May the force be with you.

October 5, 2006 at 5:31 AM

Greetings,
So the way we grow up, suddenly forced to sit in chairs and pay attention to stuff we have no interest in is having a very undesirable side effect. In essence it is robbing us of our natural inheritance: an efficiently functioning body. As we become more skewed the data we receive from senses, especially the sixth, passes through the neck where there are a massive number of processors called proprioceptors. However, since the neck itself is skewed and dropping backwards onto the spine the data itself is somewhat skewed. We live in a world of self delusion.
All very fancy stuff . But why is it that I know Alexander Technique is such a powerful and important tool?
Well, I was the kid who walked funny, didn’t do much sport, had bad knees, the last one to be picked for the team and so on. This is of course, because I had flat feet. And naturally if you have flat feet you go to a doctor who sends you to a specialist who sells you expensive plastic inserts to push your instep back up….. You don’t walk any better and they hurt like hell but who is arguing with the experts. Its part of the same scam that tells you one leg is longer than the other and then sells you an expensive pair of platform shoes. One leg may well be longer than the other in effect, but that is because the pelvis is twisted which is because one is misusing the body.
Jump forward twenty years to one of my first AT classes and I remember sitting in a group of trainees with the trainer asking us directly what we would like AT to do or show for us that day. Since I was in my second lesson I was very skeptical about the whole business. I mean, what a bunch of loonies! So I asked if it could help my flat feet. The trainer suggested I walk around the room while he watched. After that he smiled and said `Buri, you haven’t got flat feet.` Then he released all the muscles and tension in my neck so that my head went forward and up, my chest went up and my back expanded. Man , that was weird. Then I walked, no I didn’t walk. I floated. That was a new world I had never occupied. A literal release from prison. It took what, 30 seconds. That’s basically it: the Primary control is reestablished, the muscles let go from the holding they have had to do for years, the skeletal frame becomes as it should be and the bird flies from the cage.
Since that first major shock I have seen new people treated for the first time burst into tears of joy and anguish from their release. I didn’t, but it was close. Similarly, during AT one may be exposed to a force that the modern human has lost awareness off. That is, anti-gravity. Because our misuse of the body blocks the effect of energy shooting up we have come to believe our life and destiny involves only being pulled down towards the earth as we get older. Once the spine is released and energy begins shooting upwards we immediately become taller . For me it is about two cms. I know because I walk back into the house and bang my head don the door frame which I normally clear easily. The sudden powerful energy shooting through the body can be very scary and I have actually been to a seminar of an exceptionally powerful teacher where a student suddenly cried out that she was afraid. Fortunately the teacher knew her own effect well and was expert in helping the student pass through the fear easily. When the same teacher worked on me for the first time in a private lesson I was already quite experienced but it was still a shock. She looked at me for a while and then said `Buri, I’m not going to ask what you are carrying around, but you have got to let it go. She then put her hand on my chest and as everything fell away a tree I was watching outside literally jumped sideways a couple of meters like the `déjà vu` scene in the matrix. This kind of perceptual change is common in major energy releases. Does the effect last?
No! AT is the =conscious= control of your body through the primary control. That is, you have to learn how to do it yourself . That may take quite a few lessons while you to learn to recognize what the difference is between effective and misuse of the body.
This is one of the hard truths we have to accept. We are being given the gift of self responsibility and it is hard work. This is not about someone doing something to you. It is you being given a choice to work on yourself and the road it lead sone down is not always smooth which is why an expert teacher take many years to train. In order to become an AT teacher one has to undergo a profound change of one’s own neurology through daily reception of another trainers hands. As a student one cannot learn it from a book or the spoken word. That is declarative knowledge rather than procedural. Or is it the other way round ;)?

Cheers,
Buri

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on October 5, 2006 at 6:56 AM

Buri, I have some practical questions. Does it work on old folks like me? I know we have a greater accumulation of problems to overcome than younger folks. Does it take a long time in training to feel beneficial effects? Is training done one-on-one? Is it expensive? Can you answer my questions in less than ten new entries in your blog?

From Kelsey Z.
Posted on October 5, 2006 at 2:33 PM

Buri, excellent as always! I've had a couple people I know, one a violin student of mine, asking about Alexander Technique. There are sadly no instructors here where I live, you have to go to Vancouver for that but it's great to have students being interested in experiencing that whole new level of freedom that AT can provide.

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May the force be with you.

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