Published by Bridge to Peace Publications

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The extract below is Chapter 8 in the book. Other chapters include:

Overview, The AT principles, Workshop procedures, Private Lesson Procedures, AT for musicians, Case Histories and others.

The Alexander Technique for Bodyworkers

This course of lessons and demonstrations was presented at the Australian College of Natural Therapies in 1992 and 1993. The students would have performed all the procedures and exercises which you can find in this book under Class or Workshop procedures and some in the chapter on Procedures for Private Tuition. The practices have not been included in the current chapter to avoid repetition.

Week 1 - Introduction

When you enrol in a course of massage, you acquire the skills about massage. If you enrol in a course on herbal remedies, you acquire the skills about herbs and how and when to apply them. When you enrol for any course of study, you will end up with certain skills that pertain to that particular discipline. Those skills are usually very specific. Furthermore, the skills are usually not interchangeable - that is to say, you may not be able to apply the skills you acquire in one discipline to administer treatment which requires the skills of another discipline.

The Alexander Technique is not at all like that.

On the one hand, you do not end up with skills that apply to any particular situation.

On the other hand, the skills you acquire are useful in all disciplines.

These skills relate to the way you make use of your own instrument, your psychophysical organism, as Alexander called it - your body and mind at work.

This means that the skills you acquire through the Alexander Technique are employed in the course of the use of your own particular skills in your practice - whatever that may be.

If you consider for a moment what you do when you administer your services to your client or patient, you should find that while you might be using any number of instruments, remedies, tools, medicines, etc., you also make use of your own body.

What is this body that you will be using? You have hands, legs, a voice; you have muscles, a trunk, a head; you have a breathing mechanism. You will be bending, moving, turning, speaking, lifting, walking. You will be reaching to get things and put things down; you will be moving your patient, perhaps you will be using some physical manipulation, and so on.

Whatever else is happening in your session with your client or patient, you will be using yourself in some way or other.

The Alexander Technique is about acquiring the skills that enable you to use yourself efficiently, wholesomely, economically, appropriately, sensitively, and in general in a manner that is not only highly beneficial to yourself, but in a subtle way also beneficial to your patient.

In the course of acquiring the skills pertaining to your profession, you will no doubt have acquired certain specific skills in the use of your hands. What the Alexander Technique addresses is the way in which you use yourself in the course of delivering those skills to your patient/client.

In this course you will be shown certain kinesthetic exercises which are designed to enhance your own body-mind awareness. You will be performing certain postural kinesthetics that will develop your personal sensitivity and efficiency. You will be shown how to minimise muscular resistance and how to move your body about effortlessly and efficiently. You will learn about co-ordination, balance and body alignment. You will learn how to maintain your own body-mind integrity in any position you may have to adopt during the course of your practice. You will learn how to use the senses properly and effectively, and how to develop your skills in listening, attending and coming in touch with yourself and your client. You will learn how to spot any habit that may get in the way of the efficient and effective administration of your treatment - and you will be given techniques on how to inhibit or change such habits.

Week 2 - Non-Doing

There are six ways of responding to a movement. These are:

ASSISTING, RESISTING, ALLOWING, DOING, FOLLOWING and INHIBITING.

We will speak of Inhibiting at a later session. Today we are considering DOING.

The general tendency we all have is to "do". We are all good at "doing". The trouble is that often we "do" too much when not so much doing is needed.

In our work as body workers and healers, we will experience that the patient or client often wants to "do" in order to "help" us in what we are trying to administer.

By the same token, we, as therapists, need to come to the awareness that we do not need to "do" so much with ourselves in the process of delivering our therapy or treatment.

We need to adopt the attitude or philosophy that we are only instruments through which the healing passes and is conducted to the patient.<$&nondoing[v]>

We need to develop non-doing hands; hands that do not interfere with the clean, undisturbed flow of the healing process. In some treatments we may need to use muscular force - but that force needs to come from the earth we are standing on and flow through us. We never need to "do" with our muscles in a way that produces tension within ourselves. We need to develop "non-doing" hands and bodies.<$FNot doing anything with your body does not mean that you have to hold it rigid and stiff. If the body wants to ease to a new position or release some tension, or find a new balance - let it, do not prevent it.>

You will have become aware of much "doing" in your partner when you did the Three Ways exercises last week (page <$R[P#,three ways,~145]124>). Today we will try and discover some of those habitual "doings" within our body and begin to learn to release them in order to come to the state of non-doing.

