How to Steer the Head
A Rocking Game!
Happy New Year!
First off I’d like to apologize for missing a post last week. The busyness of the holiday season was well and truly in high gear and I couldn’t sit down and give this project - and your eye time - the attention it deserves. But fear not! I’m back and ready to press on with more Alexander Technique goodies!
This week’s post is intended to pick up where we left off with the How to Allow the Neck to Free series of posts. The purpose of today’s post is to give you a Rocking Game that allows you to explore the meaning of Head Lead / Body Follow. This is THE governing principle of coordination in organisms; something FM Alexander termed Primary Control.
But before we dive into all of that, I thought it would be great to start the new year off with a little reminder of the high level stuff. You know, the stuff that we ACTUALLY need a gentle reminder of each day.
What am I doing here?
Who am I?
How can I learn about/improve my general health without moving to Tahiti?
A New Year’s Refresh
The Alexander Technique is as simple as the word technique. It is not a 21 day happy back challenge or any kind of prescriptive health system. It is a means of understanding what you are doing NOW so that you can guide yourself (physical and mental) in a manner that you choose.
One of the key features of this complete technique is in learning the art of prevention; especially when faced with stimulus. By learning how you react to a thought - “turn your head to the left 3 millimeters” - you can better and better learn what you must STOP doing so that you can reduce strain and live you life with greater degrees of clarity and ease. This is a skill of self observation that you can choose to cultivate.
As this post is going to dive into a game focused on a movement, I would strongly encourage you to remind yourself of the general guidelines to the technique before you just start turning your head left and right. These guidelines are:
No Pulling/Pushing on yourself AKA don’t force a movement for the sake of moving
Don’t Bully Yourself - If you have strain or fatigue accept that it is happening NOW and is a signal that you need to slow down find a quieter tempo.
Take Your Time
Don’t Freeze in Place
With this in mind, you can think of each component of the technique1 falling under this short little saying:
STOP - OBSERVE - ALLOW A GENERAL BLOOM
What Is Steering the Head?
Here’s a video of me doing a lie down. For the first minute of the video, I’m NOT doing the head steering activity that this post is about. I am first taking the time to STOP/Observe/Allow General Bloom.
In this first section I am waiting for myself to STOP thinking about what I want to explain to you. It takes me roughly 1 minute to go from “ok how can I verbalize and demonstrate this rocking game” to “I’ll just ignore the camera and the blog and explore this exercise for ME”. I’m not sure you can see this shift happen in the video, but this is why you won’t see me rocking the head for the first minute.
I have included this first minute in this video because I do not think it is possible to bypass this transition. You will very likely have to confront this phase at some point in your development.
For the second section (minute 1-5) you will see me exploring subtle movements with the eyes and the head. My ceiling is covered in little dots and my eyes are looking at different portions; the eyes are leading the head to move in various manners. I mention the eyes first because there’s something about the act of looking without strain in the eye muscles that encourages General Bloom to take charge of the situation.
As the eyes are looking about, I am allowing myself to imagine that there is a fingertip touching my forehead. I imagine that this fingertip is moving my head [‘left’, ‘right’, ‘up’, ‘down’, ‘in small slow circles’] while also allowing the neck to relax2. This fingertip image is to give me the sense that the head is leading the movement; NOT the neck or the torso.
The neck frees/relaxes so that the head may lead.
When Things Go “Clunk”
You will likely feel portions of this movement where the neck has a little jolt of unnecessary energy and stiffness. NOTICE THIS! It is your clue to either stop, slow down, or reduce your range of motion. While head leads/body follows is THE general principle we wish to explore, any extraneous tension in the torso/shoulders/hips/knees/ankles/elbows/wrist/hands/feet WILL stiffen the neck.
When Things Go Smooth
If you are taking your time with this exploration, you will begin to sense that you can prevent the neck from pushing the head from one place to another. Almost surely, this pushing from the neck occurs when your attention leaves the fingertip on the forehead. I would expect that a beginner may only have a few minute’s worth of attention to this image.
Give yourself a huge pat on the back if you have success with this! Don’t get frustrated if this blog didn’t unlock the meaning for you! Either I need to do a better job of writing things down, you need to ask some questions, or you just need to have a fresh go of trying this out tomorrow.
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.
My 98 other articles and the 98 to come coupled with all of your own self study and experiences and all of FM’s writings and….oh craaaaaap!
You may feel all of the Major Landmarks of the head as you do this. Check out my previous post on how to free the neck for what I mean here.