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Multiple perspectives on the experience and effectiveness of


the Alexander Technique in relation t o athletic performance
enhancement: A qualitative study
Krim, Don, M.S.
California State University, Fullerton, 1993

UMI

300N.ZeebRd.
Ann Arbor, MI 48106

MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES ON THE EXPERIENCE AND EFFECTIVENESS


OF THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE IN RELATION TO ATHLETIC
PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT: A QUALITATIVE STUDY

A Thesis
Presented to the
Faculty of
California State University, Fullerton

In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Science
in
Physical Education

by
Don Krim
Approved by:

<W3
Kenneth Ravizza, Committee Chair
Department of Physical Education

Lynaa Randall, Member


Department of Physical Education

32

Lyn Charlsen, Director of Training


Alexander Training Institute of Los Angeles

/?9.5

5"

Date

Date

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study examined the experiences of 5 athletes


with respect to the Alexander Technique and sport performance
enhancement. Raw data were provided by in-depth telephone
interviews using open-ended questions. An inductive content
analysis revealed two broad categories of phenomena, experiential
and effect. Experiential categories were Awareness, Wholeness, and
Control, Mastery, and Confidence. Effect categories were Stress
Management, Injury Prevention and Recovery, and Learning.
Analysis included a description of the process of learning and
employing the skills of the Alexander Technique as described by the
athletes. Results indicate that these specific athletes attribute
positive benefits to their athletic performance from studying the
Alexander Technique. Experiences were consistent with those in the
extant literature. Comparisons and implications are explored between
the experiences reported and those in the peak experience literature.
Future avenues of research and methods to teach the Alexander
Technique to athletes and sport psychologists are discussed.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT.

ii

LIST OF FIGURES

vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

viii

Chapter
I. INTRODUCTION
Performance Enhancement in Sport
Purpose of the Study
The Alexander Technique and Skilled Performance
Guiding Assumptions
Operational Definitions
Alexander Technique Trained Athletes
Inhibition/Suspension/Non-doing
Direction/Giving Directions/Thinking
Use
Habit
Performance Enhancement
Importance of the Study

1
2
3
4
6
7
7
7
8
8
8
8
9

II. LITERATURE REVIEW


Research on Performance Enhancement
Background to the Alexander Technique
Use and Function
Education and Habit
Characteristics of Balance
Research on the Alexander Technique

10
10
12
14
15
17
18

III. METHODS
Procedures

29
29

iii

Subjects
Data Collection
Interviewer
In-depth Interview
Recording and Transcription
Anecdotal Historical Sources
Triangulation
Inductive Content Analysis
IV. CONTENT ANALYSIS
Narrative Vignettes
Henri
Peter
Cheryl
James
Bob
Experiential Categories
%
Awareness
Way of Being
Movement Habits
"Expanded Field of Attention"
Sensory Perception and Effective Thinking
Letting Go of Ego
Summary
Wholeness
Unity of Self
Whole Body in Movement
Unity in Performance
Flow of Life
Summary
Control, Mastery, Confidence
Peak Experience
Self Empowerment
Summary
Effect Categories
Stress Management
Physical Tension
Responding to External Sources of Stress
Pre-competitive Anxiety, Arousal Level
Human Imperfection
iv

30
31
31
34
38
39
39
40
43
50
50
50
50
51
52
52
52
55
56
59
62
67
69
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
75
77
79
80
80
81
82
83
85

Summary
Injury Prevention and Recovery
"Early Warning System"
Recurring, Chronic Injury
Reduced Risk
Recovery and Prevention
Ongoing Improvement, Longevity
Summary
Learning
Process Variables
Information Processing
Open-mindedness
Summary
Process Description
Awareness, Inhibition, Direction
A Paradigm for Performance Enhancement
in Sport
Awareness
Habits, Inhibition and Choice
Direction, Allowing, Letting Go
Summary
Summary of Content Analysis
V. DISCUSSION
Introduction
Habit
Awareness, Attention and Wholeness
Awareness and Peak Experience in Sport
Concentration
Letting Go
Mindfulness
Learning to Be In the Moment
Stress Management
Startle Pattern
Arousal and Appropriate Effort
Responsibility and Effective Thinking
Movement Efficiency and Injury Prevention
Methods to Teach Athletes the Alexander
Technique
Philosophical Compatibility With the Technique
v

86
87
87
88
90
91
94
95
95
96
98
99
100
101

.'.

101
101
104
106
111
112
117
117
118
122
128
13 1
13 5
13 7
138
141
142
144
147
151
152
156

Conclusion
Summary of Findings
Implications for Performance Enhancement and
Future Research

158
15 8
16 2

APPENDICES
Appendix 1. Oral Informed Consent
Appendix 2. Interview Introduction
Appendix 3. Guided Interview Schedule for Athletes
Appendix 4. Guided Interview Schedule for Alexander
Teachers

17 3

REFERENCES

175

vi

167
168
169
170

LIST OF FIGURES

Page
Figure 1.

Flow chart of inductive content analysis

49

Figure 2.

