How You Stand, How You Move, How You Live: Learning the Alexander Technique to Explore Your Mind-Body Connection and Achieve Self-Mastery
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By: Missy Vineyard
Format: Paperback
From: Da Capo Press
Pub. Date: April 2007
From: Da Capo Press
Pub. Date: April 2007
Product Details:
Catalog: Book
Release Date: 2007-05-23
Media: Paperback
Number Of Pages: 336
Ean: 9781600940064
Isbn: 1600940064
Catalog: Book
Release Date: 2007-05-23
Media: Paperback
Number Of Pages: 336
Ean: 9781600940064
Isbn: 1600940064
ABOUT THE BOOK
EDITORIAL REVIEW
The Alexander Technique (AT) is a remarkably simple but powerful method for learning to skillfully control how your brain and body interact, allowing you to better coordinate your movements while increasing the accuracy of your mind’s thoughts and perceptions. Now, in How You Stand, How You Move, How You Live, leading Alexander Technique master teacher Missy Vineyard sheds a completely fresh light on this revolutionary method and, in the process, offers path-breaking insight into the mind-body connection. Vineyard thoroughly explains and teaches the central skills of the AT through simple self-experiments, and she offers engaging stories of students in their lessons to show its effective application across a range of disciplines, including the performing arts, athletics, health, psychology, and education. How You Stand, How You Move, How You Live introduces us to a world within ourselves that we know surprisingly little about--and thereby helps us to understand why we often cannot do what we should be able to do, why we harm ourselves with chronic tension and anxiety, and why our thoughts often seem beyond our control. Vineyard is also the first AT teacher to draw on cutting-edge research in neuroscience and to synthesize those findings with AT theories and techniques. She fully illuminates the benefits to be reaped by mastery of the Alexander Technique, which include: Release from acute or chronic physical pain Enhanced mental attention and focus Reduced anxiety Improved balance and coordination Relief from tension and stress Increased ease and efficiency performing precise movement skills
USER REVIEWS
"This book clarified key concepts like Inhibition and Direction in a way that no other book (and to some degree, my Alexander teacher) ever could.
In addition, there's a lot of practical advice on applying AT to sports, music and other performing arts, and daily life. It's already helped my guitar playing.
Buy it - you won't be sorry.
"
~ Written on 2008-03-22
In addition, there's a lot of practical advice on applying AT to sports, music and other performing arts, and daily life. It's already helped my guitar playing.
Buy it - you won't be sorry.
"
~ Written on 2008-03-22
"I have had back issues since I was 17 (now I know it was due to one short leg)and when I was about 30 I tried Alexander Technique. Now 30 yrs later I finally have in this book an explanation why this helped and a revelation about how far reaching this technique can be in confronting normal and abnormal body usage. Beautifully written with a deep understanding of much that Neuroscience has learned in the last few years. "
~ Written on 2008-01-21
~ Written on 2008-01-21
"Alexander Technique is often difficult to understand without a teacher and many lessons. Missy Vineyard takes the reader a step closer by correlating current research with Alexander's discoveries about how to make optimum use of ourselves. She suggests ways of organizing what we are thinking with what our bodies are doing in order to achieve radically better results."
~ Written on 2007-12-28
~ Written on 2007-12-28
"I was introduced to the Alexander technique by a friend about 15 years ago following a car injury in which I suffered a herniated disc, severe pain in the arm and significant loss of muscle strength. I contemplated surgery which most of the doctors were recommending but decided to opt for less intrusive approaches including physical therapy and lessons in the Alexander technique.
Over the last 15 years I have had numerous lessons and profited immensely from the wisdom of two highly talented instructors. I have also read about a dozen books. This one is the most practical and clearly written one. The author communicates effectively by using lots of real life examples and suggests exercises which, while time consuming, are extremely useful. Like other teachers she makes it clear that the technique is not a substitute for medical advice. But my own experience suggests that it can complement such advice along with other approaches including meditation, tai chi, yoga and others. In that sense the basic tools--inhibition, direction, lengthening of back and neck--can form the core of a holistic approach that can include many of these other approaches. There is nothing in the technique that conflicts with any of these. Indeed most of the ideas, once explained by a good teacher seem to be just applied common sense. The trick, of course, is in disciplining yourself to practice and training the mind to affect the body before it gets stiff and makes you uncomfortable.
This book is the perfect handbook to help anyone who has some basic knowledge of the Technique become much more effective in using it. Ideally, it should be accompanied by occasional lessons from a skilled instructor"
~ Written on 2007-12-25
Over the last 15 years I have had numerous lessons and profited immensely from the wisdom of two highly talented instructors. I have also read about a dozen books. This one is the most practical and clearly written one. The author communicates effectively by using lots of real life examples and suggests exercises which, while time consuming, are extremely useful. Like other teachers she makes it clear that the technique is not a substitute for medical advice. But my own experience suggests that it can complement such advice along with other approaches including meditation, tai chi, yoga and others. In that sense the basic tools--inhibition, direction, lengthening of back and neck--can form the core of a holistic approach that can include many of these other approaches. There is nothing in the technique that conflicts with any of these. Indeed most of the ideas, once explained by a good teacher seem to be just applied common sense. The trick, of course, is in disciplining yourself to practice and training the mind to affect the body before it gets stiff and makes you uncomfortable.
This book is the perfect handbook to help anyone who has some basic knowledge of the Technique become much more effective in using it. Ideally, it should be accompanied by occasional lessons from a skilled instructor"
~ Written on 2007-12-25
"As a student of the Alexander technique, I highly recommend this new book on the subject. There are many excellent, detailed illustrations that make this book user friendly and a stand out among books on this topic. Also, there are plenty of self-experiments suggested throughout the book that make it a fine book for beginning students as well as a great review for experienced students."
~ Written on 2007-09-25
~ Written on 2007-09-25