Comments

Alexander Technique Helps You Look Good! — 14 Comments

  1. Thanks, Imogen!
    I notice in myself and my students, when you think knees forward and hip joints back, your abdominal muscles engage. You have more front length, which feels and looks better. You gain height and your weight stays the same, so you look thinner; yet another Alexander Technique benefit.
    Thanks again!

    • So true! Yet for some reason we don’t seem to talk about it much! As someone just posted on Facebook in response to this blog, ” Yes, AT helps you look better. Let’s celebrate it!”

  2. Great blog, Imogen. I once took a tape measure to a lesson with me(!), because I was so paranoid that losing my slouch made my belly stick out more. We did a before hands-on and after hands-on measurement, and I lost an inch off my waist in the process. Faster than any diet. Karen

    • That does sound rather paranoid, Karen 😉 But you’ve provided a great example of how we can have a faulty sense of what is happening in our bodies. Sometimes a mirror can show us what’s really happening, and in your case a tape measure!

  3. Hi imogen,
    thanks for your educative blog explaining the alexander concept.
    The pictures are very reasonable to notice the alexander directions.
    But, here i noticed another idea(direction) from karen’s comment.
    She written, losing her slouch made her stomach stick out.
    I.e,
    ‘when the back lengthens and widens,the stomach sticks out but not IN’ .

    Am i understood correctly or wrongly?

    • Hi Geetha,
      I think what Karen is saying is that although she was worried her stomach would stick out if she lost her slouch, in fact the opposite was true.
      The stomach does NOT stick out when the back lengthens and widens, though it may be in a different place than it was before!
      Hope that explains it for you!

  4. Hi mark,
    i understood your comment little bit late.
    The quardriceps connects to the hips at the front.
    Iam hesitating to say ,

    If we prevent the quadriceps, hips angle a little bit more in our daily activities while keeping the knees forward , this helps the torso to lengthen up.

  5. Hi Imogen, you know I took AT for performance anxiety but it has so definitely helped everything, including looking better. My posture and body language is so much more relaxed and open and also pains because of this! I am more confident overall. I love AT!

    Louise Edington

  6. There are many ways how people who don’t really know me might judge my character or motives by how I “appeared to act” around them.
    Learning Alexander Technique helped me to stop a leg limp that I couldn’t figure out how to lose any other way. My height increased by 3/4″ at age 27; my usual voice went down in pitch and I became less fearful and nervous around possibly judgmental strangers. A.T. taught me how to stop myself from unintentionally whispering the ends of sentences. I also learned to intentionally talk in a monotone when the conversation turned toward the possibility of someone giving me money, (instead of modulating my voice up and down as if I was telling a story. It was my habit to become more expressive when under pressure to be a salesperson – but my reactions to explain in more detail gave the mistaken impression I was lying.)

  7. Do you remember the paper chinese lanterns we used to make in school, and for our kids? Sheet of paper folded in half and ‘slits’ cut in it. Open up and coil it into a long tube? (Not a very good description; hope you know what I mean already!) I use one in lessons a lot – it shows how when we lengthen, the ‘sticky out stomach’ is just gathered up in the lengthening. But that we have to let it go first – and risk a bit of a ‘bulge’ (before we lengthen) if we’ve been holding it in, and in effect shortening ourselves. It also shows how much stronger we are lengthened; when shortened, like the lantern we are very willowy and ‘weak’.
    Hope this is faintly useful, Imogen. Lovely blog, thank you.

    • Sorry only just getting back to you, Annie! I do indeed remember the paper lanterns!! This was much more than “faintly” useful – thank so much!

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