How I Came to the Alexander Technique

Before discovering the Alexander Technique, my professional journey had taken me from waiting tables to working as a children’s librarian, a professional storyteller, and, most recently, an early childhood classroom teacher and yoga and movement specialist for young children. I’d always been active outside of work - dipping a toe into running, swimming, aerobics, pilates, African dance, capoeira, and yoga. While in generally good shape, I would frequently end up in physical therapy with some minor injury or another. Since I was a teenager I had been treated intermittently for neck and shoulder pain, and later, for severe plantar fasciitis, low back pain, a groin pull, a sore knee, a hamstring strain, and more. There were other signs that, while I was strong - who isn’t after 5 years of carrying babies up and down subway stairs in their strollers - there was something amiss in my coordination, or as it seemed to me, how I was put together. There were the complaints from the downstairs neighbors in my first apartment about my thundering footsteps. How loud could I be at 95 pounds, wearing sneakers? Also, my muscles felt so consistently tight that over the years, I’d become an almost compulsive stretcher, and had collected an arsenal of foot rollers, foam rollers and balls of all sizes and materials that I’d periodically lie on and roll over in an effort to get relief from built up tension. 

My husband discovered the Alexander Technique before me, having done extensive research about what might help him with his persistent back pain and worsening posture. After his very first lesson, he tried to get me to go as well, urging me to experience what he described as a life changing perspective on everyday aches and pains with which we both had accepted as part of who we were. Once I took his advice and began Alexander Technique (AT) lessons, I realized why I’d been in such a vicious cycle of exercise, pain, physical therapy, repeat. My first Alexander teacher, Lindsay Newitter, helped me understand that the way I carried myself affected everything I did, and exercise just exacerbated things. I learned that we have so many habits - physical, mental and emotional  - and we carry these into everything we do, from sitting, standing, lying down and walking, to more complex tasks like exercising, or depending on your career - using tools, sitting at computer workstations, playing instruments, and performing.  If I carried too much tension in my neck, it would negatively affect the balance of my head on my spine, which would have a ripple effect on the rest of me.  Too much tension up top translated into too much tension in how I held my ribcage. Too much tension in my ribs impacted my breathing, limited my range of motion in my arms and shoulders, and on and on and on, down to my thundering footsteps.  I had never previously understood why it was so difficult for me to raise my arms over my head in yoga class when I was generally so flexible. This was a result of viewing my arms as completely distinct from the rest of me. Working with Lindsay and other teachers helped me understand that while physical therapy addressed whichever particular part of my body was in pain, it never addressed how I functioned as a whole. I was hooked! I appreciated the idea that AT was something that I could apply to everything I did. With the principles I was learning in my lessons and the growing awareness of long held habits, I discovered new possibilities of thinking and moving that addressed the postural issues that kept landing me in physical therapy. I loved learning how to use AT tools in my everyday life. I became aware of excess tension when I brushed my teeth, washed dishes, put the leashes on my dogs, and of course, while exercising. Finally, the fact that AT was not one more activity to add on to my busy schedule but rather a set of tools to help me become more grounded, coordinated, balanced, efficient and pain-free all of the time led me to the next curve in my career path. Because AT offered such a quality of life improvement, after a few years of lessons, I decided to train to be an AT teacher myself. To be able to teach others this simple but powerful self-help method suddenly seemed like the most fundamental and important way to direct my teaching skills.

I began my training at the American Center for the Alexander Technique (ACAT) where I gained foundational learning from Brooke Lieb, Joan Frost, Hope Martin, Kim Jessor and Cynthia Reynolds. Completing my second 2 years at the Riverside Initiative for the Alexander Technique (RIAT), I deepened my studies with Nanette Walsh, Ariel Carson, Anne Waxman, and Lori Schiff.

Today, through private lessons and group classes I am continuously invigorated by helping my students of all ages and abilities become aware of their own habits and begin the rewarding process of learning concrete tools for change.