Comparison of peak experience characteristics and


Alexander Technique derived experiences

163

vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are many individuals to thank for their assistance and


guidance in this work. First and foremost, my committee members
Dr. Ken Ravizza, Dr. Lynda Randall, and Lyn Charlsen without whose
help I could not have completed this process. I wish to specially
thank Dr. Steve Estes for his contributions to my thinking and his
warm support and encouragement. I wish to thank Dr. Roberta Rikli
and Dr. Diane Ross for their ongoing support over the past two years.
To Gary Venet, without whose unending support and encouragement,
none of this would have been possible, thank you. My warmest
thanks to all of the athletes who gave so generously of their time and
of themselves. And most of all, again I must thank my two mentors
Lyn Charlsen and Ken Ravizza, without whom I would have none of
the skill or knowledge to have accomplished this work, and without
whose support this joining of two worlds would not have been
possible.

vm

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCnON
The focus of this qualitative study is to examine the use of the
Alexander Technique in the arena of athletic performance
enhancement. The Alexander Technique is one of many techniques
used in the training of performing artists for artistic performance
enhancement. Though widely known among actors, singers and
musicians especially, the Alexander Technique has had only limited
application in the area of athletics and physical education.
Actors, singers and musicians recognize that their artistic
expression and their livelihood are dependent upon the functioning
of the body and awareness of how it functions. A great deal of the
actor's training in particular is devoted to experiencing the body, the
human instrument, through awareness and self exploration (Oida,
1992). In addition to the Alexander Technique, movement and voice
training for the actor may include Jacobson Progressive Relaxation
(Jacobson, 1929), Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement
(Feldenkrais, 1972), and other techniques of body and voice
exploration and development less known in physical education and
athletics. Most of the techniques share a common ground in helping
1

2
develop kinesthetic and other sensory awareness, less tension, and
greater freedom of expression with the body and voice. Sport
psychologists have been familiar with and have used Jacobson
Progressive Relaxation or modified versions thereof for athletic
performance enhancement (Greenspan and Feltz, 1989). Recently
Singer, Lidor and Cauraugh (1993) studied awareness procedures
attributed to Feldenkrais in relation to motor skill learning and
performance. What follows is a brief encapsulation of performance
enhancement variables and strategies used in athletic performance
enhancement.

Performance Enhancement in Sport

Numerous athletic performance variables have been identified in


the sport psychology literature both by experiential and empirical
research studies. These include personality, attention, arousal level,
anxiety, and motivation (Cox, 1990). There are numerous athletic
performance enhancement intervention strategies designed to affect
any one or more of these performance variables. Cox (1990) has
categorized these as (a) relaxation strategies, (b) cognitive strategies,
(c) package intervention programs and (d) psyching-up strategies.
Examples of relaxation strategies include Jacobson Progressive
Relaxation (Jacobson, 1929), passive relaxation, autogenic training,
meditation and deep breathing techniques, and biofeedback.
Cognitive strategies include the use of imagery, hypnosis, goal
setting, and positive self-talk or effective thinking techniques.

3
Package intervention strategies involve the use of stress
management techniques in individualized and/or group programs.
Psyching up strategies might draw from all of the above, as well as
using, for example, pep talks or bulletin boards.
Recently the performing arts have gained attention as both
sources to educate and to learn from about performance. Gallwey's
The Inner Game of Tennis (1974) was adapted into Green and
Gallwey's The Inner Game of Music (1986). Orlick made reference to
continued work not only with athletes, but with artistic performers
(Straub & Hinman, 1992). Finally, the new Contemporary thought on
performance enhancement: A journal of qualitative inquiry has a
professional drummer on its editorial board and specifically called
for research inquiry into the performing arts (Hanson, Newburg, &
Newman, 1992).

Purpose of the Study


The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences and the
perceived effectiveness of the Alexander Technique in relationship to
enhancing athletic performance. The qualitative study design used
in-depth interviewing of subjects with differing perspectives as the
primary sources of data, plus additional historical data. The intent
was to collect an emergent body of experiential knowledge that
would open avenues for future research concerning the Alexander
Technique and athletic performance.

4
The Alexander Technique and Skilled Performance
Like performing artists, athletes also use their bodies as their
instruments. In general, however, their level of body awareness is
considered to be quite low (Ravizza, 1977). Ravizza (1977, 1986)
argued that greater awareness of their bodies and how they respond
to the environment would lead athletes to a greater sense of control
over themselves and their performance. Among other awareness
training techniques, Hatha Yoga has been used successfully by sport
psychologists as a medium through which to teach awareness with
athletes (Ravizza, 1980, 1982).
The Alexander Technique is used to develop kinesthetic and
other sensory awareness of movement habits and tension patterns,
and to experience the unity of mind and body. It is a method of
neuromuscular re-education, based on the principle that the
muscular tonic relationship between the head neck and back greatly
determines the quality of our movement, and on a more holistic
level, "the use of the self" (Alexander, 1932). Jones (1976) defined
the Technique as a method
for expanding consciousness to take in inhibition as well as
excitation ('not-doing' as well as 'doing') and thus obtain a
better integration of the reflex and voluntary elements in a
response pattern....The Alexander Technique doesn't teach you
something new. It teaches you to bring more practical
intelligence into what you are already doing; how to eliminate
stereotyped responses; how to deal with habit and change.
(PP. 1-2)

5
The Technique has proven effective in enhancing kinesthetic
perception and altering the muscular distribution of effort in the
body. This effect has been experienced by a wide range of students,
including skilled performers, people in pain, and military personnel.
However, there have been few formal studies designed to determine
the effectiveness of the Technique on enhancing skilled performance
specifically. Jones (1976) reported that he did document the effects
of the Technique on vocal production and drumming in separate
single case pilot studies, using experimental procedures and
quantitative measures. Jones (1973) also suggested that the use of
the Technique with athletesspecifically runnerswould be
worthwhile studying because the results could be so readily
quantifiable. A thorough review of the research on the Alexander
Technique is detailed later.
The scant reporting in the Alexander Technique literature of
work with athletes is scattered. This study drew upon historical
references in the literature to athletic experiences with the
Alexander Technique, such as letters from athletes to teachers and
teaching journal notes. The study provided substantial new data and
information through in-depth interviewing about the nature and
experience of the Alexander Technique and athletic performance. It
provided insight into the relationship between the Alexander
Technique and athletic performance as perceived by 5 athletes from
4 different sports who had studied the Technique varying amounts
of time. Two of the subjects were also Alexander teachers and had
worked extensively teaching other athletes.

