Archive for the ‘lessons’ Category
Semi-Supine Alexander Technique Youtube video- Confidence Tricks 11
Youtube video Alexander Technique Semi-Supine resting position
Alan Mars- Alexander Technique since 1982
Alexander Technique in Brighton and Hove…
The semi-supine active resting position gives optimum support to your whole back – and to your spine in particular. Alexander Technique teachers recommend it as a daily practice. Do it once a day if possible for up to twenty minutes. As well as easing your posture it is particularly calming and centering. Youtube video clips, picture and written instructions are below…
Semi-supine Alexander Technique
It only requires a firm and warm surface, such as a blanket on the floor, and a few paperback books to serve as a headrest. It will help you to let go of excessive muscular tension in your body as a whole. It allows your torso to widen and your spine to release into its optimum resting length. It eases and reduces pressure on the inter-vertebral discs by placing the spine in a position of maximum mechanical support.
Most people need somewhere between 1 – 3 inches of books underneath the back of the skull. The head-rest encourages release in the muscles that join the back of the neck to the base of your skull. It should be neither too high (or your chin will compress your throat) nor too low (or your chin will stick up in the air). This gives maximum support to your spine. Your feet are flat on the floor, knees pointing up to the ceiling about shoulder-width apart and your hands can rest gently on your torso. It’s the ideal pre-cursor to some voice-work. No wonder my ex-drama students continue to practice it daily decades after being introduced to it!
Over the next ten minutes or so you will simply develop your relationship to the floor and head rest… Imagine the four ‘corners’ of your back–head, shoulders and tail bone– spreading and lengthening and widening away from each other and on to the floor. Let go of trying and forcing. Let it be effortless. Leave it up to gravity and muscular release. Look at the video several times to get a general idea of how to get into the semi-supine position. The main thing to remember about getting into the semi-supine position is to do it mindfully, quite slowly and with awareness. The same thing goes for returning to your feet again. I’ll go into a bit more detail in future postings.
Confidence Coaching Tricks 10 – Sonnet XVIII
Confidence Coaching Tricks 10 – Sonnet XVIII
Voice, confidence & presentation coaching with Alan Mars
Recite this sonnet regularly. There are exactly 10 syllables per line. Remember what one of the original functions of a punctuation mark was? To tell us where to breathe…
10 syllables and a breath will guide you toward a BBC newsreader pace of delivery. A pace that is very easy for just about everybody to assimilate easily. By regulating speech and breath it will also begin to have a calming effect not just on you but also on your listeners. Translate the sense of the sonnet pace into your everyday speech and into your presentation delivery. I’ll say a little bit about the interpretation and meaning of Sonnet XVIII in another post…
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
alan.mars@yahoo.co.uk http://thetechnique.co.uk/ Course dates
Alexander Technique & the Choral Singer + choirs
Alexander Technique and the Choral Singer
Potted Alexander Technique
F.M. Alexander (1869-1955) was an actor who suffered from recurrent hoarseness and breathing difficulties. Having unsuccessfully tried the medical treatments available at the time, Alexander studied by himself, over a period of seven years, in a three-way system of mirrors to find out what he was doing that caused him to lose his voice.
He noticed a tendency to stiffen his neck and pull his head back and down. This habit initiated a pattern of misdirected effort through his whole body. He eventually developed an approach that involved momentarily pausing and releasing his habitual tension and then ‘directing’ himself into an easier, co-ordinated state.
Alexander went on to teach, using a combination of gentle manual guidance and verbal instruction to give his students a direct experience of using their bodies in a more co-ordinated way.
Alexander and the singer
The singing/Alexander Technique teachers I worked with said nothing about my voice. Instead they said things like, ‘Allow your shoulders to release and widen’;'release the back of your neck’, etc. Over time this gentle approach increased the resonance, range and flexibility of my voice.
most of us accumulate muscular and mental habits which, to some extent, shorten, narrow and twist natural skeletal alignment. These things interfere with easy singing, and changing such habits will, in turn, change your voice.
The way we stand and sit has a profound effect on the way we sing. We become so familiar with our habits which restrict our posture that any attempt to change to a freer state can ‘feel’ wrong and unfamiliar. One of the advantages of doing Alexander Technique with a choir is that any change is reinforced by the immediate feedback of an improved sound.
