I recently began working with a student who has been living with Parkinson’s for 20+ years. I remembered reading about John Pepper, who consciously retrained his movements to overcome foot drag and tremor, and became curious about how his conscious attending to his walking, typically an unconscious and habitual motor task, allowed him to perhaps create neural pathways that could compensate for or bypass the areas of his brain impacted by Parkinson’s. Alexander Technique asks us to perform automatic tasks in a conscious and novel way. You have sat in and stood up from a chair more times than y ..read more

"I need results. Tell me what to do." When I began my career as a new Alexander Teacher, this question used to throw me for a loop. The Alexander Technique is about doing less. It's about learning to pause, taking a thorough inventory of what you are actually doing, and finding a way to accomplish the same things in a more efficient way. It takes time to learn (hours, weeks, months, years, depending on how deeply you learn). And it takes time to apply the skills you develop (half a minute, seconds, mere moments.) The traditional approach to Alexander lessons, which typically includes taking t ..read more

by N. Brooke Lieb Interested in accessing these resources for you and/or your company? Contact me to learn how I can help. When I began my Alexander Technique teaching practice in 1989, my focus was on performing artists and helping people improve their posture and live with less pain. Fast forward to 2020, when the Covid-19 Pandemic upended a way of life, and - perhaps for the first time - people who historically weren't so vulnerable to the ebbs and flows of resources and economies, found themselves part of the global trauma. I had some modest success pivoting to remote teaching over video ..read more

In this series, I will share ideas and activities to provide a practical context for Alexander’s 5 step process* as written in the chapter “Evolution of a Technique” in his book “The Use of the Self.” The Use of the Self is considered by many as Alexander’s most accessible and practical text, and I have heard it referred to as the “textbook” that he wrote to support the teachers-in-training when he began group training in 1931. Up until that point, he had trained teachers in an apprenticeship fashion. STEP 3 "continue to project these directions until I believed I was sufficiently au fait with ..read more

In this series, I will share ideas and activities to provide a practical context for Alexander’s 5 step process* as written in the chapter “Evolution of a Technique” in his book “The Use of the Self.” The Use of the Self is considered by many as Alexander’s most accessible and practical text, and I have heard it referred to as the “textbook” that he wrote to support the teachers-in-training when he began group training in 1931. Up until that point, he had trained teachers in an apprenticeship fashion. STEP 2 "Project in their sequence the directions for the primary control which I had reasone ..read more

From the chapter Evolution of a Technique in Alexander’s third book Use of the Self Supposing that the “end” I decided to work for was to speak a certain sentence, I would start in the same way as before and 1) inhibit any immediate response to the stimulus to speak the sentence, 2) project in their sequence the directions for the primary control which I had reasoned out as being best for the purpose of bringing about the new and improved use of myself in speaking, and 3) continue to project these directions until I believed I was sufficiently au fait with them to employ them for the purpose ..read more

Sometimes getting still to shed a habit and let something new emerge seems fruitless. We live in a time and space that emphasizes doing. Waiting IS doing something. When you plant a seed, many things happen that you don’t see before a shoot comes up from the soil. You don’t see how the food you eat becomes fuel for your body and brain. You don’t see how neurotransmitters create elegant, coordinated action. Slowing down is under rated. Give yourself some time and space. Let the story you tell yourself fade into the background for a short time and find your breath. Try being still with inner sp ..read more

I was initially drawn to the Alexander Technique because of my hope of having a life in the performing arts. I wanted to be a performer, but I didn’t think I had a stand out level of talent, and I didn’t want to risk living my life forever unfulfilled. I knew the Alexander Technique was part of many performing arts curriculum. I didn’t know what it was, but my good fortune and my instincts guided me to experience it first hand. I expected to teach performing artists, who make up a portion of my practice, but what I enjoy most about teaching the Alexander Technique is the personal interactions ..read more

One hallmark of Alexander’s work was his recognition that the way things feel is not a precise measure of what is actually going on. I would guess that if you ask anyone who says they don’t have the best posture, they would tell you they don’t feel whatever it is that allows them to know they don’t have the posture they want. Their posture may be comfortable for them, or they may have discomfort, but the familiar arrangement of their posture itself doesn’t feel wrong, so they don’t know what to change to improve things based on what they feel. More likely, they know their posture doesn’t matc ..read more

In this video blog, I show you where the head rests on the top of the spine. Having a more detailed understanding can facilitate your self-work and what you are exploring in lessons with your teacher. I am currently offering video sessions until it is safe for us to meet in person ..read more