I'm on a bit of a tear lately about how every one of our patterns and habits are developed as life-saving strategies. Our bodies and nervous systems never do anything "bad" or "wrong", they only do things in order to save our lives. And as social creatures so much of survival is about belonging, because we literally can't survive on our own. I'm so curious about the patterns we adopt in order to belong, which may or may not be serving us now but which were vitally important when they were created. My personal work recently has been all about the patterns I developed in response to my female socialization and my female-bodied adolescence in the 90s. Much of my recent work with clients has been about working with patterns that are responses to racialized, gendered, sexuality, and class experiences. All of it ultimately boils down to belonging I think. I'm finding that knowing that, my students and I both approach the pattern that is no longer serving us differently, with less judgement, less guilt, and less shame. And then we can learn to choose something else, to set it aside with gratitude for all it's done for us, and to discover new ways to find the belonging that is innate and life giving.
I wrote recently (about emergence) that the river will flow if we dismantle the dam. So how do we dismantle? Especially since the patterns (dams) that interfere with our innate freedom (river) can feel insurmountable? In my experience the process of dismantling a dam, no matter the size, is really quite simple:
I'm thinking about Alexander technique as the art of allowing emergence. Allowing is the action and the emergence of that which is already true is the result. But in Alexander Technique we are not unbiased in what we allow (not just any allowing will result in emergence), we are directional, directing the allowing towards what is innate. And we know that what is innate to our organism is ease, efficiency, adaptability, brilliance, and whole health.
After a month off, I'm looking forward to restarting the online group class. This class is specifically oriented towards the way we are responding to this current reality in our minds, hearts, and especially our bodies. These classes will help you identify your personal patterns, the way your body is responding to your world, and give you experience and tools to hold grief, confusion, fear, boredom, loss, and stress while also finding access to your innate ease, spaciousness, balance, and comfort. Each class is designed in real time to respond to the needs, desires, and curiosities of the participants.
I'm thrilled to be offering in person lessons again, I have deeply missed touching bodies and connecting with you all. To keep you, myself, and our communities safe we will be taking the following COVID precautions:
As the weeks of isolation go on and we continue to confront our place and participation in Black oppression and liberation, it feels more and more critical to find embodiment. To that end, I am beginning to offer in person private lessons on a limited basis and am restarting the online group class.
I believe Alexander Technique is the study of freedom: freedom in our bodies, freedom from limiting patterns, freedom from oppressive belief systems, and that because we are fundamentally whole integrated beings, on some level there is no difference between freeing our necks from tension, freeing our minds from anxiety, and freeing our selves from beliefs of superiority or inferiority.
I love the idea that not hesitating when one is experiencing joy is a way of fighting back. Not of fighting back in a way that's against the depression or frustration, trying to make them go away, but a way of fighting back that says joy is also available, that adds joy to our current palette of experiences. I'd like to remember Mary Oliver's thought that joy is not meant to be a crumb. I've decided to practice pleasure not as a salve or distraction or glossing over but as a radical statement of resilience and resistance.
I recently co-facilitated a workshop for folks working in racial justice with my colleague Sonali Sangeeta Balajee. It was a day of the intersections of somatics and social justice, a day of exploring the truths shared between the individual body and the social body. We focused on restoring and rehydrating our purpose and presence and used this powem by Galway Kinnell to guide us. We used the poem to talk about re-teaching — not teaching but RE-teaching, — reminding us that loveliness is innate, brilliance is innate, equity is innate. As a multi-racial, multi-positional team, Sonali and I talked about the fact that in both the individual body and the social body, IT IS OUR NATURE TO BE FREE, we talked about liberation as the dismantling of what interferes with our freedom.
Alexander Technique is designed to be something you practice inside your life, out in the world, in the activities you spend you time doing. My studio doesn't have a window, doesn't have easy access to the world. When I teach in rooms with windows I tell my students "look out there, find something to see while you feel the changes happening inside". It helps to make the lessons less precious, to make it feel like the experience my student has belongs to them and can be accessed anywhere, instead of being some kind of magic that only happens in this special room.
