The Alexander Technique - A Unique Perspective on Fitness
Sometimes I'm asked: "How does the Alexander Technique approach to physical wellbeing differ from other methods? Is there something unique about it?"
I firmly believe the Technique is indeed unique in a number of ways. A recent article in my local newspaper's health section provided a wonderful opportunity to illustrate some of these. The article described a new method of corrective walking that combines elements of physical therapy and yoga.
The first part of the article could well have been an introduction to the Alexander Technique. It pointed out that harmful walking habits can develop for a number of reasons. Two very common examples: injuries and the ways we adapt to them, and the unconscious imitation of our parents' bad habits when we were small children.
The article went on to point out that one harmful walking habit can lead to a string of compensations that affect the entire body. These habits, if allowed to persist, can strain muscles and joints, damage that is compounded with each step. Even a minor mis-allignment, repeated countless times, can eventually lead to chronic pain in the back, neck, shoulders, hips, knees and ankles.
All of this is completely in line with the way Alexander Technique teachers think about these kinds of issues.
The article then went on to describe the ways in which this particular corrective walking method was used for a man whose walking had become so severely distorted that he had suffered debilitating back pain for several years. The man was instructed, among other things, to pull his heels out so that his feet were pointing outward at 15 degree angle instead of their habitual 30 degrees, to tighten his ankles, to plant his feet as wide apart as his hips and to rotate his hips with each step.
Each of these instructions were designed to correct a specific fault. At first glance they seem to constitute a reasonable approach. But from an Alexander Technique perspective they make no sense at all.
First, the number of specific faults identified was so great that correcting them all at the same time would quickly overwhelm anybody's ability to handle that much data. To be thinking about changing half a dozen or more movements while you're walking is just about impossible for most people. It certainly doesn't leave much attention left for anything else - like making sure you don't get hit by a car as you cross the street!
Second, it's quite likely that this program will cause him to develop an array of conflicting habits - his old ones at war with the new, learned, ones. Imagine the problems that will arise when, inevitably, some of the new habits "win" their localized battles while others give way to his old habits. Crating a shifting battlefield of the body is no way to achieve physical harmony.
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