“Via Alexander Technique Maaike has helped me help myself. I’ve been able to reduce my mental and physical stress levels tremendously.”
What is Alexander Technique?
The Alexander Technique is a practical method that will help you restore the natural balance and coordination of your head- neck and back. This balance of your head on the top of your spine (called the atlanto-occipital joint) is essential for your whole body to function well and to enable free movement; the spinal column, muscles, joints and breathing are all affected by it. When you’re out of balance, due to either pulling down or straining up, your muscles are forced to work much harder than they really need to, making them overworked and tense.
By learning the Alexander Technique you prevent undue pressure on your joints and organs, learn how to release excess muscle tension and enhance the volume and springiness of your spine and intervertebral discs.
The Alexander Technique also helps you develop a more accurate sixth sense, which is the kinaesthetic sense of proprioception. This sense tells you where your body is in space (for instance; you know where your neck is, without having to look in the mirror). Under the influence of unhelpful habits, this sense has lost its reliability. For instance; your neck may be clearly craned forward when you’re sitting at the computer, but you don’t notice it. According to your sixth sense, your neck feels ‘normal‘ ! That is until you look in the mirror or see yourself in a photo....
By learning the Alexander Technique you will gradually restore the reliability of your sixth sense. You will then get the reliable message ‘my neck is actually forward in space’ without the help of a mirror. Consequently, the Alexander Technique will give you the means to allow your neck to release into a more balanced upward direction while maintaining full natural breathing.
The unique thing about the Alexander Technique is that you don’t have to stop what you’re doing in order to practice it. When you’ve learned the basic principles you can put them into practice while riding your bike, working at the computer or playing your instrument. It’s not only very efficient but it’s also very calming; you get a lovely sense of being while you’re doing the things you need to do anyway.
Benefits of the Alexander Technique are: Read more>
How does it work? Read more>
What happens in a lesson? Read more >
Other interesting webpages: www.alexandertechnique.com, www.alexandertechniek.nl, www.thedevelopingself.net, www.stat.org.uk