Take a seat
Is there a conspiracy afoot amongst the designers of institutional furniture to create chairs that are at odds with everything we know about the healthy human structure? The typical rehearsal room posture tends to follow this pattern: the arms feel too heavy to hold up the score, so we rest it on our lap (with one leg crossed over the other) and sag down to peer at it (see below). Then, to turn an already bad situation into a disaster, the choirmaster requires our attention, so we tighten the backs of our necks to look up. At this point we try ’straightening up’–pulling the shoulders back, raising the breastbone and arching the lower back. This requires considerable effort, creates fatigue and is difficult to sustain over even short periods of time–hardly a conducive state for singing!
Becoming more open
Many people do not open their mouths to sing. They open their heads–by tightening the muscles around the base of the skull, lifting the nose in the air and keeping the jaw fixed (see left). This causes excess pressure to bear down on the larynx, ribs and diaphragm and leads to vocal strain. By releasing the muscles that suspend your jaw you can open your mouth more easily.
Look in a mirror – preferably the three-way sort, like an old dressing table mirror. Let your lips be softly together. Think of releasing your jaw muscles, from your temples along the old-fashioned sideburns area (see right). Without tipping your nose either up or down, let your lower set of teeth drop away from your upper set. Open your lips and vocalise an ‘aahh’.
Sitting bones
Place your hands under your buttocks and find two bony knobbles: these are your sitting bones. What happens to your sitting bones:
a) When you slump? (How does this affect your head, neck and body relationship?)
b) When you pull your shoulders back and chest up, military-style?
With your head leading, rock back and forth on your sitting bones until you find the point where they are pointing down directly into the chair. Think of directing your knees away from your sitting bones and slightly away from each other. How does this affect your body as a whole? Now sing!
Arms and eyes
Imagine that you have puppet strings attached to your elbows, wrists and fingers. The puppeteers raise your arms with minimum effort on your part. Repeat this experiment holding the score. Using only your eyes, alternate between looking at the score and looking at an imaginary conductor (below).
.
An Alexander Technique expression for using excess effort to achieve a given end. Think of the poor old sopranos and tenors, noses and shoulders up in the air, trying to achieve their high notes.
In the bass and alto sections chins are compressed into throats as thev strive for that low note. These habits may feel right at the time but the end result is rarely satisfying.
Easy does it
There are singers who make the most demanding roles look and sound effortless. Although we may not all become Pavarottis, this quality of ease is learnable: imagine you have an octave mapped out along your spine and head. The lowest note is on your bottom, then your lower abdomen, upper abdomen, breast-bone, neck, base of skull, forehead and finally the crown of your head. Sing up the octave to your crown; and down to your bottom again.
Many singers squeeze up to ‘end gain’ the high notes and pull down along the front for the low notes (right), so try it the other way round – the highest note at your bottom and the lowest at your crown. This can lead to greater ease and appropriate effort in your singing.
A word about breathing
Associated with the habit of stiffening the neck, singers often suck in what feels like a large chestful of air (watch a choir just about to sing). In doing so they become like an over-inflated balloon and the air rapidly rushes away. If you take care of your posture in the ways outlined above, your breathing will tend to take care of itself. During warm-ups allow time for your breath to return unhurriedly between phrases.
Take five
‘Is there a special Alexander way of feeling calmer when you are in a hurry?’ students often ask. ‘Yes,’ comes my reply, ‘leave home five minutes earlier than usual’.
Take five leisurely minutes to warm up before choir practice. Remember a favourite time and place–an experience in which you had plenty of time and space. Relive what you were seeing, hearing and feeling. Stay with this experience for a little while longer. Now vocalise an ‘aahh’ or sing.
During busy rehearsals it may feel as if there is insufficient time to warm up, but being physically relaxed and mentally alert will pay dividends in choral singing. Current research suggests that people learn faster when they are in a calm and collected state, and one way of preparing for rehearsals and performances is to use the Alexander ‘active resting’ position (below). This gives maximum support to your spine– feet flat on the floor, knees pointing up to the ceiling about shoulder-width apart–alleviating pressure on the lower back.