6
Guiding Assumptions
Rather than formal hypotheses, this study was directed by
certain guiding assumptions. It was assumed that athletes and
performance artists confront many similar types of performancerelated issues and share many common performance experiences. It
was assumed that the physical and psychological effects of the
Alexander Technique that have been demonstrated generally, either
by experience or empirical research, had the potential for direct
benefits to the athlete in performance specifically.
The study was designed to explore the following research
questions with regard to the Alexander Technique and athletic
performance as perceived by these specific athletes: Why have these
athletes studied the Alexander Technique? What is the essence of the
experience of studying the Alexander Technique as it relates to their
athletic performance? What are the perceived benefits of this
method? How do these athletes relate what they learn from the
Alexander Technique to their sport?
Given the purpose of the Alexander Technique, to develop
kinesthetic awareness and to affect distribution of muscular effort,
and based on the extant literature, it was intuited that athletes'
positive experiences would be related to an increase in kinesthetic
awareness, a sense of greater ease of movement, reduced stress, and
more sense of what is referred to as "being present," or "in the
moment" (Ravizza, 1982). It was also anticipated that there would be
some negative experiences with the Technique. These might include
the difficulty of understanding the Technique and a reluctance on the

7
part of athletes to give up their ideas regarding hard work, muscular
effort and practice in favor of what is in many ways a contradictory
approach. And there might be resistance from athletes to the
Technique as there would be to any intervention. All intervention
strategies in the field of sport psychology receive mixed reception
from athletes, especially in team settings, partly because the athletes
have been successful in the past, and partly because sport is
tradition bound (Ravizza, 1988).

Operational Definitions

Alexander Technique Trained Athletes


For the purposes of this study Alexander Technique trained
athletes were defined as persons participating in competitive sport
on any level, and who had studied the Alexander Technique long
enough to have had a working understanding of the Technique. This
working understanding of the Technique was presumed for those
athletes who were also teachers of the Technique. A subjective
evaluation of the other subjects was left to the teachers who referred
them for participation in this study.

Inhibition/Suspension/Non-doing
The ability and willingness to decide not to react in a habitual
way to stimuli, internal or external. Learning to make the
choice to wait and think before reacting and acting. (Charlsen,
1989)

8
Direction/Giving

Directions/Thinking

Alexander described giving directions as


the process involved in projecting messages from the brain to
the mechanisms and in conducting energy necessary to the use
of these mechanisms. (Alexander, 1932, p. 20)
Directions are the unique set of verbal/mental instructions
Alexander developed to encourage the re-direction of energy
from habitual responses to a new and more efficient use of the
self. Directions can be given at any time, abbreviated,
connected to images. (Charlsen, 1989)

Use
In the narrower sense, use describes posture as it changes over
time.... In the broader sense, use describes the total pattern of
behavior in the ongoing present. Alexander emphasized that by
use he did not mean use of specific parts of the body, but use
of all of the human being acting in concert. (Jones, 1976, p.
196)

Habit
"An acquired predisposition to respond to a certain class of
stimuli with a certain mode of response. "(Jones, 1976, p. 195)

Performance

Enhancement

Teaching athletes or any performers to understand the process


of continually striving for their potential level of excellence in
competitive performance on a consistent basis.

9
Importance of the Study
As the Technique has apparently served such a benefit to drama
and music performers, on the basis of its wide-spread use (Nicholls &
Carey, 1991), it intuitively makes sense that the same would hold
true for athletic performance. Results confirmed largely positive
experiences with the Technique by athletes. There are implications
for the use of the Technique as an additional tool to enhance sport
performance in applied sport psychology. In addition, by using a
qualitative method of inquiry with respect to a particular
intervention strategy rather than the more traditional quantitative
scientific method, the scope of the literature on performance
enhancement was expanded.

CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter presents background information on research on
performance enhancement, followed by an in-depth description of
and review of literature on the Alexander Technique. Information is
organized under the following major headings: (1) Research on
Performance Enhancement, (2) Background to the Alexander
Technique, and (3) Research on the Alexander Technique.

Research on Performance Enhancement

In a meta-analysis of the effectiveness of 23 interventions to


enhance athletic performance from 19 published studies using
quantitative methodology, Greenspan and Feltz (1989) broke
interventions into three broad categories: relaxation training,
behavioral techniques, and cognitive restructuring. Overall results
showed that educational relaxation based and cognitive restructuring
techniques were modestly effective with the groups studied, mainly

10

11
collegiate and adult athletes. However, methodological differences,
the use of single case studies, and a tendency for professional
journals to bias selection of studies for publication towards those that
show significant results tended to make for only modest conclusions.
The authors noted that in most cases causality could not be inferred.
Martens (1987) questioned the effectiveness of quantitative
scientific inquiry in the study of human behavior, such as that used
in the studies reviewed by Greenspan and Feltz (1989). Martens
suggested that in sport psychology little has been learned through
this method, and argued for the use of qualitative methods to better
understand the sporting environment. A similar argument was put**
forth by Locke (1989) with regard to both sport and physical
education.
To date, however, there has been comparatively little qualitative
research conducted in the field. And what has been done has looked
more at variables affecting athletic performance than at the use of
intervention strategies. Recent examples of this type of research,
using in-depth interviews and inductive content analysis include
studies by Scanlan, Ravizza and Stein (1989) and Smith (1991). Both
studies looked at sources of enjoyment, the former in elite figure
skaters, the latter in collegiate gymnasts.
There is value in asking athletes about their own unique athletic
experiences. Much of the knowledge of peak experience in sport
came from asking about athlete's most joyous experiences while
participating in sport (Ravizza, 1973). There is also value in finding

12
out from athletes what they are doing. Many of the techniques used
by sport psychologists or performance enhancement consultants
were extracted from athletes reporting the use of those techniques.
For example, Orlick (1990) reported that virtually all elite level
athletes with whom he has worked have highly developed imagery
skills. He argued, therefore that it makes sense for sport
psychologists to teach imagery skills. Often high level athletes
already know what to do intuitively. They are just not necessarily
conscious of their abilities or their behaviors (Ravizza, 1986).

