Our goal with AT is to use awareness and thinking to re-coordinate our bodies so that movement patterns such as breathing, bending or walking come about in a better way. When this ‘just happens’ it can feel almost magical. In his early writings, Alexander wrote of walking as a ‘primary movement’. He was way ahead of his time in this. Given the right conditions, complex systems such as the human body will self-organise (this is complexity theory) and the concept of tensegrity – a balance of antagonistic forces as FM called it – is part of this.

Alexander discovered that he could bring about these right conditions using inhibition and direction, to switch off muscle groups working inappropriately, and to bring other groups back into play. By using this to re-coordinate the relationship between head and torso, along with finding support from the legs and feet, the primary movements of walking will emerge.  

In this workshop, we will begin by exploring the head/neck/back relationship from a new perspective. Head/neck imbalances are part of whole-body patterns such as forward-neck and slumping, or arching and pulling back the neck. We will work with the spiral line to explore connections that activate the whole body to come up out of patterns of misuse, and which bring the head forward and up from the back.

Then we will explore walking from three aspects: stability, coordination and anatomy. Stability enables the joints to move and brings in coordination, the primary movement of walking.  We’ll look at the anatomy of the foot and the muscle spirals of the legs that enable this. However, such walking is often gentle and slow; sometimes we need more than that. We’ll use the myofascial lines to discover power in our walk, for speed on the flat or strength to climb a steep hill! This workshop will wake up your feet!