This ebook, Yoga and the Alexander Technique Principles of Good Body Use, 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 do the asanas with great poise, posture, ease, and release.
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 yoga practitioners is our ability to work outside of the box, whether the Alexander Technique teacher has ever done yoga or not. In fact, the Alexander Technique teacher who has never done yoga may be able to give the yoga practitioner 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 yoga practitioner are the eyes of an Alexander Technique teacher. I assist the yoga practitioner in being able to consciously use his or her whole body in a completely elegant, balanced, powerful, and coordinated way. I teach the yoga practitioner how to do the asanas with ease without paying a physical price by collapsing or hunkering down to do the poses.
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 walking, to brushing my teeth, to playing the guitar, to teaching the Alexander Technique.
My training also taught me to look at any activity, from running to yoga, 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 yoga practitioner, I can clearly see when the yoga practitioner is hunkering down paying a painful physical price to do an asana with control and precision. I can see when the yoga practitioner is not connected to his or her torso and legs when doing a pose. I can see when the yoga practitioner is not balanced from head to toe when he or she does an asana, and because of this whole body imbalance, is using too much muscle, which causes wear and tear to the joints.
What I also bring to the yoga practitioner is that I embody whole body good use as I assist the yoga practitioner in creating his or her personal powerful, and balanced yoga technique. This means, even if the yoga practitioner doesn’t know it consciously, I demonstrate to the yoga practitioner with my own posture how to do the asanas without pain, strain, and compression. I also use verbal directions and directing hands on the yoga practitioner’s body to communicate what is needed to create a pain-free yoga technique.
SINCE I AM NOT SACRIFICING MY BODY AS I TEACH THE YOGA PRACTITIONER, EVERYTHING ABOUT MY POSTURE, WORDS, AND HANDS COMMUNICATE TO THE YOGA PRACTITIONER HOW TO DO THE SAME AS HE OR SHE DOES THE ASANAS.
An Alexander Technique teacher is extraordinarily unique in the world of postural teaching, because the Alexander Technique teacher is teaching the yoga practitioner to do as the Alexander Technique teacher EMBODIES and says, rather than doing only as I say. Simply, if I tell you to do the Uttanasana, Standing Forward Bend Asana, without locking your neck, and I tell you this with poor posture, you will have one heck of a time learning to curl downward with a released and lengthening neck and decompressed spine.
You won’t know why curling downward 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.
