If you are constantly tired, uncoordinated, experience constant tension or unexplained bodily pain or discomfort, your abnormal posture may be to blame, according to Alexander Technique International. The Alexander Technique is an alternative approach to analyzing your body's unnatural movements and learning new ways to continuously adapt these movements into easier, more natural movements that support your neck and spine while you sit, stand and walk. Although you can teach yourself Alexander Technique fundamentals, there are numerous certified teachers around the country who offer formal individual and group instruction.
Identification
The Alexander Technique is a therapeutic program designed to help you recognize your unconscious movement habits that put undue pressure on your body and create physical ailments such as chronic fatigue, chronic muscle pain, back pain, migraine headaches and poor posture. The Alexander Technique helps you reverse these habits by teaching you how to consciously direct your bodily movements into free, unrestricted motions that best support your body's natural coordination, according to Alexander Technique International.
Theory
"The relationship between your head and your spine determines the quality of your body's overall coordination," states Joan Arnold, certified Alexander Technique teacher. As a toddler, you experienced natural poise that positioned your head evenly balanced on top of your shoulders, free joint movement and an erect spine. However, as you got older, you lost that natural poise. The Alexander Technique helps you restore your original poise by teaching you how your body works and what methods you can employ to regain your natural posture and coordination, Arnold explains.
Methodology
Certified Alexander Technique teachers use gentle touching and verbal instruction to make you aware of the ways that you habitually interfere with your own natural coordination. The instructor will first observe how you move through various positions, such as walking, sitting down in a chair and standing up straight. Then, the instructor teaches you certain techniques you can use to stop the unnatural interference and return your body to its state of natural poise. The teaching techniques vary widely depending upon your individual needs and problems.
Time Frame
Your erroneous movement patterns evolved over the course of your lifetime, and therefore will not be changed immediately. If you become a student of the Alexander Technique, you must engage in a series of lessons over a long period of time to experience long-lasting results.
Considerations
The Alexander Technique is not a medical or psycho-therapeutic treatment that restores physical or mental health, and therefore, it should not be used to cure any disease you may have in your mind or body. The Alexander Technique is simply a way to observe yourself and to establish ways to continuously correct unnatural body movement patterns you develop throughout your life.
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