At it's simplest Alexander Technique teaches you to be aware of the way you make movements. Sometimes you may find that you are overworking muscles and making effort that is far in excess of what is needed to achieve your goal.
Another way of saying that is that sometimes we are making a lot of tension and we don't realise it.
Making a lot of tension can throw your body out of alignment, introduce twists and pressure spots and make many tasks seem harder to achieve than they should be. Over-tension can also affect out mental state creating stress and it can exacerbate sore points where we have experienced injuries.
When a musician makes over-tension it can seriously affect the sounds coming from their instrument through a disruption of breath, an embellishment on the key stroke or on the fingering of a string on a fretboard. For the sportsperson, over-tension represents an inefficiency where energy fails to be directed into the activity and may in some circumstances get in the way of activity. The golfer's swing is affected, the tennis player's serve, the runner's gait and so on.
FM Alexander made some pivotal discoveries about how humans coordinate their movement. You can be shown quite easily how movement is organised efficiently or how that process is interfered with through over tension.
Please have a look at my Sydney Alexander Technique website and look out for more posts about Alexander Technique.
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