PERFORMANCE, SINGING, AND ACTING
An actors and singers instrument is their body. They use themselves to convey what the character or song is saying, thinking, feeling and relating.
In your AT lessons, you /we will explore what patterns of habit and excessive tension are in your way and release the patterns to allow you to perform with greater ease and less effort.
The habits we bring into our daily lives are accentuated when we are under pressure. When auditioning, those same habits come out and in essence we are really playing who we are. You might have seen this when actors on the screen play themselves over and over again. You may have noticed that great actors erase their own habit patterns and then adapt a new set of habitual patterns to define a specific character. It’s these characteristics that make a role interesting and memorable!
However, we’re not always aware of what we’re doing in each moment where these habitual patterns arise. We call it “faulty sensory awareness.” AT, will help to expand your awareness. AT, also helps you to give up up trying to be right, and through exploration it will allow spontaneity to happen rather than being on automatic pilot. This is achieved when we are “in the now, the moment.” When we are open and free, we are able to hear things differently than before and can access a new organic choice, losing ourselves in the moment.
"With the best intentions, the job of acting can become a display of accumulated bad habits, trapped instincts and blocked energies. Working with the Alexander Technique has given me sightings of another way... Mind and body, work and life together. Real imaginative freedom."
Alan Rickman
PERFORMANCE-SPORTS
For many years, professionals, Olympians, and sports enthusiasts have elevated their performances with the Alexander Technique. The technique improves mental and physical skills by increasing focus; improving breathing capacity, balance and coordination; achieving a wider range of motion; and lowering the chance of injury.
Through the years we’ve been taught to think if we work harder to “get it right” we can achieve optimal success. When we input this message into our thoughts, we naturally try harder and end-gain. The physical results are typically that the neck and shoulder muscles shorten and tighten. This head and neck relationship acts like a master reflex key for the entire body. If the head and neck are thrown off, then your torso is thrown, your breathing is impaired, and your entire body is off kilter. When we try harder and end-gain, we also use excessive muscle tension which many times results in injury.
Another important component that the technique addresses is our faulty sensory perception. If we aren’t kinesthetically aware of exactly of what we are doing, then we are actually doing something else.
In your AT lessons we will explore what patterns of habit and excessive tension are in your way and release the patterns to allow you to perform with greater ease and less effort. We will do this by breaking down the old habitual pattern and introducing a new one.
The Alexander Technique is experiential. The AT gentle hands-on teaching approach will guide you to practice awareness, inhibition and re-direction and obtain optimal body posture which will aid you in making intelligent choices when a stimulus occurs. This in turn will also help you to recalibrate when you’ve made a mistake, rather than let matters escalate when a mistake is made. (Often costing you the game.)
Through AT you will discover that by being aware of how you are doing an activity, you will be mindful and at ease with your movements resulting in less stress and tension and heightened “zone" performance.
Studies have demonstrated the Alexander Technique:
-
Increases stamina
-
Relieves muscular tension
-
Increases range of motion and breathing capacity
-
Improves balance and coordination
-
Relieves stress disorders and migraines
-
Relieves neck, back and hip disorders
-
Helps the body run more economically
