Freedom to Be
The Alexander Technique (AT) affords us the opportunity to live and move
from “a place of possibility”[1]
- to inhabit a way of being in the world which is not attached to the person we
learnt to be while
growing up. It teaches us to become aware of ourselves in movement, to see
where habitual tightening and over-tensioning in our body-mind is reducing our
capacity to live and respond to life with ease and flexibility.
In a workshop last year using the Neutral Mask (from the world of
actors) and the mirror, long-experienced AT Teachers enabled me to become aware
of the reality of one of my deeply embodied habits. As I stood in front of the
mirror with the mask on what I saw in myself was a deep sadness, which I saw created
a slight dropping along my front body and tightening into my centre. I cannot
say exactly where or what this sadness relates to but rather that as soon as I
saw the masks lying on the table at the beginning of the session this is what I
saw. With the mask on myself, here it was embodied within me in a subtle but
noticeable way. As an Alexander Teacher myself my more compressive habits of
thinking and moving have largely been overcome such that the daily, deep
pain I was living with 8 years ago has to a large extent gone.
As I silently observed myself my mentor and teacher asked a simple,
rhetorical question, “Is this what you want?” This simple question elicited an
immediate new experience – the word “power” came to me and I saw my body and
self opening out into a more expansive and supported structure. I felt clearer
and fuller. I was then asked to turn to be with my fellow workshop participants
and just to see them seeing me. I felt calm and present – nothing to do, no-one
to be but me. I later stood barefaced again in front of my fellow AT teachers
and trainees, centred, expansive and supported by the earth, by my ‘self’ and by
the community I am part of.
The journey of the Alexander Technique as with my experience with the
mask allows each person to see postural patterns, to find the still point within, to calm fear
reflexes and discover a state where insight, new responses and freedom are possible.
[1] Eveleigh, J: https://federation.edu.au/faculties-and-schools/faculty-of-education-and-arts/staff-profiles/arts-academy/administrative-staff/julianne-eveleigh
There's so much beauty and possibility in what you've written. It oozes that gentle generous calming space that is you :)
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