Natural Poise
and the Alexander Technique
Babies and small children don’t need the Alexander Technique – they are naturally poised, straight-backed, their heads, necks and spines in perfect alignment, and moving freely and easily, whether they are walking, sitting, running or playing.
In some cultures, this continues into adulthood: throughout Africa and Asia, native women walk long distances daily carrying heavy water pots and other loads on their heads, frequently in extreme temperatures, up and down hills, often over difficult terrain, yet showing little signs of fatigue. Their posture is upright, they are perfectly balanced, heads erect, moving gracefully and seemingly effortlessly – of course they don’t know it, but they too are in fact employing the basic elements of the Alexander Technique.*
But in the Western world, as children grow older, most of them will develop bad habits in the way they perform everyday actions: they sit hunched over a desk or slouching at a computer, straining when lifting objects, and later tensing to grip the steering wheel of a car, or even bending to pick up a fallen tissue, and stooping, heads thrust forward, as they walk or even while waiting for a train, and probably breathing inefficiently. And, the older they get, the more this behaviour intensifies and becomes ingrained, until it becomes literally second nature.
Maintaining bad posture and muscular tension is hard work: the human head alone weighs four or five kilos, say ten or twelve pounds. That’s the weight of a bucket of water, or a heavy bag of shopping. It’s nearly a stone, and represents about 8% of the average whole body mass, and if it’s carried awkwardly, instead of being balanced naturally on neck and spine, a lot of wasted effort is being used, sixteen hours a day, every day And that’s just the head, never mind the rest of the body!
The practical application of the Alexander Technique is to help unlearn the bad postural and other habits acquired over the years, and to rectify the causes of many ailments, including back pain, repetitive strain injury (RSI), neck pain, and stress, and their harmful consequences to general health and well-being.
It teaches that by exercising primary control via the head, neck and spine, an individual can direct his or her actions to not only rectify specific disorders, but to open up new possibilities affecting their entire existence.
In some cultures, this continues into adulthood: throughout Africa and Asia, native women walk long distances daily carrying heavy water pots and other loads on their heads, frequently in extreme temperatures, up and down hills, often over difficult terrain, yet showing little signs of fatigue. Their posture is upright, they are perfectly balanced, heads erect, moving gracefully and seemingly effortlessly – of course they don’t know it, but they too are in fact employing the basic elements of the Alexander Technique.*
But in the Western world, as children grow older, most of them will develop bad habits in the way they perform everyday actions: they sit hunched over a desk or slouching at a computer, straining when lifting objects, and later tensing to grip the steering wheel of a car, or even bending to pick up a fallen tissue, and stooping, heads thrust forward, as they walk or even while waiting for a train, and probably breathing inefficiently. And, the older they get, the more this behaviour intensifies and becomes ingrained, until it becomes literally second nature.
Maintaining bad posture and muscular tension is hard work: the human head alone weighs four or five kilos, say ten or twelve pounds. That’s the weight of a bucket of water, or a heavy bag of shopping. It’s nearly a stone, and represents about 8% of the average whole body mass, and if it’s carried awkwardly, instead of being balanced naturally on neck and spine, a lot of wasted effort is being used, sixteen hours a day, every day And that’s just the head, never mind the rest of the body!
The practical application of the Alexander Technique is to help unlearn the bad postural and other habits acquired over the years, and to rectify the causes of many ailments, including back pain, repetitive strain injury (RSI), neck pain, and stress, and their harmful consequences to general health and well-being.
It teaches that by exercising primary control via the head, neck and spine, an individual can direct his or her actions to not only rectify specific disorders, but to open up new possibilities affecting their entire existence.
* An article entitled Walk like an African by Peta Bee appeared in The Times on March 26, 2002, asking ‘how is that women from some African tribes can walk for miles bearing loads of up to 65lb on their heads, while the majority of people in the Western world struggle to shuffle their body weight from the car park to the office?’
It describes the work of scientists who studied women from Kenyan tribes with energy-efficient and posturally perfect gaits that enabled them to walk up to eight hours a day, carrying up to 20 per cent of their own body weight on their heads almost effortlessly, ‘without a blip in their oxygen usage.’
This compares to a control group of Europeans who were asked to walk on a treadmill wearing helmets containing relatively light weights of lead, who used more energy and oxygen as well as having higher heart rates, and were forced to breathe more deeply from the start.
The scientists established that the African women controlled their body mass differently to Europeans for each step, and by only a slight alteration in their gait, they ‘maintain an upright posture, keep their upper body relatively still and move forward more easily.’ They point out that the difference is in fact very slight, and that other people could be trained to do the same thing.
The report notes that such training is found in the Alexander Technique, and a senior research fellow at the University of Southampton, Dr George Lewith, conducted a study [in which I participated L.R.] into ways in which the technique is applied to produce results similar to the African method of walking and breathing by learning how to loosen the neck so that the head extends forward as in the case of the African women. ‘This promotes a natural lengthening of the spine, which releases muscles and joints so that body alignment is improved. When walking it translates into freer movement of the limbs and an ability to breathe more easily,’ says the report.
The article can be read in full online by logging onto Guildford Library, then click onto ‘Online Reference Shelf’, then ‘NewsUK’, then ‘View Issue’, click on ‘The Times/The Sunday Times’, select Issue date 26 March 2002, click on ‘Search’, then scroll down the alphabetical list of articles to ‘Walk like an African’.
It describes the work of scientists who studied women from Kenyan tribes with energy-efficient and posturally perfect gaits that enabled them to walk up to eight hours a day, carrying up to 20 per cent of their own body weight on their heads almost effortlessly, ‘without a blip in their oxygen usage.’
This compares to a control group of Europeans who were asked to walk on a treadmill wearing helmets containing relatively light weights of lead, who used more energy and oxygen as well as having higher heart rates, and were forced to breathe more deeply from the start.
The scientists established that the African women controlled their body mass differently to Europeans for each step, and by only a slight alteration in their gait, they ‘maintain an upright posture, keep their upper body relatively still and move forward more easily.’ They point out that the difference is in fact very slight, and that other people could be trained to do the same thing.
The report notes that such training is found in the Alexander Technique, and a senior research fellow at the University of Southampton, Dr George Lewith, conducted a study [in which I participated L.R.] into ways in which the technique is applied to produce results similar to the African method of walking and breathing by learning how to loosen the neck so that the head extends forward as in the case of the African women. ‘This promotes a natural lengthening of the spine, which releases muscles and joints so that body alignment is improved. When walking it translates into freer movement of the limbs and an ability to breathe more easily,’ says the report.
The article can be read in full online by logging onto Guildford Library, then click onto ‘Online Reference Shelf’, then ‘NewsUK’, then ‘View Issue’, click on ‘The Times/The Sunday Times’, select Issue date 26 March 2002, click on ‘Search’, then scroll down the alphabetical list of articles to ‘Walk like an African’.