Background to the Alexander Technique

The F. M. Alexander Technique has been described as a tool of


psycho-physical re-education (Alexander, 1932). The Technique is
concerned fundamentally with the principles governing human
movement. The purposes of the Technique are (a) to develop
improved kinesthetic awareness; (b) to reintegrate the overall
psycho-physical coordination of human movement; and (c) to
identify how postural tensions and movement habits can interfere
with ease and freedom in everyday movement and skilled
performance (Alexander, 1918). It addresses the relationship
between how we move and how we function.
From Alexander's perspective, within our own unique anatomical
structures, our basic movement patterns are learned and habitual. A
movement can have a quality of ease and freedom, or a quality of

13
tension and effort. It can have a quality of buoyancy and lightness,
or of heaviness and fatigue. These different qualities of movement
are products of habitual movement patterns. These habits can only
be identified by bringing a conscious awareness to ourselves within
activity. When one maintains a conscious awareness of what one is
doing while still in the process of doing it, there is the opportunity in
that moment to stop an automatic, habitual response and
choose an alternative response (Brown, 1980).
The Alexander Technique approaches movement as a complex
integration of neuromuscular pattern and habit, balance, postural
mechanisms, appropriate muscle tone for the task, and mental
attitude (Nicholls, 1991). Jones (1976) has added that change during
the course of study of the Technique is brought about by expanding
our field of attention to include both ourselves and the environment
while in movement.
Historically, the Alexander Technique has been widely used in
the training of actors and musicians (Nicholls & Carey, 1991). A
selection of artistic institutions that represent the Technique in their
curriculum in the United States includes The Juilliard School, the
American Conservatory Theatre (ACT), The Old Globe Theatre, The
University of California, Los Angeles Theatre Program, California
Institute of the Arts, and the Manhattan School of Music. In England
the list includes The National Theatre of England, The Royal College of
Music, and The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Nicholls, 1991;
Rabinow, personal communication, 1992).

14
The use of the Technique is not limited to the performing arts.
For the general public it is widely used as an alternative health
method, particularly for postural improvement and the relief of
functionally related chronic pain (Wallis, 1991). And in Israel the
airforce uses the Alexander Technique to prepare its pilots for flying,
for injury rehabilitation, and for overall stress management (Nicholls,
1991; Cohen, personal communication, 1992).
What follows will be a brief outline of what the Alexander
Technique does, how it works, and some general features of learning
the Technique.

Use and Function


While artists or the military may have a higher level of
recognition of the importance of coordination and body awareness
than our sedentary culture as a whole, the body is the instrument,
the human instrument for all of us. In all of our activity, how we use
it affects its function (Alexander, 1932). When we are sick, it is our
body that is sick. When we are under stress or emotional duress and
we experience tension and headaches and back ailments, it is in our
bodies that we have the experience. And when we sit at the
typewriter it is pain in the lower back or wrists or shoulders or
whatever that we complain about. By actually learning to use
ourselves differently we can affect how we function.

15
Education and Habit
The Alexander Technique is educational. It is a very practical
approach to movement and habit, to understanding how we use our
human instrument, and how that use affects every activity we
engage in, including idle activity and "thinking" (Alexander, 1910). It
is directed towards development of human movement choices and
possibilities that are unknown or often previously not experienced. It
is a learning process, one of self exploration and growth, of potential,
that offers, with the initial aid of a teacher, "a window onto the little
known area between stimulus and response...It teaches you how to
bring more practical intelligence into what you are already doing"
(Jones, 1976). It does so by training one to bring conscious awareness
to the act, and supplying tools to affect conscious change over
interfering habit patterns.
During the course of study it becomes more and more clear that
patterns of movement for most of us are unconscious. What lessons
do is to orient the student to a stimulus-response paradigm of
movement behavior. Movement, whether conscious or unconscious, is
a response to a given stimulus, either internal, external or both. A
teacher uses his or her hands to guide the student into simple
movements, like getting into or out of a chair, or to assist in some
activity that the student engages in frequently, like singing, running
or playing tennis. The nature of the activity is less important than
the pupils understanding that the nature of response of the self in
response to that activity is what is being taught in the lesson.

16
The teacher both communicates through the hands to the
student's kinesthetic sense directly, and engages the student's
thinking and attention. This serves to define interfering
neuromuscular patterns to the student and to hone the student's
skills of self observation and awareness of habitual responses to
stimuli (Jones, 1976). For example, the student may learn that given
a stimulus to sit down, there is a pattern of contracting neck muscles,
pushing the chin forward and plummeting to the chair in a slump.
This may be a student's habitual way of sitting. The teacher may
then guide the student into a new movement experience of sitting
that is non-habitual, representing a new neuromuscular pattern that
is biomechanically more efficient and less stressful to the body.
Continual repetition serves to (a) give a reinforcing experience to the
student; (b) lay a new neuromuscular movement pattern; and (c)
bring an awareness to the process of achieving the movement on a
regular basis. Thus, not only does the new pattern become learned,
but perhaps most important, bringing awareness to the process of
employing the new pattern itself becomes habitual.
To summarize, the re-education of the processes involved in
movement, learning about interfering habitual responses to stimuli,
are the primary aims of lessons. While students may perceive
initially, for example, that they are learning a correct way to sit and
stand, they are in fact learning about how they habitually respond to
the stimulus of a chair, or to their idea of sitting.