The head-rest (some books will do) encourages release in the muscles that join the back of the neck to the base of your skull. It should be neither too high (or your chin will compress your throat) nor too low (or your chin will stick up in the air). Imagine the four ‘corners’ of your back–head, shoulders and tail bone– spreading and lengthening and widening away from each other and on to the floor. Use the active resting position for ten minutes a day or before rehearsals.
voice-class-alexander-aikido-nlp1
About The Writer
Alan Mars has been a STAT qualified teacher of the Alexander Technique since 1982. He has taught Alexander Technique and voice-work at many leading performing arts institutions including – the Arts Educational Drama School, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Royal College of Music. Alan has taught Alexander Technique based presentation skills to staff from many top public and private companies including Abbey National; General Electric; Sainsbury’s; Lloyds of London; Comet; the Royal Pharmaceutical Society; BNFL; the Probation Service to name but a few. Alan regularly coaches at senior management level. He is the author of a book on presentation skills “Presenter” published by Hodder & Stoughton.
Alan Mars
Alan Mars, Brighton & Hove Alexander Technique,
26 Ventnor Villas, Brighton & Hove, BN3 3DE
Tel: 01273 747 289 or 07930 323 057
Email: alan.mars@yahoo.co.uk Web: http://www.thetechnique.co.uk/Related Articles:
The Lychen Choir – a growing collection of community singing with lyrics and MP3 soundfiles
Choral Links and Resources:
Choral Public Domain Library – one of the world’s largest free sheet music sites.
Musica.Net – Virtual Music Choral Library
Singing, Health & Happiness – Confidence Tricks 6
When we think of the word “health” we may also think of “happiness”. And from happiness it is a short leap of the imagination to song and celebration. And just as happiness can lead to song, so also can singing can chase away the blues at the beginning, middle or the end of the day. It re-establishes a full, easy pattern of breathing and encourages release of the muscular system, with all the attendant benefits of stress alleviation. It is a way of expressing your feelings and of linking up with other people and the world around you.
Unfortunately for some people the idea of singing is not a cause for celebration. Many people have been given negative messages at an early age, often from teachers and parents, about their apparent inability to sing. This may have happened publicly. The resulting embarrassment virtually guaranteed that the child would no longer be able to sing, thus creating a self fulfilling prophecy. The effect of these negative messages persists into adult life. During family and seasonal celebrations, when others are singing, the wounded singer holds their breath and clamps their teeth or soundlessly mimes the words.
Sound familiar? Take heart- help is just around the corner! Remember this: we are all born singers! Most people assume that the speaking voice comes first and then we build a singing voice on top of it. The reverse is true- singing comes first and then we learn to speak. For more of this article please click here…
Related Articles:
Alexander Technique & the Choral Singer
The Lychen Choir – a growing collection of community singing with lyrics and MP3 soundfiles
Remembering your Words – Confidence Tricks 5
Memory and Centering
“If only I could remember my words then I would be composed” is a complaint that many of us could identify with.
My friend and mentor, Robin Prior, has suggested that the following is a more constructive approach “If only I could be more composed then I would remember my words.”
Have you had the experience of struggling to convey your thoughts on a subject that you know thoroughly? This could range from a total blanking of your mind to finding that you are simply not articulating your thoughts with the accustomed ease.
Adrenaline, the fight/flight hormone, tends to dampen our usual thinking and memory processes. Its job, after all, is to drive us to take physical action. Have you noticed how fast you can move when a speeding car is accelerating toward you? Logical, serial thinking is too slow in this context. It could, literally, be the death of you.
So the most important factor is to moderate your adrenaline flow and turns fear into a buzz, into a pleasant excitement. How? Please see the previous posts, Confidence Tricks 1 – 4.
You do, of course, need to practise what you want to say. It’s important to remember that memory isn’t just psychological – it’s physiological also. So, if you are going to be addressing an audience of 200 it won’t help you if you practice your speech slumped in an easy chair with your feet up in the mantelpiece! At the very least you’ll need to practice your speech whilst standing upright. Preferably standing upright centred, with your weight nicely distributed and a good wide sense of space.
