Prayer should be easy and joyous. Do your knees hurt during davening? Does your back or neck or shoulders ache? Learn how to pray with poise.
God wants you to be straight with him, not all contorted and pulled down.
Joe* emails: The Shelo Hakadosh advocates for not moving at all during davening, with stillness being the most appropriate meditative position. Add to that the Mishna Brurah’s advocation of Alexander Technique stance during the amidah- he says the ideal position is back straight, head up, eyes downward.
In Australia in 1891, the actor F.M. Alexander developed such severe voice trouble that his career was threatened.
According to the Alexander myth, F.M. could find no help so he eventually sat himself down in a room filled with mirrors and examined his habits when he tried to project his voice.
F.M. saw that the more he tried to project his voice, the more his head tipped back and his neck tightened and compressed and breathing became difficult. So he evolved a method whereby he could inhibit his neuromuscular impulses that hurt him and directed himself in a way that allowed for optimal performance.
Other people heard about his success and he began to teach them his methods. After F.M.’s death, these methods became known as the Alexander Technique.
When I first heard about the Technique in 2008, I checked out some books and videos from the library and tried to teach myself Alexander Technique. Within a few weeks, I realized I needed a teacher.
Some hardy souls can teach themselves Alexander Technique but most people will find it easier and quicker to find themselves a good teacher.
By the end of his life, Alexander had come to the conclusion that attempts to put his teaching into practice without the help of a teacher were often not successful. Yet, he did go as far as he possibly could in providingwritten guidance, in his books as well as in personal correspondence, to those who were really serious about learning his Technique on their own. In a chapter entitled “Evolution of a Technique” in his third book, The Use of the Self (originally published in 1931), Alexander described in precise detail the process he went through to solve his voice problem. This chapter and his 1945 “Preface to New Edition” of that book, in which he addressed the many problems encountered by earlier readers in attempting to teach themselves, contain useful information for anyone who wants to try going it alone.
In addition to Use of the Self, there are three much newer books which can greatly assist in learning the Technique – with or without a teacher: How you Stand, How You Move, How You Live: Learning the Alexander Technique to Explore Your Mind-Body Connection and Achieve Self-Mastery by Missy Vineyard (click here to read a review of this book),How to Learn the Alexander Technique – A Manual for Students by Barbara and William Conable, andMind and Muscle – An Owner’s Manual by Elizabeth Langford.
Additional self-study resources can be found in Chapter 4 of Thorsons Principles of the Alexander Techniqueby Jeremy Chance (also available on an audio cassette tape); The Alexander Technique: First Lesson and The Alexander Technique: Solutions for Back Troubles (available in VHS and DVD format), Moving to Learn – A Classroom Guide to Understanding and Using Good Body Mechanics by Michele Aresenault (click here to order Moving to Learn) and Not to ‘Do’ by Fiona Robb. Roy Palmer has written a number of eBooks and booksbased on the Alexander Technique that can be used for self-study. The Secret to Using Your Body – A Manual for learning the Alexander Technique is an eBook by Leland Vall is designed for those without access to a teacher, or as a supplement to lessons.
Additionally, there are a number of helpful, and free, online resources:
Alexander Talk contains several MP3 conversations that contain suggestions about Alexander self-study.
Constructive Control, is a short video clip featuring master teacher Marjorie Barstow in which she expains this important Alexander Technique concept, and shows how to use it. Links to other clips of Marjorie Barstow’s teaching – also helpful for Alexander Technique self study – can be found at herhomepage.
Alexander Technique “lying down”, sometimes called “constructive rest” or “active rest” is a powerful self-help process anyone can do at home. Click here for a variety of videos, audio resources, articles and blogs related to constructive rest
John Appleton is an Alexander Technique teacher and the developer of Posture Release Imagery. He puts forward some fascinating new self-help ideas based on imagery, which is sometimes a taboo subject in the Alexander Technique teaching world. They require some patience to understand at first, but many have found his ideas to be very helpful. Click here to read or download Posture Release Imagery resources.
The Alexander Technique Email discussion group can be a very useful resource – whether you are studying the Alexander Technique on your own, or with a teacher. The group is open to all, and you can get advice and help from teahers around the world! Go to Alexander Technique Online to join the group. (As with other similar groups, there are a few participants intent on engaging in debate about obscure aspects of the Technique. These can easily be ignored. The group functions at its best in response to questions from students of the Technique.)
Alexander Technique Blogs, a collection of the best Alexander Technique teacher and student blogs, is another useful resource. Some of the blogs listed on this site include nclude practical information for students working on their own.
A lot of my students ask me if there’s anything Alexandrian they should do when they go to bed. Do I have some nifty moves to recommend?
I’ve always said no. Enjoy. Go to sleep.
Alexander Technique is about becoming aware of your habits and when you’re asleep, you can’t be aware of your habits.
If you push me, I guess there are things that Alexander Technique can help with in bed.
