Tone is essential
Alwine Kruisselbank, AT teacher, Germany
Hi Penelope, I´m very in love with your work and excited about what it’s all giving me. Especially now with the pulls, I absolute agree having tone is essential for being able to non-do or release into length and width. I’ve missed it in my AT education and afterwards noted I need a certain degree of exercise to keep tone available, muscle strength and capability. Using the pulls stops me from getting stiff from fitness and golfing, making my body again mobile with strength. So thank you!
The elbow pulls have opened out my neck
Raewyn Khosla, AT teacher, Ottawa
I've been doing a lot of the pulls to the elbow, it really changes your coordination and the lungs really like that. We have a little rebounder but I couldn't use it because it really hurt my neck, it felt jammed down. But after doing the pulls, I tried the rebounder again and it's a completely different experience. With the shoulders more forward it's completely different through the back of my neck. The lengthening is not coming from narrowing, instead it feels much more stable, much juicier, connecting right through the spine so my head is not jamming down when I bounce.
The pulls expand my sense of self
Marion Miller, AT teacher, USA
"Penelope led me to appreciate how the pulls could work for me when enlivened by a Conscious Current of breath movement throughout my whole self and into my surrounding spatial awareness. As stretch needed to happen it was softened by the easy undulation of inhale and exhale beneath the fully expanding core. The pulls put me then into a soft kind of thinking – my thoughts are gentler, they free my brain somehow. There’s a range of tension and pull happening and I can decide where to go with it. And a more expanded sense of self in it too."
More tone helps me not to grip
Meredith Connie, AT teacher
The more specific you can be about things the more concretely you can discuss them and the more available the different parts of your body are. If I have appropriate tone in my hamstrings then a lot of my problems of thighs gripping just melt away.
My whole system now feels calm and springy
Meike Strohbach, AT teacher, Berlin
Chapter 7 really intrigues me. Now I understand the meaning of the springiness and the altogether of all the pulls. Fantastic, my whole system is feeling calm and springy."
Bridging Alexander technique and physiotherapy
Elke Rudolph, AT teacher and physiotherapist, Tasmania
I loved your historical research into how the AT has changed and how that uncovered that “strength “ was part of the original work and has got lost in the newer teaching approaches. From a Physio’s perspective, the importance of strength is non-negotiable. This has been a constant clash in perspectives for me. However, adding the myofascial lines of pull into directions and functional activities, provides a bridge between the two approaches. That’s been exciting.
The pulls have changed the way I work for the better,
Jutta Schäfer-Bossong, AT teacher, Germany
Your work has made a big change in my understanding
and experiencing of the alexander-work. The idea to actively engage muscles that are not sufficiently working by applying the pulls: that was new for me and it makes so much sense! It stimulated my curiosity to learn more about anatomy. I feel more
dynamic, more at home in my body and more awake to the inside and
outside world. And it changed my alexander-work: I work more often with hands-off, I verbally guide my pupils through movements and do them together with them, I integrate the pulls, spatial awareness... It gave
my work a clearer structure, my pupils like it and are more engaged and
we have more fun.
