Space Between the Bones

There IS space between all of our bones even if it is minimal space. That space, even when filled with fluid, allows for movement and cushioning between the bones. It means that bones don’t actually sit on bones – they float and balance in relation to each other. The bones are held together by the tension throughout the muscles, tendons, and ligaments – guide wires, if you will. This makes our bodies’ tensegrity systems (a la Buckminster Fuller and the geodesic dome) where the struts don’t touch each other but suspend inside the system.

Considering this model for the structure of the body is a paradigm shift for many of us. Instead of thinking of our body as bones piled up and resting on top of each other (the post and beam or stack of plates system), the body is seen as a fluid and mobile structure capable of free and easy movement.

As we consciously lengthen our bodies and allow for the spaces between our bones, we can maintain the integrity of the tensegrity system.

Entertaining this way of understanding the body can change the way you experience your body.

Try this experiment:

First, as you sit or stand, think of your bones as supporting your body by resting on each other and thus compressing your body weight into the floor – how do you sense yourself?

Now conscious allow for space between your bones. Think of space between every bone, even between the bones of your head.

Add to that the thought of your body lengthen up out through your head, rebounding from gravity, and see how you sense yourself.

This is a good way to see how much our thinking changes how we move. Working with new ideas can reveal what we have been thinking in the past. Even if those previous thoughts have been unconscious we have been functioning from those principles.

At the recent AGM (Annual General Meeting of AmSAT American Society of the Alexander Technique) Carol Boggs gave a presentation where she quoted Dr. Stephen Levin who said that “all bones are sesamoid bones.” We played with this concept during Carol’s workshop and found that it significantly changed our experience of own body and balance.

Wikipedia says that in anatomy, a sesamoid bone is a bone embedded within a tendon. Basically our tissues thin and thicken into tendons, ligaments, and muscles. Fibers from one density flow into fibers with another density or elasticity. Our structure is continuous and fluid.

We suspend, we float, and we balance AND you can experience it!!!!

Freedom to Move

One of the interesting aspects of the Alexander Technique is that it helps one to consider new possibilities for ways of thinking in action. As one consciously works to allow for new concepts and choices, one is led to deeper understandings and more fundamental embodiments of the Alexander Technique. At Freedom to Move, the conference on Dance and the Alexander Technique, we saw the principles of the Technique being applied to various different forms of dance, and it was evident that the principles of the Technique apply to all movement. This is what was shared last month at the conference, which was sponsored by the Balance Arts Center. And everyone, accomplished dancers, non-dancers, teachers, and AT and movement teachers could learn side-by-side in the same movement situation and all come out with new awareness of their movement and themselves.

The most wonderful aspect of the conference was everyone’s willingness to explore and listen with openness, curiosity and utmost respect for each others' ideas and points of view. This created an atmosphere of exploration and support for our various areas of interest.

Most of the presenters have been living and working with the principles of the Alexander Technique for many years and their understanding of the work has permeated their entire beings. We had a lively time playing with how we are using the concepts of the AT in relationship to all the many sides of the field of dance: choreographing, teaching dance, improving our own movement and performance, etc. Everyone, presenters and participants, was generous with their teaching and learning. It was fascinating to see how working with the principles of the work lead each of us to discoveries, new awareness, and ways of thinking about our own movement, and how to communicate that to others. The AT has profoundly shaped the way we approach, see, talk about, and create movement.

The conference was a good reminder that the Alexander Technique is a Technique that is fundamental to all the various forms of movement we do, whether or not we are in the field of dance.

There is so much more to explore and to share. We plan to hold another conference again next year.

Photos of the conference are posted at www.balanceartscenter.com

You can also hear a podcast of the panel discussion “The Alexander Technique and Creativity”. The Conference schedule is still posted on the website as well.

It was extremely inspiring to see how people are utilizing the concepts and how they are creatively applying them to their own areas of interest. It was a good reminder that we all need to make the AT principles our own and that they can be applied to every aspect of our life making, each thing we do a creative act.

The Inhale

The Inhale

It is useful to focus on an aspect of the breathing process that is often unconscious and goes unnoticed: the inhale. A good inhale is triggered after air has been expelled from the body up and out behind the tongue. Most of us don’t breathe out enough.

Spend a few moments each day (even a breathing cycle or two will help build awareness) consciously allowing your body to provide the cues to exhale and inhale. At the top and bottom of the exhale/inhale wait (probably longer than you usually do) until you sense the internal kinesthetic signals to change the direction of the air.

