Going Up Stairs

Last week when I heard on the news that it was the day for the Empire State Building Race I immediately emailed my student Ben Oliner to see if he was participating in the 86 flight race as he did last year. A few minutes later I received an email that he had won the race for amateurs. (Who knew there are professional stair climbers.) Ben is a professional squash player so is in exceptionally good shape physically. In any case, racing up 86 flights of stairs is no small feat. Go Ben!

Ben and I agreed that his work with the Alexander Technique helps him with both squash and the stairs. He literally flew up the stairs taking several stair steps at one time keeping his focus on going up up up – following the lead of his head.

Although most of us go up the stairs one step at a time, the same head leading- body following principle that worked for Ben will work for us non-racers. The head leading and the body following is one of the main principles of the Alexander Technique.
This is the same principle that applies to a fish as it swims or a baby as it crawls. The whole body organizes itself around the eyes and the head.

Try this while you are going up any sort of step; a curb, subway steps, stairs in your house, or 86 floors in the Empire State Building.

The key is to take a moment to notice what you are doing and to think about what you are doing BEFORE you take your step. Notice what you are doing with your head and neck. If you are preparing to take the step by tightening in any way or shrinking in stature, chances are that you are going to feel heavy and you will have to push with your legs to get you up the stairs. (Obviously your legs and whole body are muscularly engaging in some way – but there is a difference between pushing with your legs to go upstairs and letting your legs carry your torso from one step to the next). If you are shortening yourself, you are effectively pushing yourself down into the ground and making yourself heavier. Then you are trying to go up the stairs with a heavier body and are pushing up against a downward pressure that you are creating. It doesn’t really make any logical sense to do such a thing, but that is exactly what most of us do when we go up even one step.

Try using yourself as an experiment and see what happens when you keep yourself free and easy in the neck, gently send your head up, and let your body follow your head up the step. Allow yourself to move in a new way and see what happens. This really works.

You may not fly up the stairs like Ben did but it WILL be easier. Perhaps one of you will give him some competition next year!

One more thought: Make sure your tongue is also easy and free and not pushing down along with your head and neck.

TMJ Alternative Treatments; response to NY Times article by Jane Brody

Here is some of my response to Jane Brody’s article on TMJ in the Tuesday 2/3/09 NY Times.
We can start the discussion about the Alexander Technique any place and since I have been working on a response to the article I thought I would post it here as well. I think it is very important that the Alexander Technique be seen as an educational process rather than as a therapy. Alexander students are invited to participate in the process of discovery so they can take away concepts and experiences to integrate in to all of their activities.  

Dear Ms. Brody,

Recently I read your article on TMJ in the February 3, 2009 edition of the New York Times. Your explanation of the condition seemed very accurate to me. It is fascinating that TMJ symptoms show up more in women than in men. Did any of the studies give a reason for this phenomenon?

I would like to take this opportunity to offer a suggestion. The next time you write about TMJ (or any other condition involving chronic pain or tension) it might be interesting and helpful to your readers if you could include among the options for helping the situation the concept of re-education. In the case of TMJ, the possibility of re-educating the patient's use of their jaw, as well as an explanation of the functional movement aspect of the TMJ situation would be useful. When education is stressed a person can take some responsibility for the situation and take action to prevent it from happening again in the future.

As a teacher of the Alexander Technique I have grown to understand that the way in which people move their jaws makes a huge difference in their TMJ issues and in how their body functions as a whole. I see, as well, that many people can learn to make different choices about how they are moving their head, neck, tongue, and jaw and these different choices then lead to relief of some, if not all, of their TMJ symptoms. The Alexander Technique can directly teach the ability to “rest” the jaw and to find the appropriate amount of muscular tone needed in order to move the jaw and use it for chewing.

One might think that the jaw is only able to move in one way; it is my experience, however, that people manage to perform a great variety of movement patterns with the jaw, especially in combination with the tongue, neck, head, and face, leading to a great variety of states along the spectrum between balance and imbalance. Just as one can have more or less coordinated ideas and habits about how to walk or run, one can also have more or less coordinated ideas and habits about the use of the jaw when speaking, laughing, or eating. One example of the simple ways in which a movement pattern and mental understanding can affect the body's structure can be seen in how a person chews. It is not necessary or desirable to the body's optimal functioning to tilt the whole skull back when opening the jaw to take a bite (like
a 'pac man' who moves its upper and lower jaw at the same time). That action often pinches the back of the neck, puts stress on the jaw and causes a tightening up of that entire region of the body. In the Alexander Technique the student learns to understand how the jaw functions and learns to move it in a way more corresponding to its structure.

I find that if a student is in a cycle of chronic tension it can be very useful to look at how the student approaches the movement of his or her head, neck, tongue, and jaw. Although massage may be useful in relieving muscle tension and provide pain relief, in my experience, it can be even more helpful follow up that relief with a discussion and “coaching” on how to develop a better way of moving the head, neck, tongue, and jaw.

Releasing can be seen as the first step – a state of release from which a freer movement can take place. The released state enables an essential moment of awareness and gives the possiblity of making a new choice. If, having found relief from immediate tension, one then moves in the same habitual way, this familiar choice leads one right back into the pattern that caused the situation in the first place. If, on the other hand, one becomes aware in that moment of relief and chooses a different movement pattern there is a much greater chance of longer-lasting relief and of utimately not ending up in the same TMJ situation again at all.

The Alexander Techinque gives the student both the relief from the stressful pattern and offers an education on how to improve his or her use in any given moment, leading to long-lasting change and in some cases, dramatic relief from long-held movement patterns and painful conditions. The focus on education is what makes the Alexander Technique different from other types of body work.

This work is most often done in a one-on-one setting by a certified teacher who has gone through a thorough training of more than 1600 hours. The teachers works both verbally and hands-on with light touch to give relief to the student. This interaction also brings the student's awareness to the array of movement options available to them that can result not only in pain relief, but also, in many cases, in a much more balanced and graceful use of their own bodies in day to day situations.

I have been a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique for more than 25 years, teaching privately and giving workshops and master classes here in New York City, as well as abroad in Europe and Japan. Because I believe this technique would be a great interest to you and your readers, I would be more than happy to offer you a complimentary lesson at my New York studio to help you experience the Alexander Technique first hand.

Thanks for your interest.

All the best,

Ann Rodiger

Floor Class

Ann Rodiger developed the Balance Arts Floor Class to present movement through the lens of the Alexander Technique. She has combined her knowledge and experience of the Alexander Technique, Bartenieff Fundamentals, Feldenkrais, Yoga and various dance techniques in creating the class.

This class is designed to:
*Work with the whole body coordination to find your balance and center through an extended session on the floor.
*Focus on your breathing, ease, coordination and directions.
*Work slowly and carefully to build your awareness of your limbs in relation to your head, neck, and back.
*Increase awareness of joint articulation.
*Integrate what you have learned to standing and walking.