Emotional Need To Tighten And Tense

[Luke Ford]

When my life is not as I wish, I feel an overwhelming need to grip or
grind my teeth and to create other forms of body tension.

I often feel so frustrated and angry with my life. Usually I feel
morally compelled to not lash out at others (unless they remind me of
certain figures from my childhood), so instead I just tense and
compress myself.

I often wonder about the stories behind my students' body tension
patterns. I am somewhat aware of some of my own.

I have no psychological training (but have been a patient in psycho-
therapy for about six years).

I am terribly curious about exploring this with my students who want
this exploration. I might gingerly ask if there's a story behind a
particular type of tension. What do you fear coming up if you were to
release this tension? How does this tension serve you? Do you notice
under what circumstances this tension arises?

Alexander Technique is so intoxicating that it is tempting to me to
believe it explains almost everything.

[sraj]

Luke wrote:

I often wonder about the stories behind my students' BODY TENSION
patterns. I am somewhat aware of some of my own. ...

-----------

Luckily we have another 'seven billion - one' persons to share this misery with us :-)

Don't they award Nobel Prizes to individuals for pointing out potentially serious problems? When I was 25 years old, and came across Dr. Barlows book, I realized within half an hour that we are faced with a major problem. And here we have a situation, where main line scientists, simply do not acknowledge that a problem exists!

I spent about a month on a discussion group about 10 years back where Medical Professionals and Chiropractors were throwing muck at one another, refusing to acknowledge serious deficiency on their own parts. Medical Professionals refusing to acknowledge that distortion of the skeletal system exists and that it is a serious issue, and Chiropractors refusing to acknowledge that forceful alignment of the skeletal system could be dangerous.

With our inability to apply A,B,C, of common sense, we can look forward to sharing our mutual miseries for a long time to come.

Regards,

Selvaraj

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "AlexTech Mail List" group.
To post to this group, send email to alex...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to alextech+u...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/alextech?hl=en.

[Keith Bacon]

Hi Selveraj,

On 16 March 2012 06:34, sraj <sra...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ... When I was 25 years old, and came across Dr. Barlows book, I realized within half

> an hour that we are faced with a major problem. And here we have a situation,
> where main line scientists, simply do not acknowledge that a problem exists!

When I realised things like yoga were in the same field as AT
(debatable I know!) and realised the problem went way back in history
it was quite a shock. Trying to understand why such profound wisdom
can't be noticed by so many people has been an interesting exercise.

The fact is our intelligence isn't as wonderful as we tend to
instinctively think. Only a small percentage of people can change
their minds much. We have a need to feel we are in a sensible universe
so we subconciously construct layers of beliefs about ourself and the
world that gives us the 'sense' we crave. As we get more stressed
these beliefs become harder to change and ever more irrational. And
our 'clever' mind keeps telling us our beliefs are rational and
correct! What a muddle as Barlow would say.

The good news is hopefully science will start validating somatic
methods and promoting the tremendous health benefits. But I suspect
human nature being what it is still only a small percentage of people
will use them.

Another problem is that something like AT has a substantial
non-rational component. It was discovered by experiment and intuition.
We lack a scientific explanation for how and why it works. So that
puts off 'rational' thinkers - as it it did me for far too long! At
least AT hasn't got the religious and superstitious baggage attached
that many eastern systems have. (there's an assumption here - How do I
'know' this stuff is baggage?).

best wishes,
Keith

[sraj]

Hi Keith,

When we talk of traditional knowledge, we have to be careful, there is also a possibility that traditional knowledge could be wrong. I remember in India, when I was growing up, Cholera was a dreaded illness. People spoke of it in whispers. Apparently the Indian Physician Sashruta (about 500 BC) knew about oral rehydration, but this knowledge was lost along the way and huge number of people all over the world lost their lives in the twentieth century due to the body losing water in cases of acute diarrhoea.  ORT was firmly established only as late as 1971:

---

The events surrounding the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971 convinced the world of the effectiveness of ORT.^[3] As medical teams ran out of intravenous fluids to treat the spreading cholera epidemic, Dr. Dilip Mahalanabis instructed his staff to distribute oral rehydration salts (ORS) to the 350,000 people in refugee camps. Over 3,000 patients with cholera were treated, and the death rate was only 3.6 percent, compared with the typical 30 percent seen in intravenous fluid therapy.^[2] The fact that ORT was delivered primarily by family members instead of trained staff across such a large population in an emergency fashion was demonstrative proof of the utility of ORT against cholera.^[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_rehydration_therapy

--

Oral rehydration should be considered the most important medical discovery of the 20th century.

There seems to be a similar problem in our understanding of Posural problems. I am afraid that we are making fundamental mistakes. (The most important one being, in what direction should we move our limbs to balance the body correctly?). Understanding the postural problems correctly will be (in my mind) the most important medical discovery of the 21st century. 

Regards,

Selvaraj

[Keith Bacon]

Hi Selveraj,

On 19 March 2012 13:45, sraj <sra...@gmail.com> wrote:

> When we talk of traditional knowledge, we have to be careful,
> there is also a possibility that traditional knowledge could be wrong.

Of course. Because so little of somatic mind/body change is understood
by science there is no other way of verifying it except with your own
experience of such change.

