Alexander Technique Berlin

Alexander Work

In everything you do, body and mind are inseparable connected. With the Alexander Technique you can become more conscious of this connection, “tune-up” your kinesthetic sense and use your whole self more harmoniously. Becoming aware of excessive tensions – that have been formed as unconscious habits – and gradually releasing them is part of the process. This opens up the possibility of letting go and experiencing what F.M. Alexander called “the right thing will do itself”. A particular quality of calmness and harmony can then form the basis for your activities. AT skills can be incorporated directly into artistic activities, decision making or practices such as yoga, dancing, meditation, sports etc. The Alexander Technique can be an independent path in the sense of a Dao, but it can also be combined very well with other methods and support them significantly, e.g. to find an easier access to the present moment.

How is it different from other approaches?

We are all familiar with exercises and methods that help us feel better. However, many of them only work if we keep doing them over and over. When we stop exercising, the effects disappear and no lasting change has occurred. Alexander offers a technique that is not about exercises, but about a body-mind process of change and integration. It’s about how we do things, how we move, how we think and how we relate to ourselves and life. And how delicate this interplay of body and mind is and can be. Once your whole being – mind, body, nervous system etc. starts adapting and integrating the Alexander process, an inner quality grows and you will be able to approach and perform what you do with more confidence, ease and joy.

AT Science’s Definition

The Alexander Technique (AT) is an approach to changing habits related to posture, muscle tension, movement, attention and responsiveness. The AT describes a set of principles and techniques that can be taught in individual or group sessions and/or practiced alone. The approach was developed by Frederick Matthias Alexander in the first half of the 20th century, and is considered one of the first to be passed on to other teachers beginning in the 1930s and further developed since Alexander’s death in 1955.

The Alexander Technique is rarely about repetitive exercises or learning complex movement sequences, such as those taught in Tai Chi, yoga, or Pilates. Rather, the goal is to consciously intervene in habitual neurological patterns. Sessions and home practice typically use a range of everyday movements, such as walking, squatting, lunging, bending, stretching, alternating between sitting and standing, and toe standing.

Good postural habits involve freedom of movement, head posture, trunk mobility and alignment, stability with minimal contraction, focusing on trunk stability in movement.

It is observed that improved coordination and postural habits are directly related to improved attention, responsiveness and breathing. AT work is therefore called “psychophysical” – on the one hand, because a change in postural habits has a noticeable positive effect on cognitive and psychological patterns and processes, and on the other hand, because in AT we work with mental instructions, so-called directives, which then manifest themselves in the body.

All these positive effects together are called in AT jargon promotion of “good use”.