children Archives - Activate You

Avoiding the ow: know what you’ve got (and how to use it)!

I want to tell you a story about me and my son going for a run together, because it so neatly explains how just a little knowledge about how the body works can make a big difference to your experience of moving.

So. My son and I went out for a run around our local park. The perimeter is about 2km (a little over a mile), so not too taxing even for a nearly nine year old.

About two thirds of the way round, my son said his right shoulder was starting to ache. Now neither he nor I could say we are experienced runners, but even we know that our shoulders shouldn’t be doing most of the work while running!

After checking it was okay with him to do some Alexander Technique work, I ran behind him for a few paces to see what was going on. He was throwing his entire shoulder region all over the place as he ran.

I break my story here to explain some anatomy…

Most people don’t realise that, functionally speaking, they have two shoulder joints: the shoulder girdle, which is formed by the collarbone and shoulderblade; and the glenohumeral joint, which is the ball and socket joint formed by the shoulder blade and the upper arm bone (humerus).

If you’re just moving your arm forwards and backwards, the glenohumeral joint will do the job admirably. You don’t need to waggle the whole shoulder girdle.

Back to the story.

I asked my son to stop, and with a bit of hands-on work I explained to him that he could use his whole shoulder region, but that he had a different shoulder joint that could move his arm back and forth more easily. And when he just move at the ball and socket joint, his arm moved so freely and easily that my son laughed.* And then he started to run.

For the first two paces, the right arm was moving in the new way, and the left arm in the old waggly way. But then he changed his left arm to the new streamlined movement. Not only did he move more gracefully, he moved more easily.

Result: he took off. He flew along. I had to work hard to keep up with him!

Once my son stopped doing the waggly thing with his arm, his shoulder stopped getting sore.** Once he knew which joints did what, his running improved.

What could you improve, if you just knew what muscles and joints you have, and how to use them?

* FM Alexander talks about how children love learning about how their bodies work. He writes: “They are not slow to recognise that they are themselves the most interesting machines, and their natural interest in mechanics finds full scope in the process of their own re-education.” Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual, IRDEAT edition, p.381.

** An important caveat here. If you are experiencing pain or discomfort, SEE A DOCTOR. There may be something physiologic or structural going on that the doctor can sort out. The Alexander Technique is fantastic, but it isn’t medicine, and can’t cure medical conditions.

Image by coward_lion from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Children and (Learned) Stage Fright: a Rant

This is an undisguised rant about stage fright, why our children grow up to be nervous in front of audiences, and why the Alexander Technique is so important.

Recently my son played cello in his first ever school concert. He got excited about a new piece, and though he didn’t know it very well, he decided he wanted to play it instead of the two he’d been practising. Predictibly, he got stuck mid-piece, and I had to murmur hints to help him to the end.

When he sat down, another parent leaned over to him and said in a consoling tone, “It was very brave of you to keep playing. Well done.”

Both he and I fielded many such comments over the next few days. One even said (to me, luckily), “I don’t know how he did it. I would have burst into tears.”

These sound like nice, nurturing, supportive comments, don’t they? So why was my son nonplussed, and why do I feel the urge to rant?

Because they are not supportive comments. And here is why.

These comments come from a very particular world view. If I asked the parents involved, they would probably admit that, in their eyes, having to perform in front of an audience is tantamount to torture. And making a mistake in front of an audience is just about the most awful thing that can happen to you.

But this is just a point of view. It might be common, but that doesn’t make it the only right or normal way to think about performing. How about this for an alternative: there’s an audience of really nice people waiting to hear me play, and I am going to share my favourite music with them. (That was what my son was thinking. I know, because I asked him.)

So which would you rather be thinking as you walked onto the stage: ‘this is torture and I hope I don’t mess up’ or ‘I get to share my fun with all these people’?

The sad thing about the concert was watching all the other children. Many of them were clearly afraid and couldn’t get off the stage fast enough. One girl even burst into tears beforehand and refused to play.

That sort of fear is a learned behaviour. We are not born with a natural fear of performing. We learn it from the people we love and respect.

So… You may be content to live with a fear of speaking or performing in front of strangers. You may be content as you are. Fair enough. But I want to ask you the same thing FM Alexander asked in 1911:

“What of the children?” Are you content to rob them of their inheritance…? Are you willing to send them out into the world ill-equipped, dependent on precepts and incipient habits…? *

Those of us who have any contact at all with children have a tremendous responsibility. The paradigms we live in, the views we hold have the potential to mould their thoughts and actions, for better or worse. In today’s world, a fear of performing or presenting is a serious handicap – one that we would be crazy to want to pass on. For the children’s sake, if not for our own, we seriously need to reconsider our ideas and attitudes about doing stuff in front of an audience. And for me, the work of FM Alexander is a great way to start that process.

*FM Alexander, Man’s Supreme Inheritance, in the Irdeat Complete Edition, p.68.

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Can the Alexander Technique help me be happier?

Today’s post is all about happiness, and why FM Alexander believed that doing his work could make students happier in their daily lives.

At dinner tonight, I told my son that I was expecting a student this evening, even though it is school half-term holiday. He put down his fork and looked at me. “I don’t like it when you have students at night,” he said. “I like it when you have students while I’m here downstairs. Then I get to hear you laughing.”

“You hear me laughing?” I asked.

“Not just you,” he said. “Lessons sound like fun.”

