instrument, run, do yoga, so that you can do these things with a level of competence that may lead to being really good at these activities at some point.
You can read up on how to run or play and instrument or walk or brush your teeth, and/or you can find an Alexander Technique teacher to instruct you. As an Alexander Technique teacher, I’d like you to consider finding the most effortless way to move through your day and night, in everyday and specialized activities, through reading, teachers, and self observation.
