Comments for sursumcorda.salemsattic.com/post/what-you-think-is-what-you-get

Comment #2304

2011-08-21T10:35:58Z

Thanks - The blog is written for those who know something about it. There's more than you probably want to read on my website, franis.org

Thanks again for reminding me that I hadn't been back to that the Alexander Technique page on Wikipedia to tend it for awhile. The first parts of that page often get edited by well-meaning writers who know little about the subject. They imagine that editing needs to happen because they have trouble understanding the writing - when it's really that they don't know the subject.

Comment #2303

2011-08-20T16:51:32Z

Thank you for commenting, Franis. I'm looking forward to perusing your site.

Comment #2302

2011-08-20T15:50:52Z

Pretty much most medical doctors know nothing about it. A study on Alexander Technique has been published in the British Medical Journal in Aug. of 2008 that featured pretty remarkable results on lower back pain. (a BMJ youtube video exists.) The improvements of A.T. are in keeping with the anatomical structural improvements of traditional medicine; in many ways A.T. is a way to learn "living anatomy." An A.T. teacher's analysis of seeing body language would agree with a gait lab analysis.

But the "how-to" of learning & practicing A.T. uses teaching skill; people are "learners" rather than "patients" and practicing is a skill that doesn't work unless you do it.

Perhaps it would help to imagine A.T. as a process of initiating movement. It also works to tap the unknown for new information about how you think, respond, adapt & perform goals.

Thanks for your review and fascination with Alexander Technique.

Comment #2301

2011-02-25T15:17:23Z

I'm chiming! Sorry, life has been too busy to look at blogs much. I'm afraid I can't help all that much. It is well-respected in the art world, but I have no idea in the medical world. It's not really medicine either. It's actually nearly as frustrating to have Alexander lessons as it is to read the book (I'm guessing - I haven't read the book). For two years I kept asking "but how do I do this at home?" and "How do I keep this?" and the answers were as frustrating as "You don't DO something you stop doing something." and "Don't keep it, throw it away and find it again." I finally stopped asking those questions and just tried to immerse myself in the ideas, as frustrating as they were. I still feel like I know nothing, but I am a different person and think about the body differently than I did three years ago, and some of the changes are rather significant and for the better. I still don't know what to think of it, but I think there's something to it!

Comment #2300

2011-02-14T02:50:38Z

The reaction of the medical establishment is probably mixed. I do know that none of the many doctors Janet saw for her problems suggested it. My own doctor, whose approach to medicine seems to be overly influenced by the pharmaceutical companies, would probably roll his eyes. But it's well-respected in performing arts circles.

Hopefully Janet will chime in here and correct me if I'm wrong.

Comment #2299

2011-02-14T01:13:36Z

Fascinating. Never, ever heard of it before. Is it something modern medicine dismisses, or embraces?