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One of my most dreaded moments is when someone innocently asks "so what is Alexander Technique?" If I don't want to go into it, I mumble something about posture, because that's easy and tends to shut down the conversation. I feel bad because it's not true, but it suffices. 1/
If I think the person asking is open to it, I might say something about mindfulness, see how they respond and go from there. This is probably the best approach in general, because it lets me calibrate what I say based on what the other person is able to hear. 2/
If I've had a couple of drinks or happen not to give a damn in that moment, I may launch into non-doing, the Dao, being fully alive and the dissolution of the self. That has the polarising effect of making most people think I'm crazy, but some minority get really curious 3/
To be honest, if you ask 100 Alexander Technique teachers to describe Alexander Technique, you'll get 100 responses. And another, different 100 if you ask them the next day. This is a problem. It makes what we do come across as intangible and poorly thought through. 4/
In fact, it's just hard to describe, almost by definition. The parts of us that Alexander Technique engages seem to be the non-wordy parts. That's what all this tweeting is about – to figure out what AT is so I can finally give a good answer to that bloody question. ends
Meta] If you've come across this thread in isolation and want to go deeper then you might be interested in my 'thread of threads' on the topic. https://t.co/pppidMHSzH
Meta] Also, if you want to dive much deeper into this stuff, I have built what I believe is the only asynchronous online course that explores Alexander Technique from a first principles perspective. You can find out more and stay up to date by going here: https://t.co/GHzsyr4ILq