As we all know getting older presents many more physical challenges. Since we are looking for ways to age gracefully I thought I would add to your list of helpful hints.

Having awareness of your posture and use of your body will help this process of aging gracefully..

The good news is the bodymind is often very responsive. I say bodymind because body and mind work well when you use them together. Learning to think with your whole body helps regenerate the whole being.

The most difficult part is making the time and finding the discipline to make change a reality.

There several techniques, ways of understanding our bodies available to us at this time. My favorite is the Alexander Technique.

So finding a form of movement that you enjoy and will commit to doing is a very important first step. Doing any activity with awareness, not just exercise, will help your posture and alignment. It will also reduce possibilities of injury and pain.

Let's start with awareness of our head and neck. Place one finger on your nose and one on the occipital ridge of your skull.


Imagine your finger is a pencil and draw circles with it, so you are initiating the movement from your nose. Now do the same with the occipital. You can think of writing your name with your nose, or occipital. Say yes or no. Having the awareness of the back of your head and tip of your nose and moving from there could give you more ease, less tension in your jaw. Once you have a sense of initiating the movement from you nose or occipital you can drop your arms and just move from those two parts as you. As you experiment with this be aware of your whole body, making sure your shoulders are relaxed, you are standing equally on both feet, or if you are stitting you can sense a balance of weigth on both sides of your pelvis. (DON”T CROSS YOUR LEGS) This movement should be small, subtle. AS you are doing this movement (saying yes or no with your head, or writing your name in space) notice the feeling inside your mouth. Relax your jaw, your neck, your teeth, as you do these gentle movements you may feel more room in your mouth, less tension in your neck. And more awareness of your tendency to tighten up when its not necessary. It may also give you a sense of dimension in your body. Remember this is an exploration you are gathering information that could help you relax. As you go about your day see if having this awareness and moving from there lets you feel and sense more ease through out your body.

This exercise can be done lying down, just make sure you have some height under your heard a book or folded towel. You want your head high enough that your ear is in line with your shoulders; have your knees up so you can feel the bottoms of your feet making contact with the floor.

When doing this exercise use very small movements.

This is a good exercise to do at the computer. Taking a break to move is essential to aiding the process of awareness and alignment. If you are using your computer longer than an hour it really is important to take a break and move. Remember that old saying 'if your don't move it you lose it'! You don't want to lose your flexibility. And if you have lost your flexibility the good news is you can regain it.

Elaine Belle
www.elainebelle.com

Yuko Okada


New Year's Resolution: That's the way 'twas done this time!

New year is the time for resolution. Year after year, I resolve to begin something new or change a habit or two. It goes well for January, everything is fresh and hopeful, then somehow the resolution seems to lose its exciting new look and evaporates into thin air…

Being a student of the Alexander Technique, I am resolved again this year, to tackle a habit, or at least to examine it.

"That's NOT the way!" , my critical mind protests when I see someone close to me, a family member for example, doing something wrong. Well, to be honest, I have to admit that s/he is not doing it wrong, but rather not doing it my way. For a perfectionist who gets a pleasure out of precision, an artwork hung 1/8" uneven causes a severe mental and sensory pain. In other words, it drives me crazy!

So, how to change the mental habit of saying "That's NOT the way!"? I cannot stop noticing how things are done around me. Dulling my senses or awareness is not the answer. How about replacing the thought with something more neutral and less judgmental? "That's the way 'twas done this time." It is a bit long, but I gave it a try.

I soon became aware that my old thought came to me instantaneously like an arrow of light. And, oh, how so difficult to catch it before it seizes me! It is no joke, it moves awfully fast! In order to replace it with a new sentence, I had to change my strategy.

Instead of remembering and saying the new 'mantra', which could never beat the old and powerful one, I began singing it in the tune of ' Here we go round the mulberry bush' 🎶 "That's the way 'twas done this time, done this time, done this time, that's the way 'twas done this time on a cold winter morning!…" and so on.
Well, it shifted my critical mind into a more playful one. When I manage to catch it at the entrance and sing it away, I sense a space opens us within and around me.

It has become an ongoing experiment and daily practice of self observation and inhibition. It is so intriguing to the point that I don't need entertainments, as I can entertain myself.

May your resolution be a happy one!

Deborah Lewis

This is a small tribute to the Alexander Technique (really to those who teach it) on the benefits of spending time “working” on one’s self.

Twas just a few days before Christmas and like a mouse I was scurrying all about the house, frantically trying to get the place ready, all the foods prepared “oi,” what a deal. When I noticed there was not much of a rise nor a width to be found within my leetle skeleton . So much for trying to rhyme. I promptly stopped all activity and placed my body on the floor, knees bent, feet flat on the ground, a book under my head. I began to notice how held and tight I had allowed myself to become. I was exhausted, and had much to do. I thought, have no expectations just notice your body, the way you are in relation to the floor, what ever sensations arise just notice, no comments, and then…. Slowly direct yourself. Neck free… so the head can go forward and up, to allow the torso to lengthen and widen… Over and over I repeated this process in a meditative fashion again, I would say not expecting any result. I was pretty tired when I lay down you see. Some small amount of time passed and I had to resume my activities. I thought hmm, my breathing is so relaxed, wow. I’ll get up now and much to my amazement I was revivified, not tired at all anymore and very up and directed….

Gently Break Habits by Identifying & Noticing

by Jessica S. Santascoy




What's your stimulus?


Identifying a habit can be a window into beginning to use your body efficiently and getting rid of unnecessary pain or tension. Let's take the habit of tightening the jaw. Tightening often starts with a stimulus. Maybe you step into a meeting and you feel like the people in the room make you clench your jaw. Tightening your jaw is the beginning of a chain reaction. Seconds after tightening your jaw, your throat closes a bit and your breath becomes more shallow. You start to become impatient and wish the meeting would end, and you start to think you're wasting your time. Now your jaw feels soldered shut!

What the Alexander Technique can do is help you recognize stimuli that cause you to misuse your body. My laptop is a stimulus - my jaw tends to become tighter as I continue looking at the screen and typing. Simply noticing is enough to loosen it. I don't have to say to myself, "relax the jaw," noticing is enough. The trick is to be gentle with yourself, and allow a more useful chain reaction to take over - the jaw loosens, the breathing becomes easy, the throat relaxes, the work flows.

Identifying stimuli, (such as a meeting or the computer), and noticing your reaction can help reverse misuse and begin to create a pattern of more efficient use of your body. Over time, patterns of more efficient use of the body will replace the patterns that causes undue stress.

Jessica S. Santascoy is training to become an Alexander Technique teacher at The Alexander Educational Center in Berkeley. She's a stargazer, foodie, and climbs volcanoes when the opportunity arises. Follow Jessica on Twitter @jessicasuzette and friend her on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/jsantascoy.

Goddard Binkley
July 11 1951

(The following is taken from Binkley's journal entry from his first meeting and lesson with Alexander. Binkley had just arrived from the USA to study with Alexander.)

"The lesson .... gave me the sense of timelessness: the sense, paradoxically, of time passing and having passed, yet, at the same time,the sense of something permanent, constant and inviolate throughout this passage; for I had the knowledge that this aged, creative and fully alive man was teaching me, in this Victorian room, a principle of growth and change biologically rooted in man as an organism.

I thought at that moment of my own country with it's ceaseless quest for novelty, for any kind of change so long as what is brought forth is new, a quest so compulsive and pervasive that family life was becoming fraught with restlessness, dissatisfaction and anxieties."