BY JESSIE WANG, LEAD WRITER (COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL AWARENESS)
If you’re in the music industry, chances are you’ve heard of the Alexander Technique.
In recent years, it’s definitely become something of a buzzword. It’s a form of therapy that we hear brings with it many benefits for performing artists, and is a practice that some institutions have started teaching – and arguably, every musician should get into.
But do you actually know that much about it? As someone who went to a specialist music high school, studied at a conservatorium, and is now a music teacher, I am ashamed to say that I still don’t really know how it all works.
In this interview, we chat to Chloe Chung, an Alexander Technique teacher-trainee, and flute and dizi teacher, about the popular practice.
Hey Chloe, lovely to talk to you today. So, what exactly is the Alexander Technique?
Hi Jessie – a great question! The Alexander Technique is a methodology which aids in replacing unnecessary physical or mental tension in movement activities with consciously coordinated responses. The technique can be applied to any movement activity. However, it has gained a loyal following by performing artists, as it has been very useful in teaching them to cooperate with their physical design to better serve their artistic goals. This definition is adapted from Cathy Madden’s book Onstage Synergy: Integrative Alexander Technique Practice for Performing Artists. The technique was developed by F. M. Alexander (1869-1955), an Australian actor who became afflicted by vocal hoarseness during his monologues, rendering him unable to speak on stage. After doctors admitted to not knowing the cause of his problem, he investigated the matter himself and realised that the cause of his voice loss was actually something that he was doing to himself while he spoke.
The key words in this definition for me are ‘methodology’ and ‘consciously, coordinated responses’. Often, students come to Alexander Technique believing that they have ‘bad posture’ and need to be fixed by the teacher into the ‘right posture’. What we discover in doing this work is that it is an educational process in which we can open up a much more nuanced awareness of how we are always in movement, and to discover the pathways of movement that are more efficient than others.
As Alexander Technique teachers, we are trained to identify inefficient patterns of movement, and we offer new action plans to update your thinking about yourself, and move in such a way that is most cooperative with your physical design, which is unique to you and you alone.
How did you get involved with Alexander Technique?
I was in my third year of my undergraduate performance degree at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and starting to learn to play the traditional Chinese flute (dizi) as a second instrument. As I was coming from a background of 15 years of classical flute training, I was starting to experience some shoulder pain as I switched from playing flute to dizi, dizi to dizi (there are 12 sizes!), and then dizi back to flute.
When one day I reached for a book and felt stabbing needle pains in my shoulder, I realised I might have to see a doctor, who then advised me to see a physiotherapist and later a chiropractor. All recommended that I should not play for a while until the pain lessened, and suggested various treatments. Although they provided me with some temporary relief, they felt like Band-Aid solutions covering some underlying problem that I kept running into, which hung over as a fear in my subconscious whenever I went into a long rehearsal, knowing I would ache for hours after.
Fast-forward to a few months later, I was at the Australian Youth Orchestra National Music Camp in 2014, and a friend recommended I have a lesson with Greg Holdaway, director of training at the Sydney Alexander Technique School. Since I had already attended a few group Alexander Technique lessons at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with Janet Davies and found it beneficial, I was interested in finding out more about it.
In my first lesson with Greg, explaining my situation and demonstrating when the pain occurred when I played, we had an important talk where I was able to, for the first time, get some clarity into the source of my shoulder pain and what was happening – as well as some hope that I could also alleviate the pain.
What I immediately loved about the technique was that it was practical, easily graspable, and it really made so much sense. Walking out of the lesson, I had learnt about how to cooperate with my specific body structure, and I had a clear idea of what I could do to move differently, so that I could play my flutes with more ease.
When I went home and did some further experimenting, this mindful way of approaching movement really stuck, and truly, over the next month, I felt like I had developed more flexible and more dexterous arm-hand-finger coordination!
Can you give me some examples of exercises, whether they are mental or physical?
Sure! Firstly, just to clarify – thinking about the mental and physical as being separate things is restrictive, as the two are completely intertwined.
A quick anatomy detour to explain: the brainstem is a bundle of nerves connecting your brain to your spinal cord, and their function is to send messages to and from the body and mind all day long – messages going out, like motor control actions (for example, moving your hand), as well as coming in from your senses (for example, detection of heat from thermo-receptors on your skin).
Inside, outside, all sides of our selves are really quite connected. How you think affects the way you move, and that affects your quality of action, and in turn that affects your feelings and emotions and the way of our being in the world all the time (and if you’re a musician, the quality of sound you produce on your instrument!).
We are integrated bio-psycho-social beings – and as humans, everything from our physical selves to the environment, to our instruments, and the people around us affect us profoundly.
Using Alexander Technique involves applying it to any movement activity that we want to do skillfully – from walking down the street, sitting down comfortably, throwing a ball, to instrumental playing.
Some activities that I have explored as a student in Alexander Technique classes have involved:
- Gathering information. Learning or re-learning where major joints are in the body through reading books, hanging out with a model skeleton, hands-on work with a teacher.
- Experimenting with applying Alexander Technique to various activities. Drawing, painting, writing, playing the flute, working at a computer and doing emails. This list can go on and on!
- Observing myself in action. Playing games that draw upon all my senses – ball games, word games, movement games, improvisation and acting games to simulate real life situations that require flexibility, quick responses, precision, and my full capacity to think in action!