17
Characteristics of Balance
There are only two choices available in order to remain our
balance and uprightness in movement: (a) muscular effort to hold us
up or (b) a balanced coordination that is dynamic and refined, with
our energy and our stature directed upwards, affording the least
amount of downward and compressive pressure on the spine and the
joints (Carrington, 1991).
The balanced coordination learned through the Alexander
Technique in movement is physically represented by a dynamic
postural homeostasis (Barlow, 1952). This is characterized by (a) a
restored natural balance of the head on top of the spine, achieved
through a perceptible and altered relationship of the head to the
neck and back; (b) a corresponding activation of the postural
antigravity musculature specifically; (c) a re-balancing of the
generalized tonus of the peripheral musculature; (d) an increased
length along the spine; (e) freedom and mobility of the joints; and (f)
ease and increased flexibility of movement.
These features are interrelated. It is a tenet of the Technique
that every part of the body affects the whole. Alexander was
insistent that the distinction between body and mind was a false one,
and that the scientific tendency towards reductionism was not only
false, but dangerous to the well being of the individual (Alexander,
1910) because it failed to take into account the whole person and,
therefore, tended to treat symptoms without addressing underlying
causes. The Technique views the person holistically.

18
Research on the Alexander Technique

The effect of balance is to leave the student with an absence of


habitual sensation. Simple everyday movements like walking become
new, become light and seemingly effortless. It is as if you were
walking around in heavy shoes all day long and were not aware of
their weight until you removed them at the end of the day.
From his numerous research studies Jones (1976) reported:
Subjects regularly report that the movements are easier and
smoother and that they feel lighter and taller while doing
them. "A feeling of ease, of competencevery different from
relaxation", "first I was sitting down, and then I was standing
up. I don't know how I got there."...My first experience of
making a habitual movement without habitual effort seems as
vivid to me now as it was...in 1938....The movement was
notable for the way time and space were perceived. Though it
took less time than usual to complete the movement, the rate
at which I moved seemed paradoxically slower and more
controlled, (pp. 5-6)
Similar findings were reported by Brown (1980) from journals
kept by his students:
The most significant and astounding change is in the sense of
calmness and lightness.
I don't think I have ever been so in harmony with my whole
being in time-space in my life. Walking down the street is such
a beautiful joy now as lightness and space infuse my being.(p.
27)

19
In addition, Brown (1980) reported that in his own research
studies both replicating and building upon the work of Jones,
students of the Technique experienced emotional benefits as well.
Compared to a control group placed in a slumped posture,
experimental subjects experienced an increase in competence,
activation and comfort levels. These were assessed using a five point
Likert type scale in response to statements related to states of
consciousness. The study design controlled for placebo effects by
subjecting both groups to positive and ambiguous instructions
designed to create expectancy (Brown, 1977).
What follows is a summary of much of the research conducted
on the Alexander Technique. The vast majority was conducted by
Frank Pierce Jones at the Institute for Applied Experimental
Psychology at Tufts University between the mid 1950's and 1960's.
Brown (1988) divided Jones work into three distinct groups: studies
that explored and described (a) the theoretical background of the
work, (b) the balance of the head in relation to the spine and (c) the
quality of movement affected by the Technique.
In a summary review and synthesis of much of his own
experimental research of the Alexander Technique spanning fourteen
years, Jones (1965) offered a thorough and organized account of (a)
his own experience of the Alexander Technique and his desire to
study the Technique empirically, (b) an explanation of methods used
by an Alexander practitioner (in this case the researcher himself) to
affect change in the subject for experimental consideration, (c)

20
results from various experimental studies comparing habitual versus
experimental posture and movement, using varying mechanical and
subjective measures, (d) hypotheses of anatomical and physiological
mechanisms involved in producing changes brought about by the
Alexander Technique, and (e) a discussion of implications of the
Alexander Technique for psychology. Jones (1965) cited the following
studies in his review: Jones (1955); Jones, (1956); Jones (1964); Jones
(1965); Jones, Gray, Hanson, & O'Connell, 1959); Jones, Gray, Hanson
& Shoop (1961); Jones and Gilley (1960); Jones and Hanson (1961);
Jones Hanson & Gray, 1961); Jones, Hanson, Miller, & Bossom (1963);
and Jones and Kennedy, 1951).
The author described the methods used in his studies for
defining the habitual versus experimental postural relationship of
the head, neck and back. From a sitting position, subjects were asked
to assume habitual postures of most comfort, followed by a position
of "sitting up straight", followed by a new, experimental posture. The
subject's experimental posture, achieved through the aid of manual
guidance by the researcher (a trained teacher of the Alexander
Technique), resulted in an altered muscular tonic balance between
the head, neck and trunk, and a new relationship between the head
and the top of the spine.
The author described the effects of this change in posture and
movement. Subject's movements initiated from an habitual postural
relationship versus the experimental condition were compared using
varying subjective and mechanical criteria. The author first

21
demonstrated an altered movement pattern of subjects using
multiple image photography (Jones 1955). He improved upon the
measurement procedure and replicated results using stroboscopic
multiple image photography (Jones, 1956; Jones, Gray, Hanson, &
O'Connell, 1959). Using a sit to stand movement, variables measured
included overall movement patterns in time and space, the departure
of the head from a straight path (head trajectory), velocity, and
head-neck relationship angles. The studies empirically demonstrated
significant changes in movement pattern at the .01 level. To validate
these findings externally and attribute meaning to them, Jones and
Hanson (1961) compared identical movements between "well
coordinated" versus "poorly coordinated" physical education students
(classification determined by their instructors). Jones, Hanson, Miller,
and Bossom (1963) repeated the study comparing normal subjects
versus neurologically impaired subjects. The same operational
criteria used to distinguish between subject movements in Jones'
experimental studies with the Alexander Technique were statistically
reliable in distinguishing movement patterns in these two validating
studies. Jones concluded that "by these criteria, then, the guided
movements are not only different from habitual, they are better"
(Jones, 1965, p. 202).
Jones was also interested in documenting subjective
experience. Questionnaire data from 39 subjects showed that for the
majority of subjects, the experimental condition in movement felt
lighter, smoother, and higher (Jones, 1964).

