Alexander technique

There was this amazing looking baby at the contact jam. She was amazingly little and had a huge head and a small body, and big eyes with long eyelashes. The thing that was so amazing about this baby was how she held her head (I assume quite heavy) with an extra-ordinary upward direction. An unbelievable example of poise and balance. Alexander talks about babies and animals for the freedom of the neck and the head and the 'natural sense of up'.

I wished I was so free like the baby. I talked about it in my Alexander lesson. Verna, my teacher, was making fun of my 'trying', 'Trying not to interfere', and 'trying not to try'. One wishes to set the neck free, and so pushed it around instead of 'leaving it alone':

Allow the neck to be free, so to allow the head to release, so to allow the back to open!

Control is the key. She talked about babies as not trying to control, moving limbs, yelling, burping, peeing, no interference with the body's natural patterns. That was important. I don't want to be a baby of course, I can't pee in bed or throw up on the computer, I have a certain control on some of the functions, but there are some things where my uneducated control is plainly arrogant. My body intelligence knows best. Now one has to learn to see the unnecessary tensions and the habitual interference and that's not easy... Control has to be exerted in a different way.