This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Meditation (Sitting or Meditating), 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 create the meditating 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)
What makes the Alexander Technique teacher so extraordinarily good at working with meditators is our ability to work outside of the box, whether the Alexander Technique teacher has ever sat in lotus before. In fact, the Alexander Technique teacher who has never meditated may be able to give the meditator what he or she needs in a way that is way outside of the box. What do I mean?
When I was an aspiring concert guitarist, I went to an Alexander Technique teacher, because I was causing carpal tunnel syndrome to my left wrist, practicing the guitar hours and hours every day. Because the Alexander technique teacher I worked with was not a classical guitarist, she effortlessly got me to question everything I did on the guitar from head to toe.
It was extraordinary for me after years of playing and after many fine guitar teachers, to dismantle everything I thought was necessary to be a concert guitarist, and create my own personal guitar technique. (I do the same with my Alexander Technique clients, not letting my personal classical guitar technique override my Alexander Technique training.)
I kept what worked, let go of what didn’t work, fined tuned what almost worked, and added whole new ways of accomplishing for the first time what I was truly capable of on the guitar.
What I bring to the meditator are the eyes of an Alexander Technique teacher. I assist the meditator in being able to consciously use his or her whole body in a completely elegant, balanced, and coordinated way. I teach the meditator how to sit in lotus, full or not, with extraordinary ease without paying a physical price by collapsing, locking up, or hunkering down.
How do I do this? I went through a three year training, and in my Alexander Technique training I learned to use my whole body with ease and balance in everything I do, from running, to brushing my teeth, to playing the guitar, to teaching the Alexander Technique.
My training also taught me to look at any activity, from walking to meditating, and to spot when the person is sacrificing his or her body for the activity. What does this mean? It means when I work with the meditator, I can clearly see when the meditator is hunkering down paying a painful physical price to sit quietly with focus. I can see when the meditator is not connected to his or her torso and legs when meditating. I can see when the meditator is not balanced from head to toe when he or she sits in lotus, and because of this whole body imbalance, is using too much upper and lower body muscle to meditate.
What I also bring to the meditator is that I embody whole body good use as I assist the meditator in creating his or her personal effortless sitting technique. This means, even if the meditator doesn’t know it consciously, I demonstrate to the meditator with my own posture how to sit in lotus without pain, strain, and compression. I also use verbal directions and directing hands on the meditator’s body to communicate what is needed to create a pain-free sitting in lotus technique.
SINCE I AM NOT SACRIFICING MY BODY AS I TEACH THE MEDITATOR, EVERYTHING ABOUT MY POSTURE, WORDS, AND HANDS COMMUNICATE TO THE MEDITATOR HOW TO DO THE SAME AS HE OR SHE SITS.
An Alexander Technique teacher is extraordinarily unique in the world of postural teaching, because the Alexander Technique teacher is teaching the meditator to do as the Alexander Technique teacher EMBODIES and says, rather than doing only as I say. Simply, if I tell you to sit in lotus without locking your neck, and I tell you this with poor posture, you will have one heck of a time learning to sit with a released and lengthening neck and decompressed spine.
You won’t know why meditating with a free neck seems so hard, but it is because unconsciously you are receiving conflicting messages from me talking about good posture and exhibiting poor posture. A certified Alexander Technique teacher can truly say do as I do, do as I say, and do as my hands are communicating to your nervous system through my free nervous system.