22

In anatomical and physiological studies, X-ray photography of


the head and neck junction showed increased space between the
vertebrae (Jones and Gilley, 1960) in the experimental condition.
Electromyography (EMG) of the primary musculature of the neck
showed decreased tonic activity in movement in the experimental
condition (Jones, Gray, Hanson & Shoop, 1961; Jones, Hanson & Gray,
1961). Electromyography showed the seminal role of neck
contraction in the startle pattern (Jones & Kennedy, 1951).
Jones hypothesized that these findings were related to both the
kinesthetic perception of ease, lightness, and length brought about by
the Alexander Technique and to the objective measures of change.
Jones further expounded upon the physiological components of
stretch reflexes and head and neck reflexes, suggesting that the
Alexander Technique facilitates activation of the body's antigravity
response. He also cited animal research by Magnus suggesting that
the organism is organized in such a way that the "head leads and
the body follows" (Jones, 1965, p. 209).
To summarize, Jones (a) reported the experiential and
theoretical basis of his studies of the Alexander Technique, (b)
described the experimental methods used in numerous studies, (c)
described results both in subjective kinesthetic reports and in
specific criteria measured by objective mechanical means, and (d)
hypothesized an explanation of the results in anatomical and
physiological terms. These hypotheses were based upon x-ray

23

analysis of subjects and known physiological properties of muscle,


reflex, and animal movement patterns.
Jones' review compiled and synthesized a convincing body of
evidence confirming his own experience that there is a real and
genuine physical change that occurs when learning the Alexander
Technique. Movement quality is graphically and demonstrably
altered and improved. The volume of repeated and substantiating
results using varying measures would appear to mitigate any
methodological problems with any one of the studies individually.
However, his review did not detail subject information nor specific
design elements beyond instrumentation. In his book Body
awareness in action: A study of the Alexander technique (1976),
Jones offered more detailed information on much of his study design.
One apparent problem is that Jones himself was the sole source of
experimental manipulation. The reader must make the basic
assumption that Jones is accurately employing the principles of the
Alexander Technique. This author, as a practitioner of the Alexander
Technique, has no argument with the process Jones described. A
second potential problem in the subjective experience data is that an
outsider unfamiliar with the Alexander Technique could argue that it
is only natural that guided movements feel lighter and easier, in that
they are assisted by the researcher. And thirdly, the movement
patterns recorded by multiple image photography may lead to the
mistaken impression that there is a single "right" movement path to
take. It is the internal quality of muscular balance and coordination

24

that is most critical, the path merely the result of that

coordination.

In other words, the length along the spine in dynamic movement is


what counts, not the recorded path of movement in space (Charlsen,
personal communication, July 1992). This is why Jones' head-neck
angle data and EMG measurements are so important.
In his discussion, Jones changed the focus of his review from
the effects of the Alexander Technique and the mechanism to explain
them, to the process by which they can be applied. He moved from
the anatomical and physiological to the psychological. He suggested
that an habitual postural set that interferes with a forthcoming
movement can be consciously inhibited once recognized. He
described this process as one requiring a re-organization of the
field of attention, so that when a stimulus to move is received,
the focus of attention remains on the organism. This does not
mean that the goal is not allowed to dominate the field.
Attention is organized around the head-trunk relation, with the
extension in time and space so that both the stimulus and the
response can be comprised within the same field (Jones, 1965,
p. 211).-

Jones further suggested that once this method of improving


kinesthetic awareness and the employment of conscious inhibition is
understood and learned, it can be equally applied to behavioral
stimuli and response as to movement stimuli and response. These
concepts are consistent with those of the Technique's founder, F. M.
Alexander (Alexander, 1923, 1932).

25
Jones provided a solid foundation of work that supported his
own and others' experience that something was happening in the
course of lessons. His research provided various hypotheses of a
scientific mechanism to explain and quantify the experiences and
changes objectively. He was committed to demonstrating cause and
effect relationships between the Technique and subject experiences
in experimentally designed studies (Brown, 1988).
Although most of Jones' research was quantitative in design,
his use of subjective experience data (Jones, 1964), replicated and
expanded by Brown (1977), suggests a potential value to a
qualitative approach. Some of Jones' work provided speculation
about psychological benefits that are not so easy to study
quantitatively. Nor can quantitative methods easily be used to study
the ongoing experiential changes and insights that seem to come
during the process of learning the Technique. It is the effect of this
ongoing process, the experiences

derived from studying the

Technique and applying them to athletic arenas that will be the chief
subject of this investigation.
In the most recent literature, Austin & Ausubel (1992)
reported enhanced breathing amongst Alexander Technique students
compared to a matched control group. After 20 private weekly
lessons subjects demonstrated significant increases in peak
expiratory flow, maximal voluntary ventilation, maximal inspiratory
mouth pressure, and maximal expiratory mouth pressure in a
controlled, pre-test, post-test design. Results confirmed subjective

26
reports of greater ease in breathing associated with the Alexander
Technique.
Qualitative exploration of the Alexander Technique has been
limited. In addition to the objectification of subjective data reported
by Brown (1977), Mathews (1984) introduced an experimental
teaching program into a grade school setting and produced narrative
vignettes of her and the children's experience. The naturalistic
inquiry was recounted almost in the form of a journal by the
investigator, a participant observer in the project. Although the
project proved interesting and the author recounted positive
experiences by the children, the thesis was not subject to the current
rigorous standards of qualitative research. There was no systematic
content analysis or triangulation of data reported by the author that
would have been required to present a more scientific finding.
Ironically, the founder of the Technique, F. M. Alexander was
arguably conducting his own ethnographic form of research upon
himself, and later his students. Beset by a chronic and recurring loss
of voice, he set upon a ten year course of self observation and
discovery that eventually led to his full vocal recovery and to a
changed overall level of what he called psycho-physical functioning
(Alexander, 1932).
Alexander, suspicious of both the medical and scientific
communities, was resistant to quantitative research. He felt it was
unnecessary in the light of his experiential knowledge and his
powers of observation (Jones, 1976). And yet he was remarkably

27

methodical in his own approach. So much so that the American


philosopher and educator, John Dewey, a long time devotee of
Alexander's, while on the one hand urged Alexander to subject the
Technique to scientific inquiry, at the same time defended
Alexander's work on the merits of Alexander's methods of discovery.
He argued that Alexander's
...procedure and conclusions meet all the requirements of the
strictest scientific method, and that he has applied the method
in a field in which it has never been used beforethat of our
judgments and beliefs concerning ourselves in our activities.
(Dewey, 1932, p. xiii).

