I ran a 3 hour workshop recently on ‘Yoga and the Alexander technique’. It was an introductory workshop aimed at people who had some yoga experience and wanted to find out more about the Alexander technique.
There were 5 people who came to the workshop from different backgrounds. Some were teaching yoga, others did yoga on an occasional basis.
Head / spine relationship
I decided to focus on head / spine integration as a way of integrating Alexander technique into yoga. It was an exploration of head leading the movement and the rest of the body following.
We did some very nice explorations of head neck where we did it in 3s, one person a head, another a neck and another a body. Then we tried to figure out how that person would move if their necks were totally relaxed. Or how they would move if their bodies were desperately trying to be a good yogi.
We did some very simple sun salutations seeing what came about when we allowed our heads to lead and our whole bodies to follow. There were lots of experiments, letting go of some perfect outcome.
We did some work in pairs during the sun salutation in finding a more neutral pelvis and tail. I used Robyn Avalon’s idea of finding a dinosaur tail rather than a dog tail (pelvis forward, tail tucked in) or a duck tail (pelvis back, tail pushing out). I gave the students some ideas about letting the pelvis float relative to the head of the femurs – most of the people I work with tend to lock their pelvis down on their legs. It was interesting for me that there was one person in the workshop who was already letting their pelvis float on their femurs, but was doing it too much. It was a good reminder that images and cues are always individual, what works for one doesn’t work for another.
We ended the asana practice with a supported restorative twist.
Alexander and yoga in everyday life
Then we did a section where everyone thought about something that was tricky for them in daily life. I used an idea from Jeremy Chance of asking people to think through their normal day and pick something. I also said that if they wanted to work on a yoga pose, that was really good too.
We had someone who wanted to work on trying to print out from a photocopier and talk to a colleague at the same time. We had someone who wanted to practice running, so we all got on our warm weather gear and took a walk outside. We had someone who wanted to work on how to put bolsters underneath the student’s legs in svasana to support them without feeling rushed or stressed. We had someone who wanted to practice her tai chi warms ups and someone who wanted to get to standing from sitting on the ground while carrying her toddler.
Each one needed something a little different and it was great for me to work individually with people. With most people in this class, the problem wasn’t their head / spine relationship but the fact they were so preoccupied with the activity they were doing that they had lost contact with their body. Just asking some people to think of themselves as a whole person in that situation seemed to really help bring everyone back into themselves. Often their head / spine relationship would just correct itself without any other help from me.
At the end, everyone was smiling and I felt great. When I asked them what they were going to take away from the class, the answers were, whole body, whole person moving, the idea that our jaws are separate from our heads.
Here’s a comment from one of the participants on the course:
I enjoyed very much the workshop on Saturday the 5th, thank you. I got a lot out of it, you came across many points that were complete new to me, I keep thinking about them and try to remember and use them into everyday activities.