I think active rest aka semi-supine is best done on the floor, not in a bed, because the bed is too soft and you’re less likely to lengthen and widen. Still, active rest can be done in bed. Lie on your back. Use a pillow to comfortably support your head (some people need no support and other people like me need more than an inch of support or the head will start tipping back, compressing the neck and making breathing more difficult).
The optimal time of day to practice for sleep enhancement is before bed and then first thing in the morning.
Position: Eyes open. Lie on your back, head supported by a book or firm pillow, feet in line with the hip sockets, knees apart and pointing to the ceiling. Alternately, use a thick pillow to support the knees. Let your hands rest easily on your belly, chest or hips.
Alternate between thinking the following Alexander directions and observing your body and your mind state, keep your eyes open. Experiment with placing about 75% of your awareness on the external world and about 25% on your body.
If you don’t have time to set aside to practice before sleep, you can still benefit from mentally reviewing the Alexander directions as you drift into sleep.
Alexander Directions
Let my jaw, lips, tongue, eyes and forehead melt
To let my neck be free
To let my head balance forward and up
To let my back lengthen and widen
To let my knees direct forward from the hips and ankles and away from each other
To let my shoulders widen to the sides
Note: Directions are a sequential set of instructions that help to lengthen the spine, free up the breath, and create mental and physical ease. Directing is the process of thinking, wishing, ordering, projecting or seeing the above series of movements. Although directing may cause physical change, it is important to try not to “do” the directions. Directing is a mental process. Physical changes may occur as a result of directing, but the main focus is the thought. Finally, the sequence of directions is important, since the optimal physical pattern can only occur with the initial freedom of the neck and head.
If you have a problem with clenching and grinding, see if you can catch yourself starting to clench as you begin to unwind during constructive rest or as you drift into sleep. This is a very important moment and takes quite a lot of practice to notice. Alexander Lessons can dramatically heighten your awareness of your body, and can help you to prevent clenching in the daytime and grinding at night. Once you are able to notice the beginning stages of clenching and grinding as you slip into sleep, you have the opportunity to retrain the habit. This approach has worked for both myself and for my students.
So I was at minyan one morning saying my prayers like a good Jew when this bloke walks, sits down in front of me, and exposes massive plumber’s crack.
And the bloke wasn’t even a plumber! He just wore his jeans low.
Here I am trying to talk to God about my most pressing moral issues and there’s naked man ass right in front of me.
I might’ve lost my breakfast if I had eaten.
Folks, please don’t wear your jeans loose and low when you go to shul. And if you do, sit in the back with something behind you so nobody has to see your hairy ass.
On his radio show today, Dennis Prager said yesterday was his worst day as a Republican. He was that ashamed of the lies said about Mitt Romney by Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry. These three have been attacking Romney for laying off some workers during his time at Bain Capital.
Gingrich, Huntsman and Perry obviously want to win more than they want to be true to the free enterprise system and to conservative values. All three candidates have lied about Romney’s statement that he loves the freedom to fire companies that provide him with lousy service.
Rick Santorum has not joined in on these attacks.
Dennis: “I remember saying I would be proud to have any of these candidates (aside from Ron Paul) as my president. I take it back. It has nothing to do with whether I like or dislike Mitt Romney. It has to do with whether or not I like truth and the free enterprise system. Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman as disqualified from being president of the United States. Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are left. Two good men.”
The assault on Mitt Romney’s record as a private equity investor — led by, of all people, Newt Gingrich — has one influential Washington special interest group screaming “enough!”
That would be the Club for Growth, the conservative anti-tax advocates who on Monday released a statement decrying Gingrich’s attack on Romney’s work at Bain Capital as, well, un-Republican.
“Newt Gingrich’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital are disgusting,” the group’s president, Chris Chocola, a former Indiana congressman, said. “There are a number of issues for Mitt Romney’s Republican opponents to attack him for, but attacking him for making investments in companies to create a profit for his investors is just wrong. Because of the efforts of Bain Capital, major companies like Staples, Domino’s Pizza, and the Sports Authority now employ thousands of people and have created billions in wealth in the private economy. Attacking Gov. Romney for participating in free-market capitalism is just beyond the pale for any purported ‘Reagan Conservative.’ Newt Gingrich should stop his attacks on free markets and apologize to Gov. Romney for them.”
Joe* emails: “What do you think about masturbation? I still do it every night although my church friends tell me it should be avoided.”
Sex addiction therapists recommend a three month break as part of a program to turn your life around and to get into recovery from compulsivity. Many people masturbate their anxiety away. Running from your anxiety like this might not be healthy.
As for morality, every religion commands abstention from masturbation.
Joe emails: Masturbation has been an escape from reality for me as long as I remember.
I remember watching a video on how to pick up women which also
suggested laying off. I don’t normally take advice from pick up
artists but it would at least indicate that this is a step in the
direction towards my ambition of getting married rather than something
virtuous that will turn me into a lonely monk.
One question: you mention that your taste for older women is a symptom of your addiction to sexual violence. My longer term relationships have also been with older women, so you may well be right. But could you explain in further detail? I don’t quite get the logic as it stands.
Luke: I don’t remember making any connection between older women and my compulsions. I’ve dated an even mix of women my age, a little older and younger.
