How To Sit Down Correctly (Alexander Technique)

How to freely move your derriere to a chair.

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As I mention in the video, I'm not actually interested in you doing something correctly, but freely. Ideally I wished I'd expanded on that a bit in the video (the pitfalls of improvised content), so I'll take the opportunity to do so here. To do something freely means to do something without reaction. The most common place we observe that reaction is in the startle reflex, the pulling of the shoulders up and the neck muscles pulling the head so it tilts backwards. There may not be actual movement visible in the head/neck relationship, but there will still be an undue tightening of the muscles.

What's important here isn't the physicality though, that's just an outer manifestation that there's been a change in your thinking, and that's the reaction. Essentially, going to sit should be as inconsequential as scratching your nose; Wholly unremarkable. It's about moving yourself through space without upsetting the quality of your nervous system and thinking, and in doing so you'll find the movement itself easier. It's like carrying a full glass of water without disturbing the contents so it doesn't spill, where your very being is the water.

The action of sitting and standing is so rich in exploration of human behaviour that we use it as a contrivance and metaphor for all movement in teaching the Alexander Technique. It's a "vanilla" flavoured movement we use as a teaching tool and and as a starting point. Individual teachers may have a specialist niche in other movements, such as playing an instrument (I play guitar and often work with fellow guitarists ) or sports activities, but the same behaviours and attitudes can be observed in "vanilla" movements as can be seen in more specific ones.

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