PLAYING THE HUMAN INSTRUMENT

Whether we play piano or tennis, computer games or bridge, our body is the prime instrument with which we perform all these activities - the keyboard or tennis racket, for instance, is secondary. If the piano is out of tune we know the sound it produces will be compromised. The same is true about ourselves.   We sometimes say “I’m not myself today.”

When we do pay attention to our actions we often find that we use more muscular effort than necessary for almost any given movement. If this is the case, we need to learn how to do less, how to pare away the extraneous effort to come back to a more balanced, efficient movement.

Alexander Technique is the study of the “Use of the Self”. We start by looking at movement because it’s the most graphic illustration of the way we use ourselves. But use goes beyond movement; it also implies how we are in stillness, how our organs function, how we breathe and speak, and how our nervous system responds to stress.