It’s nice, but not essential, if you can practice in the actual venue. If you can’t get into the venue you can always visualise, pretend, that you are practising in it.*
In summary – you link your words and thoughts with a balanced and centred physiology. You link your words and thoughts with the appropriate presentation environment – either physically or in your imagination.
This simple approach can really quieten down your cognitive processes and clear your mind for action. Not only will you be able to articulate your thoughts fluidly you may also find that you are thinking more creatively. You might… surprise yourself… and find that… you know more… than you even suspected… you knew.
* I’ll say more about visualisation and mental rehearsal in a future post.
Confidence Tricks 4
All Eyes on Me?
Speaking in public? All the attention moving in your direction? Feeling over-scrutinised? Uncomfortable?
1. Use the William Shakespeare Zen koan. Say these words silently or aloud…
“All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players”
Point, literally or metaphorically, to the whole world around you. Point to all the men and women around you. Realise that they are all actors. All players.
Tell yourself that you are the audience. An audience of one. You’ve paid your money, you have your ticket and you are positively expected to be curious. So centre yourself and feel comfortable about gently observing, about positively scrutinising men and women, the players in front of you here and now.
2. Recite again…
“All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players”
This time include yourself. You also are one of the men and women. You are one of the players.
Understand, feel or simply believe that there is no audience. Only a cast of millions improvising perfectly. No separation.
Try it. It’s a wonderful, if slightly scary, perspective.
Confidence Tricks 2. Festina Lente – Hasten Slowly
Festina Lente – Hasten Slowly
A potential student approaches a famous Japanese sword master asking for instruction.
The student asks how long it will take for him to achieve mastery in swordwork…
“It will take ten years for you to become competent in the basic skills” the master replied.
“What if I study twice as hard?” the student asks eagerly.
“Then it will take you twenty years!”
“And if I study three times as hard?”
“Thirty years! A pupil in such a hurry learns slowly.”
Confidence Tricks 1 – the Dating Game
“No! You may not call me a “Confidence Guru!” Absolutely not!” – Alan.
“But “Guru” is an extremely respectable term in media circles!” – Television producer.
“That’s as may be but my fellow regulars at the Red Lion will take the… will mock me mercilessly if they hear!” – Alan
“How about “Confidence Coach” then?” – television producer.
“Ok” sigh…
“Ok then” sigh… “Let me introduce you to the “datees” in the Green Room”
I’d been asked by a television production company to help coach some members of the public for live television. It was a dating programme. Interestingly most of the participants were in their late forties or early fifties. The usual participants were in their teens and twenties.
The “datees” would say a bit about their life, their loves, hates and hobbies directly to camera. We sat at a cocktail bar where everyone had to deliver a chat-up line and come up with an appropriate and, hopefully, humorous response. And, oh yes, we all had to strut our stuff down the catwalk (steady tiger!)Nerve wracking, of course, especially if you are not used to being in the limelight.
I taught the participants some basic centering techniques. I’ll say a bit more about the background to some of these techniques in the near future:
- Place your attention in your centre of gravity – just a few inches below your navel.
- Distribute your body weight evenly onto the ground
- Maintain wide vision and wide shoulders
- Balance your head easily on top of your spine
In the end we only had time to rehearse one or two things. The participants could sense the potential of the techniques however. And this seemed to really motivate them to simply have fun in front of the camera. A virtuous cycle?
Not everyone got a date. But everyone had fun. What is it about that wonderful mixture of relaxation and excitement that seems to make the world sparkle with possibility?
One woman who was really quite shy and reserved in the Green Room absolutely blossomed on camera. She demonstrated a golf swing, her hobby, to the camera and very shortly thereafter an eligible gent phoned in with a request to get know her better!
The two interviewers were impressed. How come a group of men and women in their late forties and early fifties could be such fun on camera? Why were they so much less inhibited than the usual “datees” in their teens and twenties?
The centering techniques certainly seemed to help. Is it true that wisdom that comes with increasing maturity? And, perhaps, the ability not to take yourself too seriously? If so then it’s good news for all of us!
The interviewers were also somewhat sceptical. Couldn’t these acting techniques stop people from simply being themselves?