It is only from this state of non-doing that something new can take place - new ways of moving, new ways of working, new ways of using ourselves and treating others.

If we don't come to the state of non-doing, the old habits will determine how we move, how we work, how we deliver the therapy or treatment.

Today we will practice moving without doing.

The sense of kinesthesis is enhanced when we leave out the "doing" from our movements.

Remember, it is the sense of kinesthesis that we wish to cultivate, nurture and develop.

Kinesthetic awareness leads to the sense of balance, body alignment, effortless movement, delicacy of touch, healing hands.

Week 3 - Dynamic Equilibrium

If there is a principle as important as that of "non-doing" in Alexander's work it would have to be the concept of "dynamic equilibrium".

Equilibrium means a state of balance.

When you stand on your two feet and allow the weight of your body to distribute itself equally over them you have equilibrium.

However, the weight of a properly constructed statue may also be equally distributed over the two feet, and there also is equilibrium.

There can be static or fixed equilibrium. You can be standing on your two feet and the weight of your body may be equally distributed over the two feet, but you could be as stiff as a statue!

The word dynamic means that there is motion involved. But the motion does not take away the even-ness of the weight distribution. We need to be aware of our equilibrium in motion - whilst we are moving

Dynamic is the opposite of static. Our bodies need to be dynamic, not fixed or rigid. Our movements need to be delicate, smooth, flowing, almost fluid.

Last week you were shown how to bend your knees and your hip joints so as to assume a position which is stable and yet fluid; secure and yet able to give out good and strong directions. Today you will use the monkey stance or posture in motion. You will use it to work on another body whilst maintaining dynamic equilibrium in yourself.

You just need to remember that the more you let go your own habitual internal resistances, the easier it will be to sense your own weight (Kinesthesis). The more you can be aware of your own weight, the easier it will be to maintain dynamic equilibrium.

Dynamic equilibrium can be sustained if you maintain an awareness of the entire body. When you move as a whole unit; when you think as a whole unit; when each member of your body works in conjunction with all others and allows all other parts to perform their function, without interfering; then you have efficiency of movement and effective treatment.

D<%2>ynamic equilibrium should also be considered in regard to <MI>Attention.<%0>

It is clear that to achieve physical dynamic equilibrium you have to allow the weight of the body to distribute itself evenly whilst in motion. This is a physical consideration of dynamic equilibrium.

At a subtler level (The Technique works on many levels), we need to consider how we distribute our power of consciousness - our Attention.

When we are working, when we are doing something out there (and this can be treating a patient, operating a machine, looking at an instrument, listening to a talk or lecture etc.), our Attention needs to be widened so as to attend to our own physical (and mental) state as well as the needs of the situation in front of us.

If we only attend to the needs of the client, we may lose touch with ourselves and lose our dynamic equilibrium. If we attend only to our posture and balance, we may not feel what is needed for the client. We have to spread our consciousness to embrace both ourselves and the client. We have to have equilibrium of Attention.

Week 4 - Inhibiting

Inhibiting is the conscious and deliberate omission of a habitual response.

Last week you practised being "practitioners'. You became aware of some definite habits of use that clearly do not conform to the principles of Non-doing, Dynamic Equilibrium, Effortless Movement and so on.

You had been told about those principles. You had understood them and had agreed to apply them when you approached your patient at the treatment table.

Yet those habits of raising the shoulders, locking the knees, bending at the waist, using effort with the hands, were, as I am sure you will remember, very common among you.

THIS IS QUITE NATURAL!

You are not expected to be able to "do" what you "know" is right straight away! Changing a habit takes time!

There are three stages involved in the process of changing a habit. (See Three Step Formula for Change on page <$R[P#,Three Steps,~74]53>).

Observation

Inhibition

New Direction

Today we will deal with the Inhibit stage.

We will try to "catch" the habitual response and begin to learn how to omit it from our habitual pattern.

