Both the Alexander Technique and the Feldenkrais Method lack solid scientific evidence for the vast amount of health benefit claims often touted by websites and enthusiasts. Many of the existing studies were poorly designed and offer mixed results. More research is needed to fully define and understand the physical and psychological effects of these training methods.
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Beth and her family enjoy hiking, kayaking, and exploring national parks. Stay connected with us to get the latest health and fitness news, innovative workouts, healthy recipes and wellness tips. Don't miss out! Save now. Be in a class of your own. Ends soon! Act now. Create your story as an ACE Specialist. Limited time! Talk with an Advisor. Exercise Science. It creates the possibility for new perception. In teaching a person to be able to use themselves well, as we do in the Alexander Technique, incompletions in a person's developmental learning may be completed.
It is not, however, the same as working with these stages. The process is just as valuable as the end product and forms a foundation for the structure, shape, flexibility and predisposition of the person.
Consider crawling and the development of manual dexterity. Before a child crawls it grasps things using the fingers in a very undifferentiated manner. As it crawls, placing the hand on the floor and then moving forward, a pressure is placed on the palm and fingers. The child learns to absorb this pressure through the whole body and then push against it to assist propulsion.
As this happens the child looks to the next hand or the object to be touched. The re-organisation of the body weight on, and then off, the palm and fingers is co-ordinated with the movement of the eyes away. This is easily reversed to create the ability to move the fingers in a wide variety of directions of movement, the greater the range of pressures and exertions experienced, the greater the dexterity.
I have found that, by exploring a wide range of movements, and applying Alexander's principles to how I do it, has given me an enormous amount of freedom. It is a way of systematically exploring all directions of movement. Inhibited anti-gravity reflexes and unnecessarily contracted flexors, particularly at either end of the ribcage and around the genitals, are a norm within our society. We can learn to let go of a lot of it using the Alexander Technique, but this usually comes with hardness in the ribcage and restriction of movement in the pelvis from the standpoint of what is anatomically possible unless one does a lot of work.
Working through the developmental sequence, learning to come up and down from the floor in all possible directions and exploring the range of movements we did as infants, can produce the softness and flexibility I am speaking about. It is very important to do this again as the proportional relationships of body parts of an adult to a child are reversed. A toddler's head is much bigger relative to Its body than an adult's and an adult's limbs are much bigger relative to its torso than a child's.
The anti-gravity problems the child solves are different to the ones encountered by the adult. It is my view that to really free ourselves from the fear of falling, to be truly poised, we have to learn to get up and down from the floor in any direction without any falling or loss of control; we need to be able to lift our own body weight using our arms and to be able to fall without Interfering with our primary control.
Feldenkrais devised thousands of different ATM. There is a wealth of movements Alexander teachers can work with to improve a person's use. I could never understand why sitting, standing or walking are any different an activity to rolling onto our side or coming to sit from lying on the floor or any other movements. As long as the end itself is of secondary importance to the means. Working with Alexander's principles in new for the students contexts produces new possibilities of movement as well as the benefits of improved use.
Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais Method combine very well and some people need to work with both in order to solve their difficulties. I had a student of 63 years who had a broken hip and a history of bronchiectasis. She had had about two years of Alexander lessons and had done very well. She kept long and wide and was able to relieve many of her symptoms. However, with the passage of time her pain increased and she became very restricted in what she could do.
Car travel, walks, most household jobs became too painful. Her family watched in sadness as over the next couple of years she deteriorated and her spirits began to sink. She decided to have Alexander lessons again and came to me. In working with her I could sense that she had learnt well. She lengthened and this once again relieved her symptoms, but I could also see that this wasn't going to be enough for her to be able to look after her own use, and restore her previous level of functioning.
She was very frail, fragile and frightened to move because the pain lasted for so long afterwards. I could see how rigid her spine, chest and hips were. She had learnt to breathe well and to soften her torso as a unit. But it was virtually impossible for her to bend because fear of the pain prevented her. So by taking her through a developmental sequence giving her experiences of rotation that didn't cause much movement in her hip, she was able to gain confidence and experiment a bit. There were many movements she had forgotten about and her body had become rigid in their absence.
Very often pain is associated not with areas of the body but movement patterns. This knowledge is used all the time in the Feldenkrais Method. When I worked on Phoebe's legs on the table it caused a great deal of pain. However, she could go from standing to sitting without pain, so I was suspicious. I decided to teach her to be able to get up and down from the floor.
Imagine how difficult housework is without being to do this I used chairs and cushions to change the height of the floor so we could get down there in stages. She was able to do this in a few sessions and even though the movement in her hips was far greater than when I worked with her on the table, it wasn't associated with a painful movement pattern and so didn't cause pain.
Later, showing her what she'd done enabled me to be able to recreate the hip movements on the table without pain. Once Phoebe had learnt to get on and off the floor we began to explore rolling, and specific directions of movement, that allowed her to be more agile.
For instance, she was not able to bend down to put on her shoes and socks. She could only think of bending forward as was her previous habit which was associated with pain. By learning to bend sideways this became a possibility. Once she realised she could also lift her foot backwards and sideways it even became graceful.
Over a period of months we worked in this manner, periodically coming back to Alexander Technique to include the new functional awareness within her concept of direction.
She was now able to get out for walks and do a lot more. Her spirits were really lifting. She told me one day that her parents were very strict. When she visited other people's homes her parents had told her not to look around as it was rude! Phoebe was a good girl and had obeyed and this unobtrusiveness had continued through her life. I could sense that the lack of permission to sense her environment had a lot to do with the lack of permission to sense herself.
I began to do ATM's relating to the eyes and other senses as well as getting her to snoop around in my home while keeping her neck free. It was liberating! At the same time I realised she hadn't had the opportunity for real joy in her body for a long time.
I began to do standing ATM lessons to gentle samba music. She had always wanted to dance but was never really able to do it. This was tremendously effective. She came back next week having been dancing at home all week.
It was now a lot easier to travel in the car and she'd improved a great deal. She was later able to attend her daughter's wedding, dance and really enjoy herself.
This year she went off to the Northern Territory for a holiday. Phoebe has a rich repertoire of direction, inhibition and movement exploration to take care of herself and enrich her participation in life. In working with people I find out what it is they do and want to do and show them how to use primary control, inhibition and direction. I help them learn to move in all the directions necessary for them to achieve everything they need to do.
For instance, rowers need to be able to sit on the floor with their legs extended. They need to be able to pull an oar and extend their legs with maximum power whilst maintaining Primary Control. Gardeners need to be mobile and poised in kneeling and squatting and to understand how to align and organise themselves for pushing, pulling and lifting. I have found that my perception of my own, and other people's, twists and curves, and my knowledge of how we move, has really been enriched by my involvement with Feldenkrais.
It is a wonderful resource that has enabled me to be able to get into areas and access directions of movement that would have taken ages to discover just using the Alexander Technique. Alexander teacher training requires over hours over three years before certification.
A Feldenkrais practitioner requires over hours over three years. Mark MarkJosefsberg. The Alexander Technique Vs. Previous Next. Feldenkrais The Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais are related modalities. Join in! Have you experienced the Alexander Technique and the Feldenkrais Method?
What stands out as important similarities or differences? Facebook Twitter Email. About the Author: Mark Josefsberg. Mark has maintained a full-time Alexander Technique teaching practice in New York City and online since his national certification in He teaches online group classes and private lessons.
Schedule a zoom class with Mark to see what the Alexander Technique can do for you. Related Posts. August 15th, 0 Comments. January 15th, 0 Comments.
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