> There seems to be a similar problem in our understanding of Posural
> problems. I am afraid that we are making fundamental mistakes.
> (The most important one being, in what direction should we move
> our limbs to balance the body correctly?).

You may be making a mistake in not realising that the AT 'çorrects'
people's posture as a natural outcome of the process of change.

Do you think that AT doesn't improve posture?

> Understanding the postural problems correctly will be
> (in my mind) the most important medical discovery of the 21st century.

I think the discovery by science that FM Alexander already cracked the
problem is more likely! Also that there are other older systems that
do it too. We shall see....

Keith

[sraj]

Keith wrote:

You may be making a mistake in not realising that the AT 'çorrects'
people's posture as a natural outcome of the process of change.

Do you think that AT doesn't improve posture?

> Understanding the postural problems correctly will be
> (in my mind) the most important medical discovery of the 21st century.

I think the discovery by science that FM Alexander already cracked the
problem is more likely!  Also that there are other older systems that
do it too. We shall see.... 

---------------------

I will only say that AT is in a position to provide leadership.

Regards,

Selvaraj

Keith

[Tim Kjeldsen]

On 19/03/2012 15:00, "sraj" <sra...@gmail.com> wrote:

I will only say that AT is in a position to provide leadership.

That, Selvaraj, is, I have to say, a very smart and diplomatic remark, which may appear in some future writing of mine, probably without my crediting you for it. So I’ll do it now.

Tim

[Keith Bacon]

Hi Selveraj

On 19 March 2012 15:00, sraj <sra...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Do you think that AT doesn't improve posture?

> I will only say that AT is in a position to provide leadership.

Do you mean AT will lead the way to improving posture because it
doesn't do so now?

I think science will not study somatic methods from the point of view
of posture improvement. As so many things benefit from it the ones
where large medical bills can be avoided may offer best hope. That's
mental health and Muscular Skeletal Disorders. Also money from
professional sport - at the moment yoga seems to be getting pretty
fashionable in English football at helping valuable players prolong
their careers.

Keith.

[sraj]

You are welcome Tim :-)

Selvaraj

--

[sraj]

Keith wrote:

Do you mean AT will lead the way to improving  posture because it
doesn't do so now? 

------

My own understanding of Posture came through AT. I will delay answering your question more fully till I finish reading 'Man's Supreme Inheritance'. A link to the book was posted to me by Dorella Belle; I wish to thank her once again. For those of you who may not have read the book; the link is: 

http://contemporarydance.ru/materials/books/Alexander%20Technique/Eng/Alexander%20Matthias/Alexander%20-%20(1910)%20Man's%20Supreme%20Inheritance%20~%20(1946)%20(3rd%20Edition).pdf 

I have reached Page 44, the book has 200 and odd pages. If anyone has made notes of the important portions, I would be interested in comparing my own notes with his.

Regards,

Selvaraj

[Keith Bacon]

Hi Selveraj,

Which bits of his books seem to be the most important tends to change
over time as you get more experience of AT.

Good luck with the book. Has any body warned you you learn AT by
'doing' it not just by reading about it? I'm not sure anyone learns it
just from his books - I certainly couldn't.

Keith

[Tim Kjeldsen]

Selvaraj

It’s worth pointing out that MSI is Alexander’s first book, published in 1918, and, for all its importance and value represents quite an early formulation of his theory, which becomes much more elegant and focussed in later writings. The Use of the Self (which is readily and cheaply available from all major booksellers) is usually considered his most complete statement of the mature theory, although I prefer his last book, The Universal Constant in Living - but that is more expensive, and may not be so good for a new reader.

Tim

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to alextech+u...@googlegroups.com <mailto:alextech%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com> .

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/alextech?hl=en.

--

[sraj]

Tim, thanks for the information. It looks as if both these books are also available on the net; copyright on Alexander's books must have expired by now. I find the portions of MSI I have read so far, novel and interesting, and very subtle in reasoning. 

Selvaraj

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to alextech+u...@googlegroups.com.

[noel]

@ Tim et al,

AT is in a position to provide leadership

I have to say,(is) a very smart and diplomatic remark

To say nothing, Tim, of it being a suitably discreet and sophisticated
AT bumper sticker! Can't understand why John would have encouraged
that reprobate En whoever with his lewd and suggestive exemplars.
Unfortunately I think 'the general' would find it too subtle if they
stared at it for half an hour let alone a fleeting glimpse on a
passing vehicle -which would rather defeat the purpose. I see no
option but to put aside our scruples and accept mankind with his
(shudder) prurient and lascivious propensities.
On the other hand it does provide reason for optimism. Every other
well -being modality (even more so the 'spiritual') posits an ideal.
An enlightenment, meaning change is mandatary
Only the Technique puts an arm around some lost soul in the gutter (oh
dear, there I go again offending the genteel sensibilities of the
community. I meant of course -places a hand on the arm of a subject
slouched on a dilapidated couch) and says, this is about empowerment.
Change only comes at YOUR behest.
NoelH

[sraj]

I have now reached page 77 where it says:

(Incidentally I may note in passing that

in the human being the neck is very often the indicator of

inadequate and false controls. There are good reasons why

this should be the case, a priori, but they are too technical for

this book.)

.. Alexander was evidently very interested in the distortion of posture of children, something rarely discussed in this list!?

Selvaraj