I have eroticized rage but it does not express itself violently. All of my girlfriends would recall me as tender and gentle. My rage expresses itself in my cruel sense of humor and in my love of role-playing games and in my tendency to seek intensity over intimacy.
Joe emails: “‘Eroticized rage’ – yes, I think that applies to me as well. I’ve got a lot of suppressed anger. In my days of porn use, I used to be
hypnotized by the money shot which is, I think, an expression of rage
against women.”
Luke: “I’ve got rage. That’s why I blog! But I hate to experience any physical pain and I hate confrontation in my personal life.”
The San Francisco Bay Area’s most successful new Alexander Technique teacher is Amira Alvarez who headlines her website with the statement “Create the Life You Want”.
At first I thought she committing Alexander heresy by marketing the benefits of the Technique instead of the features. I felt like she was end-gaining.
It’s hard to create the life you want when you are doubled over by pain.
Try creating the life you want when you have such severe carpal tunnel syndrome that you can’t pick up a cup let alone a pen.
Try creating the life you want when you are addicted to emotional highs like love or sex.
Try creating the life you want when you are unable to handle anxiety without hurting yourself or others.
Four of the keys to my creating the life I want have been Alexander Technique training, 12-step work, Orthodox Judaism, and psycho-therapy.
The common denominator in three of them is the expansion of choice in my life (Orthodox Judaism obviously narrows my life, restricting my world through its thicket of law). Without psycho-therapy, I thought I had only one or two choices when presented with a certain stimulus (say my girlfriend not phoning me back within 24 hours, well then, I have to either break up with her or call her again and lay it on the line about how hurt I feel).
My 12-step work helped me loosen my inclination to believe that I could not be happy unless I was in a sexual relationship.
The freedom to choose your bliss is a very American value. I love it! I love most things that expand freedom and human dignity. Having to work for your housing and your medical care and your food expands human freedom and dignity. Getting handouts from the government despite being able-bodied contracts freedom and dignity.
Believing there is no solution to your pain and illness restricts freedom and dignity. Getting out there and looking for help expands your world.
Beverly Hills Alexander Technique teacher Luke Ford talks to KXLU 88.9FM Los Angeles about the Alexander Technique. Many people define the Technique by what it does instead of what it is — a system for noticing how you respond to stimuli and letting go of those responses that don’t serve you.
Only a fool believes that all those with whom he differs are bad people. Moreover, just about all of us live the reality — often within our own family — of knowing good and loving people with whom we strongly differ on political, religious, social and economic issues.
That said, I have come to believe that the more committed one is to leftism, the more likely one is to become meaner.
Two examples in just the past week offer compelling evidence.
Prominent left-wing commentators used the way in which Rick Santorum and his wife handled the death of one of their children to attack — make that mock — the former Pennsylvania senator.
In a lifetime of observing and participating in political debate, I have seen a lot of meanness. But one just assumes that some things — not many, just some — are off limits to political pundits and activists.
Among these few things, one has to believe, is the death of a child.
But I was wrong.
In 1996, Karen Santorum gave birth to a premature baby boy who died two hours later. After spending the night in the hospital with their baby son between them, the grieving parents brought the lifeless infant home for a brief period because, Santorum explained, it was important to them for their other children to “know they had a brother.” The Santorums didn’t want Gabriel Michael Santorum to be an abstraction to his siblings.
First, Alan Colmes on Fox News: “Once (voters) get a load of some of the crazy things he’s said and done, like taking his 2-hour-old baby who died right after childbirth home and played with it for a couple of hours so his other children would know that the child was real …”
Colmes was then interrupted by Rich Lowry: “You are mocking him. They lost a child, Alan. That’s very serious and it’s not something you should be mocking on national TV.”
Colmes’ response: “I’m not mocking the losing of the child. But what I’m saying is I think it shows a certain unusual attitude toward taking a 2-hour-baby home who died to play with his other children.”
In addition to engaging in a cheap and mean shot, Colmes simply made up the notion that the Santorums had brought the baby home for their other children “to play with.”
The next day, Eugene Robinson, Pulitzer-Prize winning left-wing columnist for The Washington Post, said on MSNBC, Santorum is “not a little weird. He’s really weird. Some of his positions he’s taken are just so weird that I think some Republicans are going to be off-put. Not everybody is going to be down, for example, with the story of how he and his wife handled the stillborn child whose body they took home to kind of sleep with and introduce to the rest of the family. It’s a very weird story.”
Four times Robinson calls Santorum “weird,” using the story about the death of the child as evidence. He was wrong on an important detail — the child was not “stillborn.” And, like Colmes, he made up a mocking detail — that they took the child home “to kind of sleep with.”
The meanness of these comments is self-evident, as Alan Colmes realized and later apologized to Santorum. Robinson, on the other hand, never apologized — as RealClearPolitics, which has no political agenda, correctly reported — even though repeatedly challenged to do so on MSNBC.
I raise these issues for only one reason: to provide further evidence of my belief that leftism makes more than a few of its adherents meaner people.
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff)
