I learned how to move in a room: not a gym or a large exercise room but usually a room that was about 8” by 10” lying on a table or sitting on a stool or later lying on the floor. I didn’t not learn how to move in a Yoga class, which I took many classes over a long period of time, or a Tai Chi class or an aerobics class or by running or cycling. I did not learn how to move from a swimming coach, which was my sport as a child. I did not learn how to move from my few gym teachers that I had in my Catholic schools. I did not learn to move from my fencing teacher, gymnastic teacher, or archery teacher at my junior college. I never learned how to move from my ski instructors or golf instructors.

Research and Science: David L. Anderson

https://kin.sfsu.edu/people/faculty/david-anderson

Alexander Technique teacher and kinesiologist David Anderson gave a presentation on an exploratory study he and his colleagues conducted that has so far resulted in two papers published in the Journal of Bodywork & Movement Therapies in 2015 and 2016, with a third paper about to be submitted for publication. The titles of the two papers are “Effects of Alexander Technique Training Experience on Gait Behavior in Older Adults” and “Older Adult Alexander Technique Practitioners Walk Differently than Healthy Age-Matched Controls.”

As Alexander Teachers you may be seeing students with auditory dysfunction.  Learning to recognize its signs can help you understand the root causes of some of the misuse patterns you see and to know when to suggest that your student go for auditory testing.

When I was a child, my mother use to get massages. I always assumed that everyone’s mother got massages. She was a very physical person, not like an athlete but more like she swam every day and played golf as much as she could in between 15 pregnancies and the safe arrival of 10 babies. I was one of them. When I was growing up in Cleveland, we belonged to the Jewish community center even though we were Roman Catholic for the simple reason that it had the best spa facilities: pool, sauna and massage.