Daily Express
Monday May 19th 2003
Learn to walk tall
Hollywood glamour girl Hilary Swank is certain that perfecting
your posture will always add instant impact the moment you
glide down a red carpet. The Oscar winner is a firm fan
of the Alexander Technique, which teaches postural awareness.
Lucy Miller finds out how it has given Hilary A-list poise
to match her A-list status.
How does it work?
How perfect is your posture? Are your shoulders somewhere
up around your ears? Are you more likely to slouch than
to sit up straight? Are you sure you are walking tall? Good
posture can be difficult to attain. Over the years, bad
habits cause muscles to tighten and poor posture becomes
so ingrained that it’s often difficult to correct.
The Alexander Technique aims to unravel all the years of
tense muscles and banish all the bad posture habits you’ve
gradually accumulated. It focuses on the way you hold your
body and puts you more in tune with the way you move so
you can avoid putting it under unnecessary strain.
The Technique was the brainchild of Frederick Matthias
Alexander, an Australian actor who devised it in the 1890’s.
He had starting losing his voice during performances and
discovered that a series of movements linked to posture
not only stopped his loss of voice but also helped him to
appear more relaxed on stage. He soon switched his focus
from performing to teaching the Technique and later came
to Britain, where one of his pupils was George Bernard Shaw.
The Technique, now practised all over the world, is still
popular with actors and musicians who use it to help with
breathing and pre-stage anxiety, and it is now part of the
curriculum at many drama schools.
What is it good for?
The Technique is excellent for posture, muscle-tension
relief, back, neck and shoulder pain, repetitive strain
injury, stress, vocal or breathing disorders, migraines
and tension headaches. It can help people recovering from
surgery or a stroke.
It also teaches how to avoid putting your body under unnecessary
stress doing everyday tasks such as driving and sitting
in front of a computer.
Although Alexander Technique teachers are highly trained
in the system, they are not medically trained and cannot
diagnose health conditions.
How else can it help me?
“It can take 10 years of you” says Alexander
Technique instructor Noel Kingsley. “We can all age
ourselves dramatically by tensing and stiffening. The Alexander
Technique will help you to feel lighter, looser and freer”.
“It can also make you up to two inches taller. Hunching,
stooping, tensing and stiffening all shorten us. The spongy
discs of cartilage in the spine can become compressed over
time and increased curvature will reduce your height but
the Alexander Technique helps you to regain natural posture.
Release the tension pulling you down and you’ll go
up”.
Followers of the Technique argue that it will also allow
your internal organs to function better because they’ll
be given more room in which to do so.
One of the key exercises you’ll learn is how to loosely
balance your head rather than “holding it”.
This will cause a natural lengthening of the spine which
in turn releases muscles and joints.
“Our head weighs between 10lb and 12lb, the equivalent
of five bags of sugar” says Noel”. “The
balance of your head is crucial to the performance of your
whole body. If it’s off balance, it immediately affects
your neck and shoulders and puts pressure on the spine.”
What can you expect?
Follow the Alexander Technique and you’ll learn how
to sit, stand and bend correctly and how to walk and move
gracefully. One-to-one sessions are usually recommended
because you and your teacher work together closely to solve
your particular posture problems.
“The first thing I do is ask clients about their
lifestyle, any past or present problems and what they want
to learn” says Alexander Teacher Marguerite van Boetzelaer,
who teaches at the Hale Clinic in London.
“Then I ask them to sit or stand and observe which
parts of their body are really active. The chances are that
they exert more effort than necessary. I may ask them to
show me how they sit when they work and how high their desk
it”.
Your teacher may also touch you to assess where your tension
is focused. Alexander sessions are carried out standing,
sitting, bending and lying down. You’ll be asked to
do simple movements, while the teacher uses his or her hands
to guide you and demonstrate how best to move without placing
any unnecessary stress on your body.
“We gently encourage the body into its natural posture
with small movements”, says Noel. “Most people
leave the first session feeling lighter, taller, looser
and calmer.”
It’s not a quick fix. The Society of Teachers of
the Alexander Technique recommends a course of at least
20 sessions to get to grips with it and says the system
should also be practiced between lessons.
One of the most effective things you can do at home is
to lie on the floor for five to 15 minutes a day with your
feet flat and your knees bent.
Have your head on a pile of paperbacks about two to three
inches high. This gradually allows your spine to lengthen.
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