This view of Alexander's work was more recently put forth by


a physiologist accepting the Nobel prize for his work on ethology and
stress diseases. He devoted his acceptance speech to the methods of
ethology, or behavioral observation, and paid tribute to Alexander:
My second example of the usefulness of an ethological
approach to medicine has quite a different history. It concerns
the work of a very remarkable man, F. M. Alexander. His
research started some 50 years before the revival of ethology,
for which we are now being honored, yet his procedure was
very similar to modern observational methods, and we believe
that his achievements and those of his pupils deserve close
attention....[His] story of perceptiveness, of intelligence, and of
persistence, shown by a man without medical training, is one of
the true epics of medical research and practice....This basic
scientific method is still too often looked down on by those
blinded by the glamor of apparatus, by the prestige of tests,
and by the temptation to turn to drugs. But it is by using this
old method of observation that both autism and general misuse

28
of the body can be seen in a new light. (Tinbergen, 1974, p. 2324)

CHAPTER III
METHODS
The primary purpose of this study was to explore the
experiences and the potential effectiveness of the Alexander
Technique in relationship to enhancing athletic performance. This
was accomplished using a qualitative method of inquiry to solicit the
perceptions, experiences and interpretations of the value of the
Alexander Technique and it's relationship to athletic performance
from subjects with direct, personal experience of the Alexander
Technique and sport.

Procedures

The study foremost involved in-depth telephone interviews


with athletes who had studied the Alexander Technique. These
interviews were then transcribed and analyzed for emergent themes.
Secondary historical data sources were also used to augment and
enrich the data collected through interviewing.

29

30
Subjects
Subjects were located and recruited through communication
within the Alexander teaching community. The investigator posted
notices concerning the need for subjects at an annual general
meeting of Alexander Teachers. Personal contacts with teachers were
used. The literature was scanned for references to athletes and when
possible the authors were contacted for subject referral.
A total of 5 athlete subjects were used (N=5). None of the
subjects lived locally. One female dressage rider lived on the East
coast. One male teacher and marathon runner lived in England. One
male teacher, runner and trainer lived in Canada. One male golfer
lived on the East coast. And one male skier lived in Canada.
The 5 athletes participating had varying amounts of experience
studying the Alexander Technique. Their relative experience with
the Alexander Technique was on a continuum, from private study
only, to being a trainee in a teacher training course, to being a
qualified teacher of the Alexander Technique.
When the study was originally conceived there were 3 groups
of subjects: (1) athletes who had studied the Alexander Technique,
(2) non-athlete Alexander teachers who had taught athletes, and (3)
Alexander teachers who were also athletes themselves. As the study
progressed, however, it seemed more useful to narrow the scope of
the study and recontextualize the subjects into one group of athletes
with varying degrees of experience with the Alexander Technique.

31
There were several reasons for this. The genuine, firsthand
experiences of the athletes were providing the richest, most salient
sources of data. The athlete-directed questions were the most
consistent line of inquiry given the small sample.
While the Alexander teachers' additional insights into athletes
and their own teaching experience were interesting, they seemed
like the subject of a separate study. Analysis of emergent themes
from the teacher perspectives seemed incomplete. It required either
more subjects, or perhaps both students and teachers who had
worked with each other to gain more meaningful comparisons in
experience. And finally, an initial concern of the investigator, that
there might be a "disconnect" or inconsistency between teacher
descriptions of what they were teaching and athlete reports of what
they were learning was not borne out with this sample.
Therefore, after the design change a 6th subject, a teacher
working with divers who had been interviewed was eliminated from
the study because he was not an athlete himself. This left 5 athlete
subjects, 2 of whom were also teachers of the Alexander Technique.

Data Collection

Interviewer
In qualitative research the principal instrument is the
interviewer (Thomas & Nelson, 1990). In this study the investigator
served as the lone interviewer. The investigator is a trained

32
interviewer with extensive experience. As an intake representative
for the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services, a New York
social work agency (1980-1981), he interviewed teenage offenders
and their families in juvenile court. These interviews were openended and free form. The investigator administered hundreds of 90
minute, closed response mental health interviews for the
"Epidemiologic Catchment Area Project" through the Neuropsychiatric Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA) (1984-1986). These interviews were conducted with the
general public, and in prisons and drug and alcohol rehabilitation
centers. The investigator conducted computer assisted telephone
interviews for the "Medical Outcomes Study" at the Rand Corporation
(1987), a Southern California research institute. And as Study
Coordinator, he designed and administered some 300
telephone interviews at the University of Southern California
Department of Preventive Medicine for the "Childhood Leukemia and
Electromagnetic Fields Study" (1987-1990). In the latter study,
frequent, systematically randomized tape recording of the
interviewer was used to assure consistency of questioning. Although
the mental health and leukemia interviews were closed response
format, the subject matter required skills that went beyond issues of
internal validity, such as interviewer bias, consistency and accuracy
of data collection. They required enrollment skills (the investigator
was hired at UCLA to do refusal conversions), and communication
and interaction skills that fostered trust, comfort, warmth and

