This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Conducting (Conductors’) Technique, is published on this website in a PDF format. It is very detailed and practical, and it will give you the physical tools you need to take the limits off of your ability to create the accurate conducting technique you want without sacrificing your body.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
WHEN YOUR POSTURE IS NOT AS GOOD AS YOUR CONDUCTING TECHNIQUE, THEN YOU CANNOT CONDUCT AS WELL AS YOU COULD WITH A POSTURE AS GOOD AS YOUR CONDUCTING TECHNIQUE.
Here is a very simple explanation for this. By definition, poor posture takes a whole lot more muscle to maintain than balanced posture. Balanced posture in the Alexander Technique means that you have such a gentle balanced posture going on in your body as you conduct, that standing or sitting fully upright is very close to effortless.
When a conductor with poor posture goes to an Alexander Technique teacher who makes gentle radical changes to how the conductor stands or sits to conduct, why does it feel like a whole lot more work to stand or sit at ease as you conduct?
A conductor’s posture is usually a long term devolution of the body getting in shape to handle poor posture. What does this mean? It means that over time, if your posture as you conduct becomes poorer and poorer, then your musculature handles these usually gradual changes, as you become more and more off balance, by using too much muscle and you become more and more immobile.
Think about it. If, as you age and/or try to conduct better and better, you hunker down and collapse your torso and tense your legs more and more, you are actually doing more and more muscular work to conduct. So, as you get older and usually weaker, you are working harder to conduct, when you should be evolving a technique and posture over the years, that makes conducting more and more effortless when standing or sitting.
If your posture is degrading over the years as you conduct, and you are tensing more and more as you go further and further off balance, then your technique is going to suffer. You cannot keep the tension of your whole body’s poor posture out of your shoulders, arms, and hands.
There is another side to this issue of posture compromising your conducting technique. YOU CAN BE IN GOOD POSTURAL ALIGNMENT, BUT IF YOU ARE USING MORE MUSCLE THAN IS NECESSARY TO HAVE ALIGNED POSTURE AS YOU CONDUCT, YOU WILL STILL COMPROMISE YOUR CONDUCTING TECHNIQUE. This is core to how the Alexander Technique works with conductors.
Simply, if you are doing UNNECESSARY work in any part of your body as you conduct, you will have a negative effect on your conducting technique. This means the tension level will rise in your shoulders, arms, and hands.
What if you created a balanced posture that evolved using less and less muscle as you conduct over the years? What if there was constant flow in your body as you conduct? What if your whole body embodied effortless conducting technique? What if you conducted as if you were getting younger and younger every year?