Because Alexander Technique is a process – not an exercise – ultimately, it’s a technique you use to apply to another action. So you can do any activity well!
Why do you think learning the Alexander Technique is important for musicians?
I think Alexander Technique fills in a very important ‘missing gap’ in our general education – as musicians, we often forget that all music playing is movement. Our sense of where we are in space is so important, we hardly know it’s there.
‘A 2012 survey of members from Australia’s eight professional orchestras found 84 per cent of musicians had experienced pain or injuries that interfered with their playing,’ the ABC reveals. [The Australian-funded paper found that more than half of those had returned to work without fully recovering.]
Because we can get stuck in certain grooves of movement, the nature of repetitive practice means whatever patterns we repeat matter. So sometimes, when these patterns are not helpful, it can get in the way of playing the music the way we want to.
Guidance by Alexander teachers, whether through verbal or hands-on assistance, helps the student experiment with new movement pathways, and because of our amazing adaptive abilities to learn and develop new skills, students map new neural pathways of movement.
And how about your journey with teaching it? How did you get involved?
My journey from learning to teaching Alexander Technique has occurred at a slow and steady pace over the past four years. My involvement with Alexander Technique has only grown deeper since the first lesson I described earlier; from going to one anatomy workshop a week, to week-long intensive workshops in Melbourne, to committing to undertaking the teacher-training program part-time at the Sydney Alexander Technique School in 2016.
It has been simply fascinating for me to learn, embody, and appreciate the wonderful integration of human structure, function, thinking, feelings, and action that is our human daily experience. Way before I heard of Alexander Technique, in high school, I remember reading books about brain plasticity, mirror neurons, and how we learn as humans – and this was something that really excited me way back then (the one book that stands out in my mind is the Tell-Tale Brain, by V. S. Ramachandran).
I had already been teaching music for a few years before I started to learn Alexander Technique, but ever since I started, I found it was practically impossible not to include and use the ideas in my own playing, as well as music teaching.
My application of Alexander Technique to flute playing has helped me understand a lot about breathing, arm movement, standing, sitting, and performance work, which have not only been useful to myself, but in teaching it has helped shaped the way I now would teach a beginner flute student.
My training as an Alexander Technique teacher has involved further study in anatomy, exploring my full range of movement capabilities, and generally putting a lot of new ideas into action!
I can never thank my last flute teacher enough, James Kortum at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, for encouraging and supporting me on my journey of learning about anatomy and movement, as well as the many other teachers I have encountered –my music and Alexander Technique teachers.
Over the past three years, I have had growing teaching experience, from watching and assisting classes as a student-trainee, to teaching supervised clinic classes, to currently assisting the weekly Alexander Technique Musicians Class. As an active musician, I also do my best to help any of musician friends of mine who are also curious about getting some more ease in their playing or dealing with any injuries as I know how challenging it can be trying to figure it out on your own!
What aspects of the Alexander Technique can musicians incorporate in their daily lives, even if they haven’t taken a class?
Even if you haven’t taken an Alexander Technique class, you can still incorporate its ideas and apply it to whatever you do in life that is meaningful to you. Some of the ideas I have discussed earlier in the interview, like the integrated nature of our mind-body connection, demonstrate how our physical selves perfectly do what we tell ourselves to do mentally. So, if you’re having trouble with an action, begin by figuring out what you’re actually asking yourself to do – is it constructive, is it clear, or does it contain vague, conflicting messages or impossible requests?
I think being curious and daring to ask ‘what if?’ is an important and playful aspect of Alexander Technique, which has helped me reconnect with what I love about music, especially when I reach an obstacle. Gather as much anatomical information as you can to see if you can clarify your approach to the movement or do it differently – there are usually many different pathways to doing the same thing – so experiment with a few ways!
The list of experiments could go on and on – and there are so many resources to read, watch, and also many Alexander Technique teachers out there who are experienced and trained in solving coordination problems which can feel daunting to solve on your own.
Stories like the ones I have told above serve to illustrate what learning the technique can look like for some people – and this is just my perspective. Learning Alexander Technique can look, feel and be a vastly different experience for each individual.
Where do you think Alexander Technique is heading in the future?
On a global level, I think there are many exciting trends emerging in the teaching of Alexander Technique. Current neuroscience is catching up with so many of the things that Alexander Technique teachers already know and teach about our bio-psycho-social design; it can be challenging to explain why the Alexander Technique works and much easier to just think, experience, and do! Our ever-developing way of communicating as musicians and music teachers is being constantly refined as a result of the growing knowledge that musicians are integrating from their Alexander Technique discoveries.
At a national level, it’s been devastating for the Alexander Technique community hearing the recent news of Alexander Technique being removed from the list of alternate health practices approved by health insurers.
As a teacher-trainee nearing graduation, it’s sad to think I’ll be starting out my teaching career at a time when our government is not acknowledging its place in our healthcare system – of which it is such a vital part of not only recovering from injury, but preventing its likelihood through ensuring healthy and sustainable practice methods.
I personally can’t wait for the day when it is just part of standard knowledge that we can integrate Alexander Technique into our general education. We simply teach how to move optimally through a multidisciplinary process – a very creative act!
One day soon, I believe Alexander Technique, neuroscience, and anatomy will be part of our educational system – not just for musicians and performing artists – and continue to be a vital tool for adults.
Find out more about Chloe and her training in Alexander Technique on chloechung.net.
Images supplied. Courtesy Katrina Choi.
