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> I'll contact you off-list, John.
I'd really like to hear this stuff on the list. I hope it would be
really educational.
Keith
"I'm very interested in the application of the Alexander technique to sports."
Your own answer to the question about Federers movement jumping up is that it is inefficient and unhealthy. Are there other players who don't have this habit and who in your opinion move in a more efficient way?
When I tried to answer your (rhetorical?) questions I had a try only on the second. The first question is still not answered: "why is Federer spending so much time launching himself upward and off the ground".
So why does he do it? What is the cause for this habit?
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Is it a big failure of AT to penetrate the sports world?
> Why should there be pain in the body if it is being used properly?
They don't claim to be using themselves well - they have no conception
of 'use' - that is the problem.
Keith
A masseuse for top level sports people (cricket & tennis) told me
their 'body awareness' is appalling and they injure themselves
unnecessarily by over-use especially of unhealed injuries.
We need more stuff like this:-
http://www.alextechlondon.co.uk/
find 'For Sport and Exercise'
I have found many similarities with F.M.Alexander's insights, from a
more up-to-date perspective.
Best regards,
Julio
***
Hi Joe & All,
My comments last week were just the tip of the iceberg, and I concede
that the question involves much more than just learning anatomical
terms, so let me comment first by telling a story...
Years ago I was talking with Marjory Barlow about the DIRECTION issue
I published on the work of Marjory and her husband Dr Wilfred Barlow
(still available for purchase BTW) and Marjory confirmed how
"Bill" (was it?) had put together over two hundred different
"Alexander directions". What the actual number was I can't remember -
but it was jaw-droppingly high. I had heard about it previously - I
don't remember from who - and I was hoping that Marjory could hand
over some written material on the subject to publish in DIRECTION
Journal. In those days there were stories hanging around that he could
sort out someone's frozen shoulder in just one session. Having
suffered myself from that condition in the past, I understood how
knowledge of the 200+ directions would certainly assist in pulling off
such an accomplishment.
Perhaps there are Barlow teachers on the list who could comment on this?
Anyway, Marjory knew what I was talking about, but alas there was
nothing to print. She mentioned that Bill had been working on
something, but I never heard any more. And so I forgot about it.
Until recently. Now I am guessing that Barlow took his training as a
Doctor, combined it with Alexander's knowledge of the working unity of
human behaviour, and mapped the specific roles of the myiad of
interacting muscular forces, to come up with his 200+ directions. I am
not advocating this as a model for training teachers - in case you
were thinking that - but I do think this hints at a vast new science
of human movement, one which accurately relates specificity to
holistic function.
The Fitness and Sports industry, and all the medical and para-medical
parafernalia that accompany it, are the masters of specificity. We, in
our closeted Alexander world, are of the masters of unity. Further
energise a process of creating relationships between these two
reservoirs of knowledge, and you have the makings of a new brand of
scientific knowledge.
Part of the strategy of BodyChance - which is the company I now run -
is to situate Alexander's discoveries square and centre in the Fitness
and Sports industry. We are currently embarking on a long term project
to do just that in Australia - the most sports crazy nation on this
earth. (Haven't you ever wondered how a nation of 24 million people
manage every Olympics to get themselves in the overall top ten gold
medalists, along with nations who number 100 million and upwards?) Our
plan is not a quick fix operation, it is an enterprise bound to take
several decades. In this, I think we can burrow from the success of
Alexander's work in the performing arts world.
Authority flows from the experience and knowledge of the activity you
are involved in. Musicians who were trained in AT, returned to their
world and started creating a good "buzz" about AT and how it can help.
