The Alexander Technique and Tai Chi
© Stacy Gehman
Tai Chi Chuan is noted for its graceful beauty and subtle power. Its practice requires an attention that is both inwardly focused and directed outward to all that surrounds us. It is the realization of the Taoist practice of doing through non-doing. As such, learning Tai Chi presents the student with apparent paradox overlying paradox. Its subtlety is a promise and a fascination.
Many of the principles of Tai Chi Chuan are similar to those of the Alexander Technique, discovered by F.M. Alexander over 100 years ago. If the principles of each were the same, there would, of course, be no reason to study both of them. The Alexander work brings students' attention to their habitual ways of using themselves, and teaches a process by which any activity can be approached with conscious awareness of those habits and the alternatives. Tai Chi presents its practitioners with fascinating challenges in movement and attention, challenges that ask us to fundamentally change our habitual way of being. The Alexander work is a very powerful tool helping us to make those changes.
The Alexander work may even be more Taoist than Tai Chi. It has no form, no exercises to do, not even a set, prescribed process. As my teacher, Marjorie Barstow liked to say, "It's just a little bit of nothing." However that "nothing" is a clarity of attention that allows you to make profound changes in the way you interact with the world--in how you do what you do, even in what you perceive.
In the following paragraphs I will present some thoughts on a few basic Tai Chi principles as I have grown to understand them from the perspective of the Alexander Technique. I hope that this presentation will not be construed as a criticism of Tai Chi, or as implying that Tai Chi has shortcomings. What I hope is that if you find this perspective interesting, and follow up by taking Alexander Technique lessons, that it will help you understand what your Tai Chi instructor may have been trying to tell you all along. Tai Chi is a subtle art, and I think we need all the help we can get in learning it.
"Let the chi rise to your head top"
I have heard this principle expressed in various ways, for example, "move as if suspended from above," or "imagine a string tied to the top of your head." I think all of these are ways of expressing a particular experience in movement. They also point to the basic principle of movement discovered by Alexander. In his work he noticed that we all have one habit in common, although manifested in many different ways. In particular he noticed that in beginning a movement, we tend to tighten our necks, which pulls our heads down. This habit of movement is so small and so familiar that almost no one ever notices it, although almost everyone at one time or another complains of a tight neck.
