This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Tennis, is published 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 tennis 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)
THE REPEATED RENEWED THOUGHT IS THE BASIS OF THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE.
What is the renewed thought?
It means if you repeatedly ask your neck to release and lengthen, it will do so more and more and remain released over time, even if you’re not feeling it do so.
What are the broader implications, beyond the Alexander Technique in daily life?
THERE IS THE POTENTIAL TO SPEND MORE AND MORE OF ONE’S THOUGHT IN EASE AND AT PEACE PHYSICALLY, MENTALLY, AND EMOTIONALLY.
How does this work?
We usually let our thoughts go where they want, even if we’re making ourselves crazy. What I’m fascinated by is that we can have crazy repeated fearful thoughts and still do a task. But if our thoughts are not self supporting, the task we’re doing can be hard on us physically and mentally.
Does the Alexander Technique renewed thought allow us to do what we’re we’re doing without wear and tear to the body?
Yes! How does it do this?
If you’re doing whatever, from writing, to running, to playing a violin, and you’re renewing thoughts that tell your body to release it’s neck, to be fully upright, then no matter the physical demand of the activity you’re not causing wear or tear to your body, no matter how everyday or specialized the activity is.
As you’re writing, you tell yourself not to hunker down to the page, so you’re not compressing your vertebral discs.
As you run you tell your head and neck to release upwards, so you’re flowing upwards rather than falling down beating up your knees as you run.
As you play the violin, you tell your shoulders to be free and mobile. Your arms are in constant motion as you play. If your shoulders are released, you’re not immobilizing your shoulders fighting your moving your arms.
This may sound like a lot of extra work/focus as you do an activity, but the alternative is damaging your body, especially if your thoughts are disconnected from what your doing, and you’re unconsciously stressing out.
I had a new client the other day tell me in a session she wanted me to tell her how to do things at the subtle Alexander Technique level, so she’d do them right and not have to think about what she was doing.
There clearly is this part of the Alexander Technique session where you make the client aware of how to do what they’re doing with greater and greater ease through the direction of the teacher.
But I have never known an Alexander Technique teacher that didn’t stay present in activities through the renewed thought; to do the activity with less and less work and greater coordination and ease over the years.
It is a real gift to yourself to take charge of your body, and to do what what you’re doing with greater and greater ease, so that your movement habits deepen into you doing less and less work and physical ease.
