AT-DSM Newsletter: Summer 2021
Thank you for your interest in the Alexander Technique Des Moines newsletter. This is an experiment to see who reads it and what kinds of things might be useful to come to your inbox a few times a year. Please feel free to send questions to me: jayfoote@gmail.com or any ideas you have about topics of interest that I could cover in this space.
Today, I intend to tell part of my story and explain what makes the Alexander Technique unique and useful. In the future, I plan to suggest ways to be more mindful and embodied and offer tips to overcome back pain, transcend the fear of public speaking or stage fright, and explore the Alexander Technique process to experience your body and life more fully.
My story:
I started studying Alexander Technique in 1999 due to the regular pain I experienced while playing the upright bass at the University of Northern Iowa. I couldn't turn a doorknob without shooting pain. After consulting a couple of doctors who told me to rest, when I got back to the bass after a day, a week, or a few weeks off, the pain was still present. I had a couple of cortisone shots in my hand, and the shots didn't help. I thought I had to quit playing music entirely because I wasn't "cut out" for being a student musician, let alone a professional. Around that time, I was introduced to an Alexander Technique teacher in Ames, Iowa, and within the first 30-minutes of the first lesson, I was out of the pain for the first time in months. I discovered that day there was a lot about my body I didn't understand, AND I learned I was causing the pain by how I was moving, or in my case, not moving. The Alexander Technique changed my life, allowed me to pursue music more fully, and helped make my 15-year freelance musician/bassist/producer career in NYC possible.
I produced a handful of albums with songwriters, played bass on countless others, and toured all over the world. I've played bass on stages in Taiwan, South Korea, Yemen, Russia, and France. I've performed on national TV in Spain, Japan, Italy, and Canada. In the US, I played on Letterman, Ellen, and The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. I subbed on Broadway hundreds of times over 5 years, performing on Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, and Waitress. Alexander Technique made all of that possible.
I joined the Balance Arts Center's Alexander Technique Teacher Training Course in NYC in 2010. In 2013, after 1600-hours of training (4 days a week for 4 hours a day for 3 years), I was certified by The American Society of Alexander Technique Teachers (AMSAT) to teach the Alexander Technique. I started assisting my teacher, Ann Rodiger, in 2015 in the training of Alexander Technique Teachers. In 2018, I joined the AMSAT Board of Directors, where I served for 2 years, securing additional funding for the annual research grant to encourage more robust evidence-based studies to establish the Alexander Technique within a scientific framework.
What makes the Alexander Technique unique?
Alexander Technique is an awareness-building process that cultivates an internal flow by creating space to integrate body and mind by studying "the how" of any activity. By simplifying movements and paying particular attention to how the movement starts, continues, and ends, students can find a bit more balance and ease in their bodies, which also creates time to discover new possibilities. The Alexander Technique traditionally uses a very light touch, usually on the head, neck, back, and joints, to invite students to explore the space between their habitual movements and what is possible.
The Alexander Technique is an educational practice. Developing more kinesthetic awareness allows students to choose how they want to live and how they want to be. Alexander Technique is not therapy. Some students may feel less pain, fixed or healed. Students may feel more freedom in movement or transformed with more groundedness. This is due to how the student is thinking and moving differently. The AT teacher helps guide that process of awareness.
How do your sessions help people?
F.M. Alexander said humans hold stress, memories, trauma, and tension in their bodies and muscles. AT works to unwind those habitual patterns of holding. My students have reported feeling more connected, more on the ground, and lighter. They have also reported feeling relief from neck, shoulder, and back pain and that their movements can happen more easily with less internal resistance.