I simply quoted Shakespeare “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players”
And I might have added – we often end up playing a part that is unsatisfying and unsuitable. A part that someone else wrote for us. These centering techniques can give us the flexibility, courage and motivation to try out new behaviours. Not all of the techniques will be suitable all of the time. Some of them will be entirely suitable but may take a little time to get used to. Some of them will be absolutely bang-on or, as the old sherry advert used to say, “One instinctively knows when something is right!” and we will take to them like the proverbial duck to water.
PS I’ll be running an introduction to Confidence Tricks at the NLP One day conference on April 19th.
PPS Many of the centering techniques I teach come originally from my training in Ki-Aikido. They’ve grown and adapted with me. Here is a link for my old sparring partner Charles Harris. We did our yellow belt grading together more years ago than I care to remember. He is chief instructor now for one of the biggest Ki-Aikido clubs in London.
HOVE ESPLANADE
“What a horrible, great, huge, ugly expanse of tarmac! What a blot on the landscape!” I muttered to my partner on first encountering the promenade at Hove.
I’ve lived here for a few years now and have completely changed my position on this. Actually it’s an almost unique Alexander Technique resource. Where else can you encounter such a wide open and perfectly flat space that’s empty(ish) for the majority of the day?
Here are some photo links in in mybrightonandhove.org.uk to give you the idea. I particularly like the old photo at the foot of the page. Have a look also at the contributory quotes by Mick Gates and Jackie Collins about their joy in this wonderful open space.
This is a game I like to play – Walking with my eyes closed… I estimate how far I can walk without bumping into a person, a dog or a building. I close my eyes. Slow down. Feel the ground underneath. Sense the sky above. Be aware of the space behind and to the sides. Lengthen and widen into the space above, below and around.
Open the eyes and transfer the same spatial awareness into eyes-open walking.
I’ve treated my partner and my daughters’ to the experience. A gentle hand on the elbow and I become their trusty guide-dog. Lovely on a sunny winter’s day or on a starry, windy, cloud scudding winter’s night.
I’m counting my blessings right now!
These Foots Were Made for Walkin’
I’ve just realised that most of my Alexander Technique blog musings have been done whilst walking. I absolutely love walking. I did a Google search for quotes about walking. There’s lots! And by some really smart folks too. I find myself in exalted company!
Here are a few quotes and links that I really liked:
All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking. - Friedrich Nietzsche
Take a two-mile walk every morning before breakfast. - Harry Truman (Advice on how to live to be 80.)
Above all do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday I walk myself into state of well being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts and I know of no thought so burdensome hat one cannot walk away from it… if one keeps on walking everything will be alright. - Soren Kierkegaard
I can only meditate when I am walking. When I stop, I cease to think; my mind works only with my legs.” - Jean Jacques Rousseau, Confessions
Meandering leads to perfection. Lao Tzu
I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me. – Fred Allen
He who limps is still walking. - Stanislaw J. Lec
My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing. - Aldous Huxley
Of all exercises walking is the best. - Thomas Jefferson
A fact bobbed up from my memory, that the ancient Egyptians prescribed walking through a garden as a cure for the mad. It was a mind-altering drug we took daily. - Paul Fleischman, Seedfolks
Walking is the great adventure, the first meditation, a practice of heartiness and soul primary to humankind. Walking is the exact balance between spirit and humility. - Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild
Our true home is in the present moment. To live in the present moment is a miracle. The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green Earth in the present moment… - Thich Nhat Hanh
Before supper take a little walk, after supper do the same. - Erasmus
A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world. - Paul Dudley White
The sum of the whole is this: walk and be happy; walk and be healthy. The best way to lengthen out our days is to walk steadily and with a purpose. - Charles Dickens
.It is solved by walking. - A Latin proverb
Our way is not soft grass, it’s a mountain path with lots of rocks. But it goes upward, forward, toward the sun. - Ruth Westheimer
You have to stay in shape. My grandmother, she started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She’s ninety-seven today and we don’t know where the hell she is.” - Ellen Degeneres
When you have worn out your shoes, the strength of the shoe leather as passed into the fiber of your body. I measure your health by the number of shoes and hats and clothes you have worn out.- Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking. Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk. - Raymond Inmon
