This ebook, Yoga and the Alexander Technique Principles of Good Body Use, 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 do the asanas with great poise, posture, ease, and release.
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 an organized, balanced, and aligned yoga asana in the Alexander Technique. When a person is doing yoga with an organized posturally balanced yoga technique, then the head is leading the yoga practitioner’s spine into lengthening, as the yoga practitioner does a specific asana.
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 do a specific asana, without being compromised by the vertebrae and muscles pinching the nerves.
The brain and spinal cord always organize the movement and posture that the body produces, but when the Primary Control is interfered with by muscular tension and compression and poor posture, then that organization is poor organization. THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE IS ALL ABOUT THE QUALITY OF A YOGA PRACTITIONER’S POSTURE AND TECHNIQUE.
The Alexander Technique recognizes that a huge amount of wear and tear and physical pain doing toga is caused by how you organize your body with your beliefs about good posture, alignment, and good yoga technique.
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 people doing yoga asanas, you’d be hard put to see one person doing the asanas with beautiful Primary Control (given that none of them had done any Alexander Technique work). What does a person doing yoga without a compromised Primary Control look like?
The person beginning a pose starts fully upright with a completely mobile body (not trying to stand straight). The yoga practitioner’s neck is free and the person is aware that the head is leading a lengthening spine upward, which means that the person doing the asana is able to focus on doing the pose without collapsing or compressing downward to get control of the pose.
This means that the person doing an asana is completely engaged in completing the pose without hunkering down. This fully upward mobile posture, gives the practitioner a lengthening body to generate the any of the asanas from, whether your torso is fully upright, on a diagonal, or completely horizontal.
When the yoga practitioner’s body is organized by the Primary Control, then the practitioner is free to place all of his or her awareness on a yoga technique that isn’t being compromised by a compromised Primary Control. In other words, if the yoga practitioner’s body is collapsed or over-tense with poor head/neck/spine organization, then the pure specific effortless yoga technique of the person doing the asanas can never be what it would be, potentially interfering with enlightenment.
WHEN THE FOUNDATION OF COORDINATED HUMAN MOVEMENT IS COMPROMISED, THEN THE SECONDARY TECHNIQUE OF A SPECIALIZED ACTIVITY, LIKE DOING YOGA, WILL NEVER BE AS EFFORTLESS OR AS EXPANSIVE AS IT COULD BE.