Our strategy at BodyChance is to consciously and deliberately start
appealing to people in the Sports and Fitness Industry - sports
persons, fitness trainers, small business owners of yoga, pilaties,
aerobics clubs etc - and encourage them to come train with us; then
support them to position themselves back in the market with a superior
product that combines fitness & sports training from the holistic
viewpoint of Alexander's discoveries. (After all, Professor Little's
study showed that AT with a bit of exercise was an effective
formula! :-)
When I look around the Alexander community today, it is obvious that
one category of successful teachers are the niche marketers - people
who "specialise" in applying the work to specific activity. When you
can walk the walk in a particular field, and relate that information
back to Alexander's discoveries, you have the essence of a great
business. So penetrating any profession or sports is best achieved by
training people who are already in it. The technology and art of
marketing, focused to sell Alexander's golden product, makes the task
simply one of finance, savvy and intent. The outcome is not in question.
***
I don't know about other teachers on this list, but it has taken me
decades to achieve the accuracy of observation and confidence to be
able to observe high level sports performance, and offer any
meaningful feedback that is short on the mumbo jumbo and long on
accuracy and effectiveness. For a start, the serious in this field
inevitably speak the universal language of movement - and more often
than not expect the same from you. There are many language systems
that have been created to describe movements - particularly in the
dance world - but none have such universal agreement as does the
language of the anatomists. Starting from the anatomical position, we
can describe every movement with some accuracy. It is still quite a
clumsy language, but that's what we have.
This is new thinking for me, evolving as I do in figuring out the
pedagogical evolution of the BodyChance training. Only recently I
decided that anyone who trains at BodyChance will leave with a good
working understanding of the subject. Some have escaped my clutches,
but these days my trainees are tested, and don't get their certificate
if they fail this exam. Luckily there is a text book available for our
BodyThinking module - The Anatomy of Movement. I recommend that any
teacher - thinking as they read this that maybe I've got a point - go
ahead and buy this book, spend a few weeks getting familiar with it,
then keep it near your teaching space henceforth.
Our BodyThinking module is a not a dry attempt to learn terms - it is
an ongoing experiment to relate the specific to the whole, to bring
the wisdom and insight of Alexander's discoveries to bear on the known
workings and functionality of the various movement systems within our
behaviour. Every year we will take a new activity and go through the
process of analysing the needs, misconceptions and co-ordinations
involved in this activity. This year we are analysing Bellydancing -
and we are having a lot of fun figuring that out. Like everything I
do, it is integrated with the overall business strategy, so
BellyDancing in the training school is also part of a marketing push
in the Tokyo area to create new members for our Ippan Course (where
you take out a membership for a year of weekly AT lessons).
Using this model, I will entice into the training those people who
have skill sets that can inform and enrich our BodyThinking module.
Obviously the next move is looking at different sports, systems of
training etc. and THIS is the seed that will eventually flourish into
an Alexander presence in the sports and fitness industry (to answer
your question Joe).
***
Another desire I have with the BodyThinking module, is to slowly build
a knowledge base available to AT teachers who want to shift from being
chair and table teachers, and move towards the application field.
Those teachers who think this move is only a matter of making a
decision... well, you need to talk to me about that. I was a chair and
table teacher for 10 years, so I know what I am talking about when I
say that the move into application work was as wrenching as my first
year of teaching. And continued to be so for many years after! So I
hope that one day BodyChance can start offering training to teachers
who want to switch. A "switch" campaign no less! (I hope you can see
my tongue-in-cheek amusement around that one...
"Hallo. I am a chair and table teacher."
"Oh hi, I'm application guy.")
Anyway, right now I am on the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto with
nothing else to do, so I have got a little carried away with this
post. Sorry for going on so much. I will put this on my blog too I
think.
To finish I want to say that as a collective, AT teachers carry an
extraordinary understanding of human movement, and mostly this
knowledge dies with the teacher who carries it. In this day and age,
when computer animators have the potentiality (with enough time and
money) to program every movement vector of every muscle in every
moment - I keep wondering what would have resulted if Wlfred Barlow
had been able to instruct them in his 200+ directions!
cheerfully
Jeremy
_
Jeremy Chance
AT Teacher in Japan
mailto:ja...@mac.com