An abundance of laughter is not what students expect when they sign up for Alexander Technique lessons. And sometimes they are surprised when they start having fun. But FM Alexander would not have been surprised at all. In fact, he devoted a whole chapter in his second book to the relationship of his work to happiness: why people experience a lack of happiness, and how doing Alexander’s work can reverse this lack and change it to abundance.

Why we are lacking happiness

FM wrote, “the lack of real happiness manifested by the majority of adults today is due to the fact that they are experiencing, not an improving, but a continually deteriorating use of their psycho-physical selves.”*

In other words, because the majority of us don’t use our bodies as efficiently or appropriately as we could, over time our bodies begin to feel the pinch of our less-than-perfect use of ourselves. We get aches and pains. We suffer irritations of body and mind. Our experiences of happiness become shorter and more fleeting.

FM is suggesting that our difficulties in being happy are a knock-on effect of our general lack of understanding of how to use our bodies and minds most effectively. And if we want to experience greater happiness, we need to attend to the way we use ourselves first.

How to turn lack of happiness to abundance

Alexander’s view is very simple. In order to experience a greater quantity and quality of happiness in our lives, we need to learn the principles of using our minds and bodies more efficiently and effectively.

He writes, “one of the greatest facts in human development is the building up of confidence which comes as the result of that method of learning by which the pupil is put in possession of the correct means whereby he can attain his end before he makes any attempt to gain it.”**

In other words, if we learn Alexander’s principles, if we actually take the time to think about how to use our bodies even in apparently simple acts such as sitting or standing, we can develop not just an intellectual interest, but genuine pleasure. And FM’s picture of happiness, repeated often in the chapter, is that of a healthy child using its body beautifully and naturally in an activity that interests it.

So, to recap, here is FM’s recipe for happiness:

· Happiness (or the lack of it) is a byproduct of how we use our minds and bodies;

· If we want to improve the quality of our happiness, we need to think about how we go about our daily activities, even something as ordinary as sitting;

· If we can control the means whereby we achieve our goals, we will have success. And this leads to that happiness of a child who is fully occupied in something it loves.

And if we think about these things, then my son – and all our children – will delight in hearing us laugh more often. And wouldn’t that be a great world to be a part of?

*FM Alexander, Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual in the Irdeat Complete Edition, p.382.
** ibid., p.387, p.388.

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Do children benefit from Alexander Technique?

When children and Alexander Technique are mentioned together in the same sentence, it is usually in something like this form: “Children don’t really need Alexander Technique, do they? I mean, when you look at little children, they just move so smoothly and gracefully…”

Well, yes. But…

What about the times when they just don’t? Can the Alexander Technique help children?

Why children move well… or not.

FM Alexander was, from the first, profoundly convinced of the importance of his work to children. And as he pointed out in his first book in 1910, children are born with tremendous potential, a potential that we as parents, educators, friends etc. begin to shape almost from the very first day of life. A baby is born with everything it needs to move freely and easily; it is born with an intelligence that soaks up information and impressions insatiably.

Some of what our children take in, we can control; some of it is beyond our intervention. But everything that our children see or do makes an impression. Sometimes the impression made is positive; sometimes it is not. And we parents and educators form the primary source of information and instruction for our children. Whether through imitation or through overt instruction, our children learn what to think, how to think, and how to move through us. And we all, of course, move perfectly, think logically and exhibit open-mindedness at all times…

Hm.

This is why FM Alexander was so concerned about children. This is why he wished to teach children his work: so that they would have a framework of principles and tools that would help them learn how to think and how to move. Alexander wished to prevent our children from suffering the same problems that we adults experience.

Children and the Alexander Technique

FM Alexander taught children. In fact, they seem to be mentioned quite often in his work. The youngest that I can recall seeing at this moment was 3 1/2.* He even opened a school, first in England, then in the USA (it evacuated there during World War 2) because he was convinced that education of children was the key to his dream: “I look for a time when the child shall be so taught and trained that whatever the circumstance… it will without effort be ble to adapt itself to its environment, and be enabled to live its life in the enjoyment of perfect health, physical and mental.”**

My own story

My son is seven. He had his first proper Alexander lesson (not from me!) when he was 4 1/2. He loved it, and it made a big difference to the constant arching in his upper back that was causing problems with his flexibility.

He has watched students coming in and out of the house for years now. And just recently, he asked about why they came. So I told him a story about how sometimes people can’t do the things they love to do as well as they’d like, because they seem to get in their own way. And I gave him an example that he could relate to (from memory, about moving arms while swimming). And he asked me for a lesson.

The lesson was duly given, changes happened, and my son’s interest was piqued. He demanded another lesson the next day. And the day after that, he wanted to know about where his head stopped and his neck started. So we got out the anatomy books. Just as Alexander predicted in his second book, my son was hooked.***

Recommendations

I think Alexander Technique lessons are great for kids. My son has benefited, and I have seen big changes in other children that I have taught. So if you want to investigate this for your child, go right ahead!Just keep in mind the following things:

Look for a teacher who is happy to teach kids, or who has experience of doing so;
Make sure they have some sort of Child Protection training. In the UK, make sure they have a CRB Disclosure;
Expect them to ask you to stay in the room, and probably to join in!

Our children are the most precious asset we have. It is our responsibility to give them the very best tools possible for navigating their future lives. And I strongly believe that the Alexander Technique is probably the best tool around for the job.

*FM Alexander, Man’s Supreme Inheritance in the Irdeat Complete Edition, p.82.
** ibid., p.93.
***FM Alexander, Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual in the Irdeat Edition, p.381.
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