The Alexander Technique and Loosen Up
Benefits of the Technique
- Relaxation, freedom of movement, better coordination
- Poise, standing taller
- Confidence and more attractive
- Reduce muscle and joint tension and pain
- Reduce tension headaches
- Reduce back pain
- Reduce wear and tear on muscles, joints, bones, internal organs and overall bodily systems
- Improve overall health
- Improve performance and efficiency in sports, music, performing, business and enjoying life
- Relaxes your mind and makes it clearer
- Take your time to make better decisions
- All this makes your life better
Frederick Matthais Alexander was an actor from Tasmania who lost his voice while reciting. He discovered that he was distorting his body, including his voice box, both while reciting and to a lesser extent, the rest of the time. He developed his technique in order to rectify this.
It involves specific ways of thinking to relax away layers of unconscious tension that most of us have gradually developed since about age three. It only uses thinking—there is no exercising, massage or manipulation. If you consistently think of parts of you being calm and relaxed, then your body gradually responds and lets go of tension.
When you relax in this way, it lets go of tension that will have been pulling you down and out of alignment. It allows your natural poise to effortlessly draw you up into standing taller and straighter, and it releases your muscles and joints so that you move more freely, with better coordination. This in turn reduces the wear and tear on the rest of your body and its organs and systems, often leading to better health.
Research by the UK National Health Service and published in the British Medical Journal in August 2008 showed excellent results for the technique in relieving back pain. It is also used by many people to relieve tension headaches and many other muscular and joint pains throughout the body. It has also shown promise in helping people with Parkinson’s Disease to coordinate themselves better. Additionally it is used by many actors and musicians and some sports people to improve their performance.
Positive Feedback
- Because you start by thinking of being calm and relaxed, it also relaxes your mind, allowing you to think more clearly.
- Reducing stress on your body reduces stress on your mind leading to a clearer more relaxed mind, leading in turn to a more relaxed body, in a positively reinforcing feedback loop.
- Part of the thinking technique involves putting aside our reactions for a split second, so that we give ourselves time to make better decisions. This helps to make our lives even better, giving more reasons to relax.
Poise Confidence Attraction
- As we naturally rise up and get taller, we tend to feel more confident.
- Others tend to respond positively both to our confidence and better poise and freedom of movement.
- They often unconsciously give us more respect or even find us more attractive. After all, in nature, we are looking for good survival traits, and poise, relaxation and confidence (rather than actual height) indicate that we have some reason to think we are good at surviving.
It Was Far Too Slow!
Unfortunately, until recently, learning the technique has been a long and expensive process for most people.
I had lessons twice per week for three years and then trained as an Alexander Teacher for another three years before I finally realised what it was all about and how actually simple it really is. By that time, I had learned NLP and started to use it to tease apart the technique’s processes and make them easy and quick to learn. I can now get most people to the point of independence from me after ten to fifteen lessons. So it takes a lot less time, you get the results you want so much sooner – and of course, it costs far less in the long run.
Think of it this way, swans, little meerkats and lofty giraffes don’t need the technique in order to rise up effortlessly. My job is to get you to that natural state, where you maintain your ease, freedom of movement and poise, without having to think about it.
So I can get you to relax and loosen, and to naturally rise up, far more quickly than by the traditional means—and I call my method Loosen Up.
(The giraffes say “Thank you for reading this, and Good Night. GN”)