Release What You Don't Need

Release, constant release requires conscious participation.  Requires nourishing my awareness and practicing coming back to the present moment over and over.  Support of other practicioners moves me to spaces I am not capable of achieving on my own.

Release the unnecessary.  How much of my way of moving is unneeded and unrelated to how the system is designed?  Tension, misguided effort, and plain old habit cloud my capabilities.  What am I releasing - the past, the future, the unseen?  Can I allow my body and mind to arrive right where I am?

As I focus on the Alexander Technique direction of width I notice my tendency to hold my right shoulder rolled forward with my arm slightly pressing against my body.  This puts pressure on my breathing, though this pressure is generally below the level of my awareness.  This habit also pulls on my back, tiring & misusing muscles which then pull on other muscles, introducing tension throughout my system.  And I seldom notice this.  Why?

Habits of hurry and inattention.  Years of neglect of how I use myself resulting in well worn pathways in my brain mandating this is how life is.  Mimicking of how others use themselves, for instance in playing the guitar, without my own playing being based on principles.

Yet the simple thought of "wide" without actually doing anything, allows a release of muscles doing unnecessary work.  Allows a release of tension from the strains my habitual unnecessary work produces.  And this simple thought quiets the mind, bringing me into the present.  A new if transitory pattern is introduced, one based on principles of releasing into the design of the musculoskeletal system.  Even though this release is transitory the basis for a new way of moving is being established.

Introducing the thought of the AT directions, over and over, as I remember, allows the release into a new way of being.  Connected with my thinking, my body and the space around me a gentle release like the melody of clouds I saw at sunrise today arises.  Moving with grace and ease, according to the way the design allows.  Release.  What am I releasing?  Habits, judgements, opinions and neglect. 

Release what you don't need was a comment from Pedro de Alcantara's interview with Diana Rumrill.  What is it that I need?  What do I not need?  How do I determine my needs?  The Alexander Technique provides me the framework to see, experiment with, and find what I am doing and more importantly what I need to be doing or not.  The directions allow me to release what I do not need and to lengthen & widen in movement and in life.  What are you releasing?