Coming Home - A view of the Alexander Technique.

Many people regard the Alexander Technique (AT) as being about getting good posture or doing things properly. However, it could be seen as about finding our way home.
When we have lost ‘home’, we do not know where we are or what we are doing or how far we have wandered. When we don’t know where we are we often struggle more than we need to.

The A.T helps you find “neutral”. From this we can judge what we are doing and know if we have lost “home”. For example, when I am teaching, I may help my student to release the shoulder blade (scapula) and it drifts back closer to its natural resting place. This is not to correct the shoulder but gives the student a good “taste” of what is a place of rest. Then, the student readily knows what s/he is doing and can make more reliable choices about his/her functioning.

The technique goes much further than bringing the bony structure into a more neutral place. Background muscle tone can be recovered so that it becomes easier and freer. So that we can, more accurately, know what we are doing with our selves and what level of tension we want.

It’s something like helping a car driver to find neutral on the gearbox and then he or she will be able to more easily select what gear is suitable for the situation.

The A.T helps you find neutral –‘home’, and gives you a process whereby you can learn to consciously find this place in lots of different situations.

When you find this place of ‘home’, you often recognise it. For this is just something we have forgotten, in our busy and ‘end-gaining’ lives. And it will feel like coming home after some time away and, hopefully, with a welcome sigh of relief.

	Michael Hardwicke Tel: 015395 31781 E-mail: michael@fmalexandertechnique.co.uk		Newton Farm Cottage Newton-in-Cartmel Grange-over-Sands Cumbria, LA11 6JJ
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