Most people put too much effort into everything they do. Here’s a good example from Kristijan around tension in his hands when touching and holding things: Something clicked about inhibition and non-doing (in Alexander Technique), and the strongest effect has been a relaxation of my hands. Like I was| Expanding Awareness
In What is the Alexander Technique? [https://expandingawareness.org/blog/what-is-the-alexander-technique/] I defined awareness as "the space that attention can move around within; the capacity, moment by moment, to be able to notice things that could be noticed." Let’s play a game. First, please look at this optical illusion.| Expanding Awareness
I want to open with a quote from Frank Pierce Jones regarding John Dewey, who was an early proponent of Alexander Technique: (John) Dewey considered that the Alexander Technique provided a demonstration of the unity of body and mind. With progress as a pupil, he reported an improvement in his| Expanding Awareness
Some people with ADHD have reported benefits in applying some of the ideas from my materials. What could be going on here? My interest in Alexander Technique’s potential relevance to ADHD arose because quite a few people with ADHD who have engaged with my materials have reported improvement| Expanding Awareness
Just like computer programs, it seems humans have functions. When functions run, the world can get less vivid while reducing your agency. I'm going to explain a human phenomenon that Alexander Technique plays with, using an idea from computer science: functions. I'm not a developer,| Expanding Awareness
I'm working my way through The Master And His Emissary, written by Iain McGilchrist, which I expect one day will be considered one of the most important books of all time. You may know that the brain is lateralised into two hemispheres, left and right. This has unfortunately become co-opted| Expanding Awareness
Consent lies at the heart of Alexander Technique. I mean two things by this. One person giving permission to participate in some activity. This kind of consent is vital not just when teaching Alexander Technique, but in all domains of life. The experience of giving consent to respond to stimuli.| Expanding Awareness
As a little experiment, I'd like you to 'scrunch' yourself. Consciously tighten a bunch of muscles in your face, neck, shoulders, back, wherever, and hold for a couple of moments. Get a sense of what you're doing to add all this tension to your body and then in a single| Expanding Awareness
In a recent YouTube video talking about his experience exploring Alexander Technique, Tasshin came up with the term couldness as a way of capturing a way into a particular way of being that my own Alexander Technique teacher calls 'aliveness'.| Expanding Awareness
I recently came across the concept of target fixation on a walk around Wikipedia. Target fixation is an attentional phenomenon observed in humans in which an individual becomes so focused on an observed object (be it a target or hazard) that they inadvertently increase their risk of colliding with the| Expanding Awareness
I'm fascinated by the felt experience of rushing, because It seems that rushing can be a sneaky two for the price of one type of deal; we may mean one thing by it, but we usually get something extra as well, something that's easy to miss. We usually use rush| Expanding Awareness
There’s a particular way of being we inhabit when dancing. Dancing is a kind of availability, a capacity to respond to the invitations of each moment in a receptive, fluid and open way. When dancing without a partner, say in a club or at a concert, the music is| Expanding Awareness
A few years ago — during a road trip from Boston, MA, to Burlington, VT — I noticed the engine of my hire car was working quite hard and the steering was heavy. When I stopped at a farm to investigate, and to sample some maple syrup and cheese, I realised that| Expanding Awareness
I want to unpick a challenge that was presented to me: why do I say non-doing, which can confuse people, instead of something more clear like non-forcing? Non-doing or non-forcing? Indeed, Alan Watts himself preferred the term forcing in translating the ‘wei’ in ‘wu-wei’: “Wu-wei is the principle of not| Expanding Awareness
This is one of the lessons from my Fundamentals of Alexander Technique course [https://expandingawareness.org/courses/], which I'm reproducing here because it's something I want to be able to link to on the public web. There are times in life where we catch ourselves ‘doing’ things that perhaps we| Expanding Awareness
I’ve wanted to explore the intersection of awareness and society for a long time. I have a hunch that there’s a rich and valuable line of inquiry here, and it seems that the best way to mine it is to simply start digging, so here we go. First,| Expanding Awareness
What does it mean to be truly natural, to have that quality of spontaneity we had as children? Most of us have lost access to that state and would like to have it once again, but there is no turning back now. We can only go forwards and find it| Expanding Awareness
Notes from Michael While I can say many things about Alexander Technique that I think will be helpful, I think it's often more accessible to hear experiences from students who are earlier on their own journeys. Kofi Baah [https://twitter.com/k3baah] kindly shared this great post in the forum| Expanding Awareness
I don’t mean preparation, like for a public lecture or test. I mean the moment by moment experience of bracing yourself for the next moment. Yes, I’ll explain. There’s a very common experience in Alexander Technique lessons, particularly for beginners, where the student ‘gets ready’ to receive| Expanding Awareness
I’ve started re-reading one of the best Alexander Technique books out there: Freedom to Change by Frank Pierce Jones. When I have a reading list, this book will be on it. I want to share a few really interesting excerpts from the opening chapters with some commentary. > “It was| Expanding Awareness