The Elevator Game - Part 4
Greetings from India!
I’m here for the next week visiting around New Delhi and attending a wedding. It’s all good fun, but it does mean that I can’t offer you the most exciting Alexander Technique pictures/animations. Instead, I’ll leave you with a rather fun little game you should learn.
Reviewing the Elevator Game
In my first article on the Elevator Game, I described how you could move a part of you into an extreme state - say raising the shoulder all the way up - and dropping that same part into the opposite extreme state. You could play this game by bending at the elbow or knee or any joint you can imagine. This game is an entry point for learning to feel extreme stiff and dead weight.
In the second version of the Elevator Game, I asked you to go through the same elevator ride. This time, I added the ask that you attempt to give yourself a smooth elevator ride from start to finish. Today’s “Part 4” is technically just another way of describing what is happening with Part 2. I’m hoping that with some additional clarity in my description you will gain an even better elevator operator!
For the sake of completing the reminder, the third part of the Elevator Game involves observing how simply the thoughtof moving the elevator will create changes in muscular activity. Ultimately, we want to be able to work at THIS level of subtlety with the Alexander Technique.
Expanding Part 2
When we play Part 2 of the elevator game, we are looking to have a smoothelevator ride. In that article I did my best to describe what I meant, and you probably have heard plenty of exercise advisement suggesting that smooth and controlled movement is desirable. I think the word controlled can be quickly misinterpreted by folks; especially those with an injury.
Over the last few weeks I have been using the concepts of velocity and acceleration to better describe what I’d like you to do (and what I mean by smooth and controlled).
First let’s make sure we’re on the same page. Not everyone knows what velocity and acceleration are so I’ll attempt to put things as plainly as possible.
Velocity is the speed at which an object moves
Acceleration is the rate of change in the velocity of an object.
Now the Elevator is a Car?
To put it more plainly, when you are at a dead stop in a car and hit the gas, both your velocity and acceleration increase. If you keep your foot in the same place on the gas pedal, your velocity will remain steady (at say 30 mph) and your acceleration will be zero.
Now let’s suppose a cow saunters into the middle of the road (yeah…that’s a thing here in India). If you are Indian, you will find a way to drive around the cow and keep your velocity a contestant 30 mph. But if you’re me, you’ll probably think about hitting the brake relatively hard. In this case, your acceleration will will be a rather large (and negative) number as you come to a stop.
Had I instead gently pressed the brake, my velocity would have gently decreased and my acceleration would have gone from zero to a relatively small negative number.
The Elevator Car is You
In real life, you’ll want an “elevator operator” or “driver” that can direct velocity and acceleration in any conceivable manner. I’d like you to be curious about what kind of operator skill you have and wonder just how you can develop that skill. But in particular, I’d like you to start paying attention to your acceleration during slow walks.
If at all possible, make a walking game out of this and see if you can keep your walking acceleration to zero as much as possible while maintaining a buoyancy in your whole self. This buoyancy may be felt as an inner balance - particularly in the head, neck, and upper torso - and building this skill is the cornerstone of all work in the Alexander Technique. As you play this game, it is better to allow yourself to fail and feel your acceleration slightly randomly increase (either positive or negative). These little uncontrolled jumps are preferable IMHO to you stiffening up.
When We Stiffen
Stiffening up during this walking game is likely inevitable but it is absolutely not what we wish for ourselves. Remember that when I am asking for zero acceleration and inner buoyancy this is a global sensation. It is possible to keep a walking pace at a constant speed and acceleration but achieve this by stiffening up in the back and walking like a robot.
Once you enter the act of stiffening up the back, the back muscles will begin to accelerate as they lock up around the spine. I DO NOT want you to accelerate the back muscles into the act of gripping to maintain a constant walking pace. This will kill your inner buoyancy. Instead, do your best to find a balance between zero acceleration, inner buoyancy, and NOT falling.
If you are truly exploring how you walk, you will very likely lose your balance. Make sure you walk slowly and this will dramatically reduce the risk of falling in this activity. And yeah, this style of movement is very much at the heart of Chi Gong and what you would have witnessed in the video of Ted McNamara working with a student.
Thanks so much for reading. When in doubt, STOP, allow release, and invite inner buoyancy.