Alexander teacher Hope Martin says: “The crux of what [F.M. Alexander] discovered was that trying to do a good job, working hard, end-gaining, always showed up in his system as tightening. And he had to stop that. He talked about inhibiting a habitual response, particularly ones that had to do with trying to do a good job and anticipating.”<\/p>\n
Hope discovered Alexander Technique in her early twenties. “I’d been through the educational system. I’d been to a good college [University of Wisconsin]. And I didn’t feel like I knew myself. My education was so much about things outside myself. When I took an Alexander lesson, it was startling. All of a sudden I had an hour to focus on who I was… and how to let go of patterns that were not useful to me.”<\/p>\n
“I had a good instinct that I needed some form of touch, some form of nurturing.”<\/p>\n
“Alexander is helped through guidance and touch from another person but ultimately it is about relying on your own innate bodily wisdom.”<\/p>\n
Host Paula Gloria: “I’m reminded of why my first [Alexander] teacher was not so enthusiastic about meditation. Perhaps by observing me, and at that point I had been meditating for ten years, she saw that I was using meditation to get out of my body.”<\/p>\n
Hope: “Alexander is a western contemplative practice.”<\/p>\n