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The more I think about it, the more I believe that Alexander Technique is, at its core, about consciously cultivating a state in which you can remain 'unfixated'. This means the ability to step out of anything that might get you stuck in one single way of being. Take posture...
There are better and worse ways for your body to be organised. That is one way to view posture. Another way is a sort of dynamic aliveness in contrast to a held, static form. Great posture comes from never being stuck in any one mode of holding yourself. A kind of availability.
Alexander Technique gets you out of holding yourself rigidly in one particular way and frees you to move *appropriately*, never getting stuck. This is the magic that great actors and dancers seem to have. Nothing about them is ever static or held. https://t.co/QMqOV0XmFB
3/ As adults it's the same. We stand at the bar nonchalantly to look/feel relaxed. We puff out our chests to look/feel imposing and important. We hold in our bellies to look/feel slim and desirable. Those habits become who we are. But what if we stop?
Exactly the same principle applies intellectually. You can get stuck inhabiting a single idea or worldview. You may even be able to shift to inhabiting a different worldview, but there's a skill in being able to *not get stuck in any worldview* https://t.co/ekog9SpVMw
People often think Alexander Technique is about posture. Nope. It's a practical method for getting unstuck. John Dewey, who was an early proponent, said AT helped him with his ability to hold a philosophical position calmly with ability to change it if new evidence warranted.
It looks like this is even baked into how our brains work. The left hemisphere can easily get stuck on particular objects, physical or conceptual, without something else able to disengage it. This could be another person or event, or ideally the right hemisphere. https://t.co/OOByfyRU2q
That was an excerpt from The Master And His Emissary by the way. So Alexander Technique interrupts this habit of fixation, of getting stuck, We learn to exist in a way that notices all the ways in which it's possible to get stuck ā to attend to the things ā but to remain free.