Notice how you use your tongue and jaw while inhaling. Monitoring this will help keep you from sucking of gulping the air in. Make sure there is an easy space between your teeth and that your tongue is high and wide at the back of your mouth by your upper teeth. Let the tip of your tongue touch the back of your lower teeth. Let the air come up into your head, behind your nose and eyes, to come down into your lungs. The air will automatically go down into your lungs. No need to pull or suck the air down into your body.

When you can, keep your lips closed as you inhale. This will clean and warm the air.

Think of your air tube or column as coming all the way up your throat to the top of your tongue as it is high in the back of your mouth.

Cultivating a good inhale will help enhance your upward direction and help you find your three-dimensionality from the inside of your body. There is no need to feel any resistance to the air coming in. When the air is moving freely you will probably “feel” less.

When you breathe in well, you are ready to speak, sing, or exhale without doing anything extra or changing anything.

Clues:

1. If you are hearing sound on your inhale, your throat is tight!

2. There is no need to try to open your throat on the inhale!

go back to the Balance Arts Center website: www.balanceartscenter.com

Inhibition

I missed the opportunity to write about inhibition before the holidays when I could use the obvious example of keeping one’s hands tightly pinned at one’s side when the plate of cookies and chocolate went around the table. Even so, inhibition is also a good topic for the New Year. I have already had several discussions with students about how inhibition plays a big part of their thinking as they “refresh” their goals and make resolutions.

Resolving to be better at something, or to change in some way, comes down to changing a habit of thinking and doing. Most often that all boils down to inhibition, which means not doing one’s familiar pattern. This applies to physical activities like reaching for the cookie jar, and it also applies to thought processes like “This isn’t going to happen” or “I’ll never get it together to do such and such.” Thought and movement patterns go hand in hand. Basically one has to stop the habitual reaction, no matter how strong the impulse, to do whatever it is that one wants to change.

One student is already busily working on his whole body balance by preventing his foot from slapping the floor so his shoe doesn’t wear out on that side. The pattern he wants to change seems to stem from an injury he had many years ago. Over time, his compensations have accumulated into passivity in the leg and foot when his foot meets the floor each time he takes a step. His recent attention and resolve have already paid off in terms of better stability and balance. He is inhibiting the urge to release and go almost limp with his foot. Instead, he is energetically staying with the leg and foot, allowing him to give his leg a conscious direction each time he steps. He has recently been able to walk a mile while paying attention to what he is doing and holding a conversation at the same time. That is progress!

Another student is contemplating how to approach a habit of interrupting people and talking too much when she is anxious. We discussed what to notice with her breath as she prepares to jump in to the conversation. We discovered that she might be stopping her air flow and holding her breath as she prepares to talk. Consciously focusing on the physical act of continuing to breathe, instead of getting drawn in to responding verbally, will help her consciously control her anxious feelings. This might also lead her to participate differently in the conversation by being able to listen more fully and respond at the end of someone else’s thought. In any case, she now has a tool to help her inhibit the urge to insert herself when she feels uncomfortable.

A third student has decided it is time to be more present in her communications, so she must stop shrinking back and trying to disappear. This shrinkage physically manifests for her in the form of pulling her chin back in a retreating fashion, thereby cutting off her neck and throat from the rest of her body. This also restricts her breathing. She agrees that she needs to inhibit the urge to shrink away from situations, to stay with whatever is going on both physically and emotionally and see what happens. Continuing to breathe is important here too. She will notice that the urge to pull back probably coincides with a change in the breathing. With this awareness, she can make a conscious choice as to how to proceed.

In all of these cases it will take attention and inhibition to change the habit. It will take conscious thought to catch the familiar response before it happens and not to fall back into the familiar reaction, or to recognize when one has already started that reaction and then make the decision to change course in the middle of the situation.

As you change patterns and enter new unfamiliar territory you will have different sensations that lead to new understandings. Take the time to respond in new ways to familiar stimuli. Allow yourself to pause and inhibit your old patterns of response and behavior.

When I talk with people about stopping a habit, they often get very concerned about what they are “going to do” instead of their normal response. They often feel they have to actively “do” something else. Often the appropriate thing to “do “ is to wait a moment and “not do” anything and see what happens! See what possibilities open up with the new choices.

When we don’t react in our habitual way, the mind and body are allowed to register what is really happening. Then we often find that choices are available that have never before occurred to us.

The bottom line is that to enact changes, something has to be different. In order for something to be different, one has to inhibit one’s response somewhere along the line. One can then have a different experience. Once you identify what needs to change:

· Start paying attention to the moments before you have the response you want to change.

· Direct yourself to stay with your breath and inhibit your normal response.

· See what happens and what options are available to you.

· Choose an appropriate response.

Once you start to play with inhibition, you will become fascinated by how many choices are available to you.

Let me know what happens!

Happy New Year!