The Work on my Self

With doing some DIY I’ve noticed that when I crouch down balancing on my toes, I really tense my hamstrings, to the point that it’s painful to release them when I stand up. I think I’ve done this for a long time… the fact that I’ve noticed now is good.

This is very different to when I attentively squat down like they do in Asia, which is much more comfortable and relaxed, although I don’t have the range of motion any more to comfortably squat flat-footed on the floor.

Thinking back I used to do a lot of things that I’m bringing under control with the help of the Alexander Technique - habits I picked up trying to get the neck & shoulders comfortable, with each new thing I tried adding to the discomfort… an interesting point is that, although I couldn’t tell I was still doing any of these things (e.g. sucking in my stomach), when I tried to specifically stop (e.g. I refused to suck in my stomach) it made a difference and felt like I was making less effort than normal.

Interesting, if I’d lost my memory and couldn’t remember having done that in the past it would never have occurred to me to stop doing it… the muscle tone has a memory of habits I’ve consciously forgotten. I suppose that’s good or getting out of bed would take all day…

My habit list - the ones which spring to mind anyway

The list of these things I had been doing, and the reasons why, is interesting to note. These postural “sets” are involved in my every movement, and if I can add refusing to do these to my primary directions (neck, head, back etc) it results in higher quality movement:

• A while ago I found I could improve my posture (in a really bad way I now realise) by tensing a lot of my muscles, which ‘forces’ the body into a pose which looks, on the surface at least, better than the slump I used to go around in. This is like what bodybuilders do to strike a pose. This involved several separate sets:
  • Tense the neck (have to laugh at this now, that I did it intentionally :D)
  • Tense the chest
  • Tense the lower back
  • Tense and suck in the stomach
  • Tense the shoulders
• Sucking in the stomach, in a slightly different way to the one above - can’t explain it but it used different muscles. This was for a different reason (so I didn’t look as fat back when I was a bit overweight). Now I know this is self-defeating, you’ll never hold it in and then when the voluntary muscles which weren’t designed for this get tired and collapse, even the thinnest person will look like they’ve got a beer gut if they try this approach…
• Arching my lower back to try and ’stand up tall’.

Semi Supine

Haven’t had any time to lie semi-supine over the last few days, might get 15 mins in before bed now. I was noticing some interesting things doing it a few days ago, particularly being able to feel some things I was doing very high up the neck, and being able to release this tension easily every time I noticed it throughout the day (often - I must be tensing it all the time - great if I can reduce the general level of tension in my neck).

How the technique works

I think you give directions, which result in some muscular release, but eventually from going through the direct -> release -> unconsiouscly-tense cycle over & over & over again you reach a point where you can kinesthetically sense and predict the tensing, which is the point where you can actually stop it and cause a release “manually” i.e. with direct control rather than giving directions. Thus, the Alexander Technique improves the kinesthetic sense. I’ve thought before that this is the very essence of it…

Although releasing it while ‘doing’ something else still isn’t direct and straightforward…

And I should add that I’ve realised what the technique ‘is’ a hundred different times… but I think every one tells you something fascinating about the human organism and the use of the self… interesting times.

Opportunity for practise

Unable to get a plumber/builder (thankfully got a plasterer) so I’m going to refurbish my bathroom myself, including removing the electric shower and a partition wall, plumbing in a new mixer shower, moving a radiator, replacing the suite and all new tiling. Plenty of opportunity to practise consciously directed, high quality use of the self…

Plenty of opportunity but it’s hard not to end-gain when you’ve got a job to do, no bath, sink or toilet and you need to get them back up and running