The Alexander Technique and Tai Chi
It is interesting that no one ever says "I am tightening my neck," but instead "my neck is tight." Who do you suppose is tightening it?
It is possible to begin to notice that habitual tightening, and to prevent it. This is often felt as if your head is being lifted or is floating. What has really happened is that the release of tension in the neck has allowed the head to move more freely. And since muscular tension blocks the flow of chi, releasing tension in the neck allows "the chi to rise to your head top."
Please note carefully the order of this process. Releasing downward pressure in our necks results in a feeling of free movement. Attempting to achieve the same result by imagining your head to float, or be lifted, is really putting things in reverse order. We can only feel something after it has happened, so attempting to imagine a feeling only tempts us to tighten our necks in a different way to create a different feeling. Careful observation of this relationship between your head and body, and its redirection, is the center point of any Alexander Lesson. Alexander realized that this relationship is the beginning of all habitual movement, and that becoming conscious of it, and changing it by subtle redirection, is the key to becoming more conscious in all our activities. It is the key to releasing tension throughout our bodies - tensions that are associated with our habitual way of moving.
"Pluck up the back and hollow the chest"
This principle of Tai Chi is sometimes expressed as "depress" or "sink" the chest. I think what these suggestions are getting at is the almost universal pattern of tightening the muscles of our backs to "stand up straight," which in turn causes our chests to lift or project forward. Interestingly Alexander approaches this pattern with the suggestion for "my back to lengthen and widen." These directions are aimed at undoing the pattern of over-tightened back muscles, which narrow and shorten it. The idea of "hollowing" the chest is more subtle. A friend who has studied ancient Chinese once explained that the character for hollow indicates something like a hollow log. That is, our chest should be hollow from the inside, not depressed downwards from the outside. This then is a direction that directs our attention to an opened chest, one that is free to move to support respiration,
Latest Articles