Remember, you are learning to develop self-awareness in movement. It is not much use "knowing" that you "do" certain things - knowledge alone will not change the habit. We need to be aware of what we do when we do it; and then within that same awareness, learn to Inhibit. (See Inhibiting on page <$R[P#,inhibit,~101]80>).

Week 5 - Direction

Direction is the intent to move without the motion.

= Direction is that state of dynamic equilibrium which exists at the point just before moving.

= Direction is pointing with the finger of thought.

= Direction is creating, in thought, the space in which to move and then filling that space whilst undoing.

= Direction is relaxing into length.

When we move with direction, the quality of movement is delicate, effortless, purposeful, integrated, co-ordinated.

When we direct ourselves, we encourage the body to lengthen, widen, and increase in volume.

When we direct ourselves, we decrease the muscular effort, not increase it.

As you are reading or hearing this, come in touch with yourself and consider how you could direct yourself right now.

<%-2>Could you, for example, <MI>direct<D> your toes, your fingers, your head, your torso?<%0>

Could you get more volume in your chest, whilst getting more length and width also?

Could you do all this whilst reducing the muscular effort that may be present at the moment of thinking this?

Have you noticed how the body naturally wants to unwind into length, width and volume if you let it?

Allow your hand to reach out and just gently touch something.

Now, leaving the fingertips in contact with the object you have just touched, let your body recede from the object.

What do you find?

Try this now also: Decide on a movement you are going to make. Then, before you actually make it, consider how much you can direct. Now do it!

= Week 6 - Listening Hands

Listening Hands are Healing Hands!

Over the next two weeks you will be given a chance to experience what it feels like to have hands on you that listen rather than "do".<$&listening[v]>

Following this you will be asked to practice one or two specific routines intended to highlight and correct some particular habit that was observed whilst you were being worked on.

Then, you will have a chance to practice putting your listening hands on a fellow student whilst your instructor places his hands on you.

Remember:-

Your hands hear best when you direct.

Your patient responds best when your hands guide with direction.

When you direct, any negativity from your patient is automatically conducted to the ground. It is only when you try to "do" that energy is locked and creates blocks within you.

Always "prepare" yourself for movement (ie come in touch with yourself and direct before you move).

Whilst you move, continue to direct.

Always finish a movement with consciously coming to physical and mental rest.

The contact you have with your patient at your hands should be directed all the way down to your feet through your back.

Keep (not hold) your back in a straight line with the neck and head, freeing the legs and hips if you need to bend.

Always allow your patient time and space in which to "resolve" his/her internal resistances - you can create this space by directing.

Do within yourself what you want your patient to do.

If ever in doubt, just come back to your sense of balance, dynamic equilibrium and continued direction.

= Week 7 - Listening Hands - Part 2

= In order to effect a change in your patient, you need to "direct"

This week we will continue with hands-on in order to establish a direct experience of what it feels like to work with hands (and body) which "direct" rather than just "do".

When you work on a patient, apart from applying the skills that you have learned from other teachers, try to apply the following principles:

= Have in your mind a picture or a thought of what you would like to see change in your patient.

= Maintain a connectedness between the patient's body and the ground through your body.

= Balance and direct your own body is such a way as to facilitate the change that you want to achieve.

= Whenever appropriate, do yourself what you are asking the patient to do (For example if you are wanting your patient to loosen around the shoulders and neck - you loosen your neck and shoulders, whilst your hands are on the patient).

= Perform each action in its own unit of time and space, that is to say, after each movement or action, come back to find your own rest, so that the next thing you do comes from rest and is not tainted with the tensions and momentum of the last thing you did.

= Week 8 - The Alexander Technique applied in the workplace

At <%2>some time in your career you may find yourself giving shoulder massage to staff in the workplace. <%0>

<%-2>There is an increasing need in the workplace for short periods of loosening up all the accumulated tension and stress from performing at a computer, on a work bench, or just attending to customers on the phone. <%0>

Managers and supervisors are becoming more aware of the need to release tension in order to improve performance and efficiency. As bodyworkers you will be of enormous benefit to the industry as on-site therapists and masseurs. The material and practical experience you have obtained in this short course can only enhance the application of your own particular skill as bodywork therapists.

Good luck!
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