Alexander Technique’s postural signifiers have become so culturally ubiquitous that standing postures (or standing correctly) are often regarded as exemplary or neutral/normal.  Musculoskeletal and biomechanical postural perspectives frequently omit the evolutionary process that brought humans to standing.  In medical models, body positions are depicted mechanically, as if bodies were neutral entities not subject to habit.  Colonial postural archives reverberate across all genres of body knowledge erasing connection to our evolutionary ancestry from ontological (development of organisms) and phylogenic perspectives (how organisms have evolved).  If we inadvertently support ideas that recapitulate dismissed eugenic theories popular in FM Alexander’s time, we do our profession a disservice.  Our work as developmental movement teachers emphasizes how the Alexander Technique can be in relationship to the greater story of human development.

Shifting towards a developmental movement lens—the Dart Procedures in particular—has important ramifications in teaching the basic movements associated with AT, for example, standing from sitting. The overall extension necessary to stand plus the extra opening of the body required to support that extension can clarify the use of the arms, legs, pelvis, and trunk, including the complex activities of spiralling and the use of the shoulders. Our years of work studying developmental patterning and the creation of our Framework for Integration provide clear methods that support stability in extension/hyperextension as well as temper unconscious habitual spinal overwork/overarching.

The session will:
1. Share developmental directions that are at play in ‘upright’ postures based on a Framework for Integration lens and Dart Procedures concepts.
2. Share hands-on applications particularly relevant to AT chair lessons.
3. Interrogate language and practices that erase our ancestral processes of coming to standing – namely ideas about mechanics or postural ‘neutrality’.

The workshop is for all abilities across the spectrum of students, trainees, and teachers.