Why am I Drawing Skeletons?

A Mother's Day Reminder

Happy Monday!¹

As I was unable to get the blogs out in a timely manner last week, I’ll do my best to make up for things this week with TWO posts.

Is it possible? Yes.

Is it daring? Also, yes.

To the Blogssss

For the last few months, I’ve been making little anatomical drawings of people. These have tended to focus on the head and neck. If you’ve been following this blog rather religiously and can remember each and every single post I’ve made to date, then you will know exactly why I’m making all of these drawings. However, if you’re a normal person and NOT the author of this blog you will likely begin to feel a little lost.

You might even begin to erroneously think that a detailed understanding of anatomy IS the Alexander Technique! Yikes!!!

To remedy that, it’s probably necessary at this stage to take a few minutes to reflect on just what the heck we’re talking about here (without talking about the ENTIRE technique).

Where are we on this AI map of nameless places?

The Alexander Technique is a general way of better understanding who we are and what we are doing in the here and now.² This understanding allows us to begin to see how we habitually react to our thoughts and the world around us. Over time, we begin to see how these habits impact our overall health and general well-being.

While we could describe these habits in a multitude of manners, one way that we could describe them is to consider the amount of physical strain we place on the body. Another way would be for us to describe the psychological strain - or lack thereof - that we place upon ourselves. For FM Alexander, these two types of reactions are so intimately related that they are completely inseparable.

In my earliest posts, I wrote about how these feelings of strain³ can pull us down and the general conundrum that we often cannot accurately describe exactly how we are pulling ourselves down. I suggest that we can all take the time to develop a sense of feeling - an Inner Sherlock - so that we can Be Where We Are and maybe STOP these forces of strain that are pulling us down. This is an incredibly long winded way of saying:

If you are slouching, stop slouching.

If you are stiffening up, stop stiffening up.

If you are harassing yourself about not getting your blog done on time and being a terrible writer, stop harassing yourself about not getting your blog done on time and being a terrible writer.

The big problem with the statements above is that I can manage to do all three of these things at the same time (and more…)! Parts of me can slouch (go dead weight) while others are stiffening (bracing). Maybe I can tell myself I’m an excellent writer, but maybe I don’t believe what I’m saying? Maybe I have DOUBT?!?⁴

When faced with all of these habits of strain, the temptation to rush out and make a change is HUGE. Unfortunately, the feeling of strain and pain can be incredibly deceptive. It can fool us into thinking we exclusively have a problem with our hip and shoulder when we may also have an issue in our neck. This imperfect sensation can lead our mild aches and pains to linger about like unwanted house guests. We can begin to get frustrated with their presence without ever realizing that the house guest feels like a prisoner and has been desperately trying to figure out how the lock to your door works so they can leave.

In some cases pain doesn’t WANT to linger… Something is preventing the healing process from taking place. In other cases, pain is caused by a systemic and permanent thing (injury/disease). In both cases, a terrific Sherlock will allow us to assess the situation with quiet confidence and at least have some marginal knowledge of what is going on.

For many, this KNOW is a great source of relief.

One of the ways that we can build a better Sherlock is to take a look at our anatomy and wonder just what exactly are we in the physical sense? Within the Alexander Technique, there are sets of directions that help us organize our clue collection and potentially relieve habitual strain (aka stop stiffening the neck and get that feeling of ‘Ahhh that feels nice!’). But if we have never considered what bones we have (or don’t), and how our muscles and flesh organize around our bones then we don’t really know what we’re feeling.

For each of the drawing I have made over the last few months, I take a minute to look at parts of the drawing and wonder:

‘Can I feel that area?’

‘Does this area feel heavy?’

‘Does it feel stiff?’

‘Does it feel alive and supple?’

Oftentimes, I will find areas that I CANNOT FEEL. One tricky zone for me to feel is the yellow zone at the front of the spine as illustrated in this post. I do my best to illuminate these areas for you because they have been key for my personal studies.

As I continue to make these drawings, I hope that you will have a look at them, have a wonder about yourself, and see if you can answer the 4 questions I have written above.

Everything that I am describing so far can be done without you actually DOING ANYTHING. This means that we are simply building awareness of what is happening. And while awareness training and ‘mindfulness’ is quite en vogue these days, Alexander’s Technique goes much further than simply training awareness.

Beyond Awareness

I have written a series of 4 articles on Elevator Games.

Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.

In these games I am attempting to give you a general framework for discovering and honing how you choose to move yourself. These games should be used to assess how weight is moved. It can either be moved smoothly or in a herky-jerky/clunky manner. Sometimes the choice will be yours; others not so much.

Depending upon the skill of your elevator operator, you may or may not be able to look at one of my drawings, sense what is happening in that area, and then guide your elevator operator into that zone to generate a change. In the beginning, you may just take my meaning to be that I’m saying ‘Can you move your hip?’ (part 1). But as you progress with your understanding of stuff and things you may feel that the other elevator games are possible (and feel nice).

Eventually, this all adds up to a complete system of tools that help you understand how you are pulling yourself down so that you can begin to SAY NO to that thing.

Of all of the things that I’m really missing from my blog, a terrific description of the primary control of the head, neck, and upper back is missing. In writing - and without a visual aid - I can only really ask that you not cluck your head like a chicken when you react to things or put your neck in a Chinese finger trap. As I continue my series of drawings, I am going to try and give you visual examples of how deep the tension can physically manifest in the neck.

So for the time being, please bear with me and stick with the 4 questions I’ve listed above!

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.

1. WTF John… I’m supposed to get these in my inbox on Thursday morning. I am a creature of habit and this is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE!!! I don’t care one lick that Arsenal lost to PSG on Wednesday and you were also teaching and couldn’t fit in THREE things into your day.

2. Yes. I am stealing this from Yoda in the Empire Strikes Back.

3. Here I do not talk about strain in an isolated physical or psychological manner.

4. Fear not. I’m extremely comfortable with my writing skills. I have OTHER doubts about stuff and things but writing seemed like a practical enough example to throw out there. God, you should see me try to make the PERFECT coffee in the morning…