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Alexander TechniquePrinciples, Alexander techniqueActivities, Use at the…

- - - - Quality of creation
    - - Response and health
- - - - "Wouldn't it be nice if I change my breathing? So I'll balance then direct the head and neck"
      - I wish I could have more finger legato and articulation... so I'll release and lengthen my forearm, lengthen the underneath of my wrist and feel the keys under my fingertips
- - - - Links how we are built to why we are built like that
      - 1
        
        How we began to move
        
        Role of the spine
        
        In fish, the spine ripples from side to side to propel
        
        We can do this and do as babies
        
        Bear the weight of the upper body in a sophisticated way...
        
        so that the head can be upright #
        
        Role of the weight-supporting limbs
        
        Move
        
        Support upright
        
        Role of the head
        
        The head leads movement
        
        because
        
        Contains the brain - which is where thoughts start
        
        Sensitive to food and the environment
        
        We seek things – esp food – by our senses
        
        Head being upright
        
        allows us to develop thought independently of action
      - 2
        
        upright support: extensors
        
        extensors extend joints:
        
        they apply force in the opposite direction to the tendency to fold under gravity
        
        They mostly lie along the back of the body; the thighs have them in the front
        
        The back has 5 layers of muscle
        
        Top: moves ribs and shulder blades
        
        2nd deepest - thick and 'meaty'
        
        deepest - between vertebrae of spine
        
        Stretch reflexes
        
        "Standing upright" isn't conscious.
        
        Upright balance is maintained by 'stretch reflexes'
        
        "stretch receptors" detect how stretched the extensor muscles are (i.e. how much the body is folding)
        
        They adjust the tension of the extensors very finely and frequently by themselves
        
        Greek: "tonus"
        
        [obviously one can also consciously control the extensors if needed - this is how we get up or stretch our legs etc]
- - - - Don't set assumptions, don't set a 'right' and 'wrong' and expect things;
      - :baby::skin-tone-6::baby::skin-tone-4::baby::skin-tone-3: Do it as if you'd never done it before
- - - - because this changes the set up of the spine
      - which influences breathing
      - influences the shoulders
      - and the hips (therefore knees and ankles)
- - - - 3 things I can feel?
        
        Noticing points of contact
        
        The hands
        
        the back of hands and the back of the neck
      - 5 things i can see
      - 4 things I can hear
      - 2 things I can smell / taste
- - - - Breathing isn't physically that obvious / It isn't necessary to make the largest / deepest breath expansion
    - - The :wind_blowing_face: out breath :dove_of_peace: dove tails :dove_of_peace: into the in breath :wind_blowing_face:
        
        The :wind_blowing_face: in breath :dove_of_peace: dove tails :dove_of_peace: into the out breath :wind_blowing_face:
      - Whispered 'ah'
        
        No need to be the biggest or loudest 'ah'
        
        Imagine its quality before I make it
        
        Release tongue and throat
    - - The primary control, spine influences breathing
    - - The abdomen moves a little in response to the lungs
        
        It will do this naturally if it's free; there's no need to 'pump' the breath from down below...
        
        ...as the diaphragm works on a reflex - it can't be consciously controlled directly
- - - - but a release further up
  - - - from the finger up to the back
      - this is not necessarily visible but is like a flow of water through all the limbs / joints
  - - - phrase:
        
        listen
        
        follow the natural phrase
        
        don't 'beat' or 'mark' time -- unless it's a deliberate part of the style of the music
        
        I have a habit of 'swelling' automaticaly -- "trying" to make the phrase continue by pushing dynamically-rhytmically-physically
        
        this is endgaining -- the real way to make a phrase sustain is to go for a ringing longlasting sound, to imagine the span of the phrase and to make it "speak". And to release and use natural weight, with economy and release as I let go into the key.
- - - - the attack or crispiness is used for a special colour / expression if it is there