Alexander Technique and the Force of Habit

To start working with the Alexander Technique, one first has to recognize that most of one’s activities are influenced by the force of habit. This means being conscious of its presence in any movement of daily life.

So, what is the force of habit? One can say that most of our life is controlled by habitual patterns of behavior and thinking. What we have become use to since our earlier days, we repeat automatically all our lives. If we are used to learning we become intellectual, and if we are used to working, we become working people. If we have grown up in a certain culture, we become dependant on it, and our way of thinking with our preconceptions is conditioned by it. One can say that civilization is a system of habitual patterns and preconceptions.

So, this force of habit is a essential force which helps our functioning and surviving. But we also pay a heavy prize for it. If life is changing, as it always is, we find it very difficult, if not impossible, to change accordingly our habitual patterns of behavior. Habit denies us many possibilities in our lives. Habit controls our views of reality, disturbs it, or even prevents us seeing it clearly. Realty itself becomes unreachable. A split exists between our reality and us. We cannot change ourselves when it is needed. We live just a little part of our potential; we live in our habitual island. The whole is untouchable.

F.M. Alexander, who developed this technique, discovered that this split is rooted in our existence. It is perceivable first of all in the way we are using ourselves, and furthermore it is the source of our splitting of “Body” and “Mind”. As Alexander discovered, both body and mind take part in all our activities, but we separate them habitually, without even knowing that we are doing so. This habit makes it impossible for us to see how we are really using ourselves.

The question about the force of habit has been asked in many ways since Man started thinking. We can say that always Man has searched his way out of his narrow views created by his habitual patterns towards something wider, struggling against his shortcoming caused by familiar understandings.

Alexander’s discoveries of are some more steps in this search. When a student of the Alexander Technique finds what Alexander called “conscious control”, he find the link between his body and mind, and has more chance to see himself as a whole.

The split we create habitually in ourselves between body and mind is the source of many illnesses and shortcomings. Strengthening the mind-body link has a positive effect on our health and our quality of life. It is essential to all activities dedicated to self-development and education.

Non-Doing

The state of non-doing in the use of oneself can be compared to the neutral state in driving a car. Without neutral and the clutch there can’t be gear changing and the car looses the flexibility of its functioning. Most of us, in our habitual use of ourselves, are like a car stuck in one gear. Learning “non-doing”, we learn to create more and more space for the “neutral” state in our body, making more flexibility possible.

In non-doing we reduce our habitual tensions to the minimum and explore what is there, in us that just exists, our basic force of life, and we can let it work in us more freely.

Alexander Technique and Health

Reducing the influence of the force of habit on the way we are using ourselves, and letting our body function according to its natural flow, has an enormous effect on our health.

One can overcome and prevent many kinds of pain: pains in the back and the neck, arms and legs, ixias, lumbago, migraine, and others which are caused by damage in the spine. One finds significant relief from asthma, high blood pressure, problems of the digestive system and more.

Generally, one refreshes oneself and finds one’s natural flexibility and vitality, thus slowing down the process of aging.

All this and more: One’s mental state finds significant improvement and one becomes stronger and happier.

Alexander Technique and performing artists

Artists who perform are usually among the first to recognize the limits created by the habitual misuse of themselves, which disturbs their performance. Many of them are looking for a discipline to refine their mobility and to help them in perfecting their art. Not like many others who start looking for help when they are already sick, these artists come to work with the Alexander technique before illness appears. In the Alexander Technique Teacher Training School in Berlin there are a number of musicians, actors, dancers and singers. Here they are working to develop a conscious control on the use of themselves.

The Alexander technique is mainly a preventative work, applicable to anyone wishing to minimize his or her decline of health. But few really look for such work before the onset of suffering from disease. Everyone can improve him or herself with this technique. Artists have their art, which forces them to look for such an improvement earlier.

Dan Armon, 2002