Get To Know Your Body Better Thanks To The Alexander Technique

For a long time I suffered from a lot of pain, especially in the back and neck. My back, as defined by a friend, was “a minefield.” If someone touched it, wherever it was, I would jump in pain … I went to therapists, masseurs and countless professionals, until someone recommended the Alexander technique to me . I didn’t know anything about her and, a little blindly, I went to a teacher.

In my first class I was surprised by the warmth of the teacher’s hands. They invited me to relax, friendly, calm. It seemed that, little by little, subtly, they were guiding my body towards an unknown, but comfortable place.

My back and shoulders relaxed, widened, my neck loosened and lengthened, my legs and hips felt looser and I could move more lightly and almost effortlessly … I felt like floating, more grounded and serene, like if they had given me an internal massage. .. And the most surprising thing was that my pain also began to subside.

A learning path to heal the body

I had already received conventional massages and other techniques to alleviate my problems, but this touch, this heat, this pleasant sensation that relaxed me so much I had never felt before. “ What do you do with your hands?” I asked the teacher. “I don’t do anything,” he replied.

In our culture, adding, adding, putting energy into our activities, being competitive, is highly regarded, even rewarded. If you have to improve, you must add, you must use more energy, run more, do more … Nobody asks you to “undo”, to remove, to let go of any excess weight.

The peace of “now”

Ours is a philosophy based on achieving objectives without paying too much attention to the means necessary to achieve them. More directed towards the end, towards the future, than towards the media, towards the path, towards the now… For something they say that the past leads to depression, that the future leads to anxiety and the present, the “now”, leads to peace.

Without being very aware of it, you create tensions that manifest themselves in many ways : sometimes with pain, sometimes because you adopt bad postures, and other times because you are more irritated than usual, more tired, more distracted, stressed.

When this happens, you sense that something is wrong, because the body has been warning you for a long time, but you did not know how to interpret its signals well, you did not know how to listen, even if it was telling you or even “shouting”.

Help yourself

My hands – the teacher who introduced me to the Alexander technique told me – help you to be attentive to you, the most important person in the world, and to your “now”. They teach you to learn how to listen and observe your body, how to redirect it to know when you are harming it and when you are not …

You learn to help yourself, you learn how to be better.

The Alexander Technique is a pedagogical tool. The professionals of this technique are teachers, not therapists. This is very important and must be taken into account.

We teach students to have a more real perception of what they do with their body, to notice when they tense or relax it, if the energy flows or is blocked … It is a pedagogical tool, but with therapeutic results.

“Drive” the body

Imagine that the body is your vehicle (obviously it is much more, it has sensations, feelings, it is alive … Take the example simply as a simile). Doctors, physiotherapists, masseurs, osteopaths … would be the mechanics of the body. And the Alexander Technique teachers would be, rather, the driving teachers.

You have pain, for example, in your knees and you go to the office. The therapist makes a diagnosis and tries to take the pain away. The Alexander Technique teacher is not trying to remove any symptoms, he is not trying to fix your car, he is not prepared for it. The teacher teaches you to drive your vehicle better.

He tells you, for example: “Look, you are driving the car too fast and when cornering the wheels wear out excessively and, furthermore, you drive with the handbrake on … No wonder the brake pads and wheels They are so worn and they hurt. “

Treat the body well

This process of getting to know your body better, of learning to treat it better, with more affection, leads to alleviating that discomfort caused by excess tension and, often, the pains that accompany it, disappear. Although, I repeat, the purpose of the teacher is not “to cure”, but to “educate”.

The Alexander technique –developed more than a hundred years ago by the Australian actor Frederick M. Alexander– reveals the possibility of regaining the ease and coordination that we have lost, and returning to the path of health, never to lose it again.

Because, at the end of the day, it is a real pleasure to be inside your body and enjoy it, really … And for that, you just have to know your body a little better.