This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Tennis, is published on this website in a PDF format. It is very detailed and practical, and it will give you the physical tools you need to take the limits off of your ability to create the tennis technique you want without sacrificing your body.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
Primary Control is the basis of organized coordinated tennis playing in the Alexander Technique. When a tennis player is playing tennis with the most organized posture and movements possible, then the head is leading the tennis player’s spine upward, even as the player looks at and hits the ball, with a decompressed, vertically balanced, and aligned spine.
This means that all of the nerves that radiate from the spinal cord have no pressure on them. So, the nerves can send the signals from the brain for movement and/or muscular support, as you play tennis, without being slowed down by the vertebrae and muscles pinching the nerves.
The brain and spinal cord always organize the movement that the body produces, but when the Primary Control is interfered with by muscular tension, compression, and poor posture, then that organization is poor organization. THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE IS ALL ABOUT THE QUALITY OF A TENNIS PLAYER’S POSTURE AND TECHNIQUE.
The Alexander Technique recognizes that a huge amount of wear and tear and physical pain to the tennis player is caused by how you play, not by how powerfully you hit the ball or how long you play a match.
The assumption in the Alexander Technique is that we are born with an innate ability to move with beautiful Primary Control, and that babies crawl with the head leading a lengthening spine naturally, given that the baby is healthy in a healthy environment.
If you were to observe a 1,000 tennis players playing, you’d be hard put to see one tennis player playing with beautiful Primary Control (given that none of them had done any Alexander Technique work). What does playing tennis without a compromised Primary Control look like?
The tennis player runs fully upright with free knees with a completely mobile body (not trying to stand straight). The tennis player’s neck is free and the player is aware that the head is leading a lengthening spine upward, which means that the tennis player is able to follow and hit the ball, even with the head continuing to lead a lengthening spine upward.
This means that the tennis player is completely engaged in playing without hunkering down, trying to get control of the ball by collapsing downward. This fully upward lengthening mobile posture balancing on free legs and bending knees on grounded feet, gives the shoulders and arms of the tennis player a balanced torso to be supported by, so that the tennis player can effortlessly spiral the arms and the torso as he or she hits the ball without compression.
When the tennis player’s body is organized by the Primary Control, then the player is free to place all of his or her awareness on a tennis technique that isn’t being compromised by a compromised Primary Control. In other words, if the tennis player’s body is collapsed or over-tense with poor head/neck/spine organization, then the pure specific tennis technique of the tennis player can never be what it would be, since it is not backed up by a balanced body.
WHEN THE FOUNDATION, PRIMARY CONTROL, OF COORDINATED ELEGANT HUMAN MOVEMENT IS COMPROMISED IN PLAYING TENNIS, THEN YOU WILL PROBABLY NEVER PLAY TENNIS AS EFFORTLESSLY AS YOU COULD.
