The first Alexander Technique skill is called ‘stopping’, ‘pausing’, or ‘inhibition’.
Stopping is the first basic principle of the Alexander Technique (AT). It is a practical skill you will learn from any AT teacher during your AT lessons.
In short, ‘stopping’ helps you create a pause between a stimulus and your response to that stimulus, so that you can choose your reaction more consciously.
You pause to give yourself time and space to prevent engaging in an unwanted habit, such as tensing your neck and shoulders.
But there’s more to it than this.
I have come to see that there are two more slightly different aspects to the skill of stopping: tuning into all- inclusive awareness, and ‘non-doing’.
To clarify them, let’s discuss all three, and let’s call the first one Stopping 1.
Stopping 1 is the definition I just gave you at the beginning: it means that you briefly pause before starting your next activity.
You temporarily give up your goal, decide to do nothing, release stress, become calm, and tune into a feeling of inner peace before going into action.
In this way, you create a moment of space so that you can give yourself the freedom to choose how you want to perform the activity you’re about to do.
Imagine you’re standing at a crossroads in your brain.
If you turn right, you turn into the street of your unhelpful habit.
For instance, suppose you habitually crane your neck forward when working at your computer. If you start to work immediately like you always do, you will automatically enter the highway of this unhelpful habit.
But by pausing a moment before working at your computer, you can decide to turn left, into the street of your new healthier habit.
You have a chance to let go of excess tension in your neck, allow it to become soft and long, and prevent working with your neck jutted forward.
Basically, briefly pausing before you do something gives you freedom of choice, because when you pause, you allow yourself time to become more aware of yourself.
This way, you not only have an opportunity to choose how you want to sit, stand, bend or walk, but you also give yourself a chance to tune in with your needs before responding to a request.
In this way, stopping can also help you prevent doing something you actually don’t want to do and can help you avoid saying yes too quickly and habitually.
Next, Let’s talk about Stopping 2. This is about choosing your focus, choosing the kind of attention that is most appropriate for your activity.
Maybe you notice you’re completely zoomed into your computer screen?
During the stopping phase, you can decide to expand your attention and choose for all-inclusive awareness.
All inclusive awareness means that your attention is wide and inclusive of you, your activity ánd the space around you.
It feels wonderfully effortless and helps with posture, poise, movement and releasing stress. (By the way, if you want to know more; I’ll talk much more about all-inclusive awareness in another audio guide called ‘All-inclusive awareness; the art of effortless focus’.)
Next, let’s continue with Stopping 3.
This means that you stay soft, easy and connected during your activity. In the Alexander Technique we call this ‘non-doing‘.
Let’s come back to the example of the computer.
With the skill of Stopping 1 you pause so that you prevent unwanted habits before starting to work.
With Stopping 2 you expand your focus and avoid being only aware of the computer screen.
And finally with help of Stopping 3 you are able to release any tension that may have returned while working at your computer so that you keep a gentle sense of balance, softness, and expansion.
Let me give you another example to further clarify the three aspects/qualities of stopping.
Imagine you’re about to drive a car.
Stopping 1 helps you to pause before you drive away, so that you can choose to start your journey without unnecessary interference.
Next, Stopping 2 will help you expand your focus and tune into all-inclusive awareness. This will help you be aware of your body while also being aware of the space around you, allowing you to safely drive away.
Once you’re driving, the skill of Stopping 3 will help you keep releasing any tension that may have returned in order to keep yourself flexible, soft, and well-coordinated while driving, giving you a wonderful sense of being while you are doing.
Unconsciously holding excess tension in your body interferes with your bodies coordination.
You can compare it to trying to drive your car with the handbrake still on!
The skill of stopping will help you release the handbrake from your body, so that you can move and breathe with ease and flow.
F.M. Alexander, the founder of the Alexander Technique, called stopping ‘inhibition‘.
Inhibition is a term that’s also used in neurology: it simply refers to neurons that are not firing.
Suppose you’re lifting your arm: many neurons will get the message to fire, passing on the appropriate electric signals from the brain so that certain muscles will be activated.
In neurology, this is called excitation.
But at the same time, other neurons will get the message not to fire so that other muscles will not be interfering; this is called inhibition.
So, normal healthy movement simultaneously requires neurons to fire, while others don’t.
This creates an essential balance in your nervous system because if all neurons in your body were to fire at the same time, you wouldn’t be able to lift your arm normally; you would lie on the ground in a spasm.
At first, ‘stopping’ can be strange: here you are in your Alexander Technique lesson expecting your teacher to tell you what you need to do differently to fix your problem, but then you hear that you don’t need to do anything at all!
Instead, you’re asked to stop, which means to think differently, in order to prevent interference and let go of unwanted habits.
So, instead of asking yourself “What should I do about this?”,
you learn to ask yourself, “What can I stop doing that I don’t need?”, “What can I release?”, and “Where can I do less?”
To give yourself time to think differently and prevent interference, you learn to temporarily give up your goal.
Think of a cat waiting to jump on its prey until the right moment.
Or think of a football player waiting a split second before kicking the ball into the right upper corner of the goal.
Or think of an athlete or musician preparing for their big moment.
In an Alexander Technique lesson, you practice giving up your goal in various daily life activities.
For example, before sitting down, you pause a moment and give up the goal of sitting down.
Before walking away, you pause, and briefly give up your goal of walking.
In this way, you shift from a result-oriented attitude to a process-oriented attitude.
The effect is that you’ll be less focused on getting things right and doing your best.
It sounds counterintuitive, but trying too hard usually leads to creating too much muscular effort.
Instead, you return to a state of being 100% calm and neutral, enabling you to start with a clean slate and prevent activating the usual habitual neurological pathways in your brain.
Once you get the hang of it, you start to practice stopping with more difficult stimuli/triggers like your computer, your phone, your gym exercises, or playing a musical instrument.
You will start to practise stopping on your own in your daily life..,
you will give yourself many little micro-holidays a day..,
and will start doing your daily life activities with a bit more calm, ease, and improved coordination.
The great thing about practicing stopping is that it feels so good!
It gives you a wonderful feeling of peacefulness, timelessness, and space.
A feeling of, “I don’t need to go anywhere; I am exactly in the right place and time, in this present moment.”
Choose any daily life activity in this Think Up app to practise the skill of stopping in your daily life, whenever you want 🙂 !
Or first learn more about stopping by listening to the audio guides ‘The power of the Positive No’, ‘The five pitfalls of stopping’ and ‘Why stopping isn’t easy in our culture’.