Michael Frederick, (one of my very favorite mentors) was talking about the difference between Thinking and Awareness in an Alexander Technique class for actors the other day.  It’s a distinction that bears some exploration.

Thinking is an action that is linear in nature.  If I ask you to add two large numbers together, or ask you which route you take to work every morning, chances are you will pause, your facial muscles will contract ever so slightly, and your mind will take you out of the room as words and images move past your minds eye.  Thinking often has A LOT to do with the past or the future.  When my mind wanders away and I “think” about things, it usually has to do with things that have happened before this moment, or speculation about things that might be tomorrow.

Awareness is a vastly different state.  Awareness can only occur in the present moment, and generally has very little to do with words that are not being said or images that are not being seen right here right now.  Awareness invites us to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel.  Thinking asks us to compare what is being felt now to a previous feeling or supplies us with an expectation of a feeling yet to come. Awareness knows only the feeling being felt this time.

Both thinking and awareness are necessary and important.  After all, when you were a child and touched a hot stove for the first time, I imagine the pain got you to stop and think before you did it again.  Thinking helps us to develop likes and dislikes, aversions and attachments necessary for survival.  But in our western culture we spend far too much of our lives in thinking states. Thinking often hijacks a present experience by coloring it with judgment created in the past (how else can you define “baggage” brought into a new relationship?) 

Awareness however knows nothing of judgment and helps us to experience moments as they truly are, without the taint of what's come before.  This is why awareness is such an important component of the Alexander Technique.  How you are moving, speaking, working, writing, dancing in this moment is distinct and will be different than any other time in your life.  That’s exciting to me! Many students come to me with phrases like “I always lock my knees when I stand up”.  That may be what they think, what they have encountered in the past, but how can they be so sure that will happen this time?  What happens if they let go of whats happened before, come back to the present moment and a state of awareness and see?

I recently read an article in the New York Times by William J. Broad called How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body.  Contentious?  Probably more than a little.  Upsetting to those who practice? Absolutely.  Being a dabbler in yoga myself I had to say my hackles went up at this one.  Still, the article made some valid points.

Broad’s article features a renowned instructor named Glen Black who teaches only a few simple poses and almost no inversions (head stands, shoulder stands).  “Black has come to believe that ‘the vast majority of people’ should give up yoga altogether. It’s simply too likely to cause harm…Not just students, but celebrated teachers…injure themselves in droves because most have underlying physical weaknesses or problems that make serious injury all but inevitable.”

Although his viewpoint is extreme, I can’t completely disagree with what he’s saying.

According to the New York Times, “The number of Americans doing yoga has risen from about 4 million in 2001 to what some estimate to be as many as 20 million in 2011 — [this] means that there is now an abundance of studios where many teachers lack the deeper training necessary to recognize when students are headed toward injury.”  The demographic of people doing yoga has also shifted.  Indian practitioners of yoga grew up sitting cross-legged and squatting, and continue to sit in these positions their entire adult life.   According to Broad, “Yoga poses, or asanas, were an outgrowth of these postures.”  Americans who sit sedentary in chairs all day staring at computer screens or fuming in traffic lack the natural flexibility that yoga demands. Even those of us who stay fit and take regular exercise are not necessarily equipped for the demands of some poses.

Furthermore, “a growing body of medical evidence supports Black’s contention that, for many people, a number of commonly taught yoga poses are inherently risky. The first reports of yoga injuries appeared decades ago, published in some of the world’s most respected journals — among them, Neurology, The British Medical Journal and The Journal of the American Medical Association. The problems ranged from relatively mild injuries to permanent disabilities.”

I believe the reason we are seriously injuring ourselves in Yoga at such an alarming rate is that many of us are out of touch with our bodies.  But we don’t have to be.

The Alexander Technique teaches you how to do whatever it is you do with more freedom and less tension. It teaches you to become aware of yourself in a new way, as well as how to pay attention to your body’s (sometime subtle) warning system.  Most of us walk around unconscious of how we move through our daily lives. Even worse, if we are consistently in pain we adapt by divorcing ourselves from our pain (and in doing so, divorcing ourselves from our bodies). We learn to put all our attention on the goal (“I’m going to get this project done tonight no matter what it takes!”) and ignore how we get there.  In doing all of this, we develop harmful postural or movement patterns that throw the body out of balance and weaken the structure as a whole.  This is what creates those “underlying physical weaknesses” that Black mentioned.  When the system is compromised, it only takes one wrong step and a little twist to cause a serious injury.

“Awareness is more important than rushing through a series of postures just to say you’d done them,” says Glenn Black.

Yoga is a five-thousand-year old form.  It has been proven to improve strength and flexibility.  It can lower blood pressure, lower cortisol levels and fight fatigue.  Can it be dangerous?  It can. But by applying the principles of the Alexander Technique to your practice and arming yourself with a heightened sense of awareness, freedom, and better overall coordination, yoga or any strenuous activity can remain safe and fulfilling.

The article quoted above is adapted from a new book coming out next month called The Science of Yoga: The Risks and Rewards, byWilliam J. Broad. 

I'd love to hear your thoughts....

Yesterday, while taking a jog through my local park, I sprained my ankle.  It was one of those disorienting moments where one second I was thinking about how nice it would be to eat a hamburger for lunch and the next I’m sprawled in the dust with the sound of a loud crack still ringing in my ears.  I knew immediately it was a bad twist and that I was not going to make it back to my apartment on my own.  My day flashed before my eyes—work, errands, packing for a vacation I was to leave on the following day—and felt a frustration and disappointment and throbbing pain that brought tears welling up in my eyes.  I pulled my head back and down into my neck, compressing my spine.  I started getting angry.  If only I had stayed on the pavement.  If only I had turned off the alarm this morning and slept in like I wanted to—why was I being punished for doing the right thing and getting some exercise?  Who lets this path get so uneven anyway?  How am I going to get myself on a plane tomorrow?  My trip is ruined!...

When there is a divide between What Is and What (we think) Should Be, we are often thrown out of the present moment.  We spend our energy on regret or waste time running through looped scenarios of what might be but usually isn’t.  That’s not to say we shouldn’t plan ahead or spend time learning from our past mistakes, but we have to honestly ask ourselves, how much of our daily lives are spent thinking pointlessly about yesterday and tomorrow?

The Alexander Technique is a method of teaching one to be here, fully present and engaged with the now.  Sitting in the dust, my ipod and house keys twisted under me, I became aware of how tight my neck, back, shoulders and jaw had become.  I stopped, allowed my neck to be free and easy, and allowed my head to delicately come to balance on top of my spine.  Suddenly my world came a bit more into focus.  My erratic breathing evened out, my heart slowed, and I was able to think more clearly. 

A fellow jogger approached and asked if I was alright.  I made a joke and she laughed, putting us both at ease.

Most people think Alexander Technique work is about posture—and it certainly is.  But above anything else, it’s about learning how to give yourself a choice regarding how you respond to what life throws at you.  When you react automatically, when you lash out, or find your emotional life out of control, you naturally contract into a fight/flight response which compresses your neck and acts as a parking break on your whole neuro-muscular system. 

Try this:  the next time something doesn’t go according to plan, whether it’s a broken glass, a traffic jam, a snafu at work or a disagreement with your partner, see if you can stop and give yourself some internal space before you react.  See if you can allow your neck to be free and easy and let your spine lengthen.  Step back and observe your thinking and breathing and see if you are lead to a different choice than you might have made only a moment before.

In the end my ankle sprain wasn’t nearly as bad as I had suspected.  Generally I find that the hurdles that inevitably spring up are never as bad as I fear they will be.