New Music Announcement
I pleased to inform you that Beret Arcaya has released an album of Art Songs and Cantatas. You can find it on Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube, and probably some other places too! I’m including one track for your ears.
I think this is not only terrific singing but a terrific example of what is possible with the Alexander Technique. The tone of her voice is simply wonderful. There’s no harsh quality to the sound or the inhalation. It’s quite remarkable.
Enjoy.
To the Blogsssss
Last week’s poorly titled article, How to START Sensing Opposition 1, is my very humble attempt to try and describe the long, slow, and worthwhile process of restoring a sense of balance and ease within yourself. It’s no coincidence that it’s taken me over 125 articles to come to this point. Learning to allow the balancing action the head, neck, and back is like learning to spin two (or more) plates at the same time.
If you had any amount of joy with last week’s exercise, this week will build upon that idea. If you’re new to this blog, I’d encourage you to check out this post first and maybe read last week’s post before continuing.
Where Do We Start?
This week I was giving a lesson to a relatively new student. When they arrived I asked how their energy was and if they would prefer to start working in standing/sitting (aka chair work) or with a lie down. I always ask this because if you’ve had a wholloping day, you might be too tired to do quality work in standing.
Like…you’ve just worked a full day… do you reeeeallly have the energy to work on balancing and squatting? BE HONEST with yourself. If you try to push things, there’s a very good chance you will stay stiff in your head, neck, and back.
And that feels ick.
After they decided to start with the chair, I asked them the question, “What do you think when we start?”. They thought about it for a second with that look that said “Oh god I’m being quizzed??”, and replied:
“Calm?”…
“Mushy??”… …
“Middle???”.
I thought this was a great answer. While some of these words are my own, there’s been enough information put in front of this student that they could’ve gone anywhere. Instead, they kept things very simple AND had the prior in-person experiences to have an idea of the meaning behind these words.
After your first few lessons in the Alexander Technique, you cannot expect to remember much beyond the impressionistic level. Please be OK with this. This impressionistic experience of [“Calm“,”Mushy”,”Middle”] is about as good as we can get with the technique.
If these thoughts have the proper quality, they create the sensation of things opening slightly and globally in the muscles and joints. This is the start of the entire technique. If you have a slight sense of this, then there are really 2 things we should discuss:
How to continue allowing the global opening.
These two skills work in tandem. Some teachers would claim that one generates the other or that one is more important or tricky to discuss/experience. Personally, I prefer to allow them to exist as independent concepts that work together; much like musicians in a band.
However you slice and dice it, they are both qualities of thought that generate qualities of feeling. A teacher’s touch on the back or neck can give you the experience of feeling that helps reinforce the quality of thought, but the process of change ALWAYS starts with the individual opting in to something akin to [“Calm“, ”Mushy”, ”Middle”]. In order for you to allow the head, neck, and back to continually release tension you way want to first try this exercise…
Exercise: Do the Wrong Thing. Choose to Concentrate.
Just for shits ‘n gigs I’d like you to imagine that you have an important email to write. The pressure is on and you really want to word this email exactly right because the person receiving it is your boss and they’re quite demanding and potentially quite stupid. But you know that if you can get each word in this email just right, all will be well!
…
…
As you imagined this scenario, did you feel a little pressure cooker form around your temples? Did you feel all of the muscles around your head kind of squeeeeze a little bit? If so, you’ve experienced a very normal reaction to stress.
How can we take the pressure cooker of stress off? The smug answer is to say, “It’s easy! Just don’t do that!”, and really for some people they can just turn that little switch on and off. But the reality is that it is easier to turn it off when we’re in a quiet environment and progressively trickier to do the more complex and demanding our environment is. This is why some athletes are amazing on the playground and find it hard to perform in front of 60,000 screaming fanatics.1
It is an extremely valuable skill to purposefully choose to opt in and opt out. You don’t need to do this 293847293586 times every day, but I think it is a vital experience to go through. You will find that the pressure cooker of stress has this insidious ability to sneak up on you during your day. The more you can play this game while you’re in quiet, the more you might catch it in the wild as you go to order a coffee or some such task.
Catching these pressure cookers in the wild is TERRIFIC. It means that you’re beginning to get a real sense of awareness for how you are reacting to life. This IS the process of creating a new and lasting habit; one free-er from stress and with less clunky pull down in the head, neck, and back.2
How Do We Continue to Release the Head, Neck, and Back?
If you have done the activity above, I invite you to go back to last week’s exercise and give it a go. Allow yourself to think your secret sauce of opening3, and add the thought of zone 1. Take your time and let the opening continue and wait. Then add in the thought of thawing zone 2.
There’s a reaction to these thoughts that will spread over the entire rib cage. I will save that for next week!
Get In Touch
If you’re in NYC, you may learn more about my private teaching practice at johndalto.com.
If you’d like to book any lesson time with me, you can find my booking link here.
COYG
And all the other bits and bobs too!
[“Calm“, “Mushy“, “Middle“, “Slow“, “Quiet“, “Not Held“, “Open“, etc]