The Teacher´s Body as a Teaching Tool:
The Alexander Technique and Performance Skills for Teachers

Excerpts from a longer article by Harriet Anderson

All the World´s a Stage (William Shakespeare)
All the World´s a Stage, and most of us are unrehearsed (Sean O´Casey)

Whether we like it or not, we are all performers. Everyday life is full of small stage entrances and exits. And whether we like it or not, every time we enter the classroom, we are putting on a performance. Which does not mean that we are entertainers or in any way play-acting. But it does suggest that it might be worthwhile considering how we could become better performers...

Research suggests that an audience can give as little as 7 percent of its attention to the verbal and as much as 93 percent to the non-verbal elements. Yet in most teacher training courses that non-verbal factor is left largely out of account and certainly for many people it appears to be frustratingly outside their conscious control. We need to start paying more attention to the teacher´s body as a teaching tool and resource. And here, I believe, the Alexander Technique can be of help to us...

So let me tell you a little about the Alexander Technique (AT) and how it might fit in here. The AT deals with how we use our mind and body (and that of course includes our voice) in everyday life. The muscles of the human body form a kind of elastic suit which we inhabit. If the muscles are habitually contracted (as they are in many people) then the suit is a few sizes too small and we don´t have enough room for ourselves. We are constantly being squeezed, squashed and twisted, and movement, breathing and voice are impaired. Under the hands-on guidance of a teacher of the AT, we can learn to release those contracted muscles to readjust the size of the suit so that it is a good fit and gives us enough room and also support in our daily activities...

Obviously we need first to be aware of what our habits are in order to change them, and here it is very helpful if a trained pair of eyes and hands can give us feedback. With time we become more sensitized to ourselves (and, usually, others) and to the finer/finest levels of muscular activity – and believe me, that process of sensitization can be intensely exciting. Everyday activities become a source of fascination; we recapture our curiosity and explore the ways we think and move. With guidance from the teacher we can become aware of how our internal body map (and every one has one however unconscious) influences the way we move and use our self, and we can if necessary begin to redraw it so that it corresponds more with the anatomical lie of the land. We can thus begin to use our self more appropriately...

However, we cannot change just by superimposing something new over what is old, like re-painting the wall bright white without filling in the cracks and maybe cleaning off the old paint first. And that´s where inhibition comes in. Which in Alexandrian terms (as opposed to Freudian terms) means withholding consent (as Alexander put it) to your old habits – or simply just saying no. Inhibition is about creating an open space for choice to occur, rather than remaining enclosed in the narrow furrow of habit. And that in physical terms often means learning to stop, to use less muscular effort rather than more (most of us use far more than we really need to perform the act of daily living). It means learning to allow more to happen rather than trying to make it happen, to focus more on process as well as outcome...

Which does not however mean that the AT is about letting it all hang and complete passivity. Not at all. It is about achieving a balance between means and ends, doing and non-doing. On the physiological level this balance means a gradual redistribution of muscle tone. In most people tone is unequally distributed with parcels of too much conflicting with parcels of too little. With a more equal redistribution we can use the appropriate effort for the task in hand which leads to a sense of ease which leads to a sense of pleasure in everyday living which leads to an emotional and mental balance.

Listen to Harriet talk about ways the Alexander Technique can help teachers, and anyone who has to speak in front of an audience

Listen to Harriet talk about her background and about how the Alexander Technique can help with learning a foreign language

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Harriet Anderson (Ph.D., MSTAT) is a teacher of the Alexander Technique based in Vienna, Austria. She is also a Lecturer at the Department of British and American Studies at the University of Vienna. In her Alexander teaching she is particularly interested in the applications of the Technique to public speaking skills and foreign language learning.

For more information about the Alexander Technique, click here: The Complete Guide to the Alexander Technique