33

compassion, while at the same time maintaining professionalism and


a measure of detachment. These qualities are essential to the success
of qualitative interviewing (Thomas & Nelson, 1990).
Additional background information on the interviewer can be
useful in anticipating not only quality, but also biases and
perspectives brought to the research process (Patton, 1990). The
principle

is to report any personal and professional information that

may have affected data collections, analysis, and

interpretation--

either negatively or positively in the minds of the users of the


findings (Patton, 1990, p. 472).
In this study, the investigator is a certified teacher of the
Alexander Technique. He came to this investigation with both
knowledge of teaching the Technique, and of being a student of the
Technique. In addition he is a former actor and singer and brought
experiential knowledge of variables relevant to artistic performance
and how the Alexander Technique can interact with those variables.
Many of these would appear to be similar to performance variables
that athletes deal with. They include pre-performance anxiety
(stage-fright), nervousness, tension, stress, commitment, attention,
and arousal level. For example, the singer's arousal level affects the
use of the vocal cords. Attention and focus affect the ability to
remember lyrics while simultaneously following the conductor and
communicating with an audience. For some actors stage-fright can be
crippling. Excess tension can inhibit free physical and emotional
expression. The stress of finding and keeping work, the commitment

34
needed to make performances alive night after night certainly rival,
for example, the trials of a minor league ball player waiting for a
spot in the big leagues and a ball player having to face a new game
each night for 160 odd games in a season.

In-depth

Interview

In qualitative research questions are open-ended in order to


allow the responses to come wholly from the respondent and not be
supplied by the investigator (Patton, 1990). "The purpose of
interviewing is to find out what is in and on someone else's
mind...[and] to access the perspective of the person being
interviewed" (Patton, 1980, p. 196).
Of three interviewing strategies appropriate to qualitative
research methods identified by Patton (1990), the investigator chose
the standardized, semi-structured interview. This approach is
characterized by the interviewer having specific questions that are
administered in the same way to each subject. The investigator asked
pre-arranged questions the same way for each respondent (although
questions were omitted if they had already been answered in the
process of answering a different question). Probes and follow up
questions, however, were created in the context of the interview to
elicit more detail, to clarify, and to check for understanding, using
techniques such as "what I hear you saying is..." and repeating back
to the respondent for verification (Seidman, 1985). Interviews were

tape recorded, allowing the investigator to monitor his own


questioning to maintain consistency.
The benefit of this approach was that although the basic
questions were open-ended, allowing flexibility of response, the
comparibility of response from one subject to another was easier
than it would have been using a less structured interview. The
interview still felt conversational because of the freedom in the use
of probes and follow-up questions. The investigator felt that this
flexibility was sufficient to maintain the freedom to go where the
respondent wanted to go in the interview process. Being flexible to
delve into unanticipated territory was of critical importance to the
investigator, as it is one of the true benefits of the qualitative
method (Patton, 1990).
Two interview schedules were used. All subjects were asked
the questions pertaining to athletes (see Appendix 3), the 2
Alexander teachers were asked additional questions (see Appendix
4). Both interview schedules were piloted in advance to test the
effectiveness of initial questions. No problems were inherent in the
interviews and the pilot subjects were incorporated into the study
subject base. Question 9A of the athlete interview schedule was
added spontaneously as a follow up to the second interview and
asked in all subsequent interviews.
Interviews were phenomenological, in that their purpose was
to elicit information from the respondents about their experiences
and perceptions of the Alexander Technique as regards athletic

36
performance. The primary goal of the interviewer was to set a
context for the interview, and to be an active listener, to do as little
talking as possible so that the respondent was doing the talking. To
help set this context subjects were read an introduction (see
Appendix 2) to encourage them to be in touch with their experiences
and to be as specific and detailed in their descriptions as possible.
They were also instructed to assume ignorance of the Alexander
Technique on the part of the investigator, so that jargon and concepts
had to be explained by the respondents as they perceived them.
Prior to the interview the investigator took time to be quiet, to
breathe, to give himself Alexander directions and to take care of
himself. These instructions were the same as those given to the
respondents. The interviewer employed the principals of
"bracketing", or identifying and setting aside personal biases,
judgments and expectations, both before, while conducting and after
the interview (Ravizza, 1973). This was done by employing tools of
the Alexander Technique in which the investigator is highly trained.
In simple terms, the Technique embodies the principles of
maintaining awareness of one's habitual responses to a given
stimulus, of consciously inhibiting or suspending that habitual
response, and allowing a new response. Likewise, a critical
component of teaching the Alexander Technique is listening to what
people say about their experience regardless of whether their
experience is consistent with what the teacher perceives or expects.
This is inherent in teaching the Technique because kinesthetic

37
perception is being re-educated. The teacher has to know what the
state of the student's perception is at any given moment, regardless
of its accuracy or inaccuracy.
Before beginning the interview an informed consent was read
to the subjects and verbal consent obtained and recorded from all
subjects (see Appendix 1). There were no refusals from any subjects
contacted for participation in this study, although one respondent
wished to be assured that no information provided by him would go
into the makings of a book without prior consent. The subject is in
the process of writing his own book on the Alexander Technique and
athletic performance. The investigator assured the subject that in
accordance with the informed consent, material gathered was for
research purposes only and that no material from him or any subject
would be used in a book publication without prior consent from all
participants.
At the end of the interview subjects were thanked for their
participation. They were informed that within a few weeks they
would receive some form of data analysis of their responses for them
to look over, verify for accuracy of interpretation, and provide any
feedback or additional information to the investigator.
The investigator then took time to reflect upon the interview,
to jot down thoughts and perceptions related to the interview. These
were initial impressions of how the interview had gone, what the
quality of interaction and information gathered seemed like, how
satisfying or unsatisfying the interview seemed. This was a time for

38

the interviewer to experience initial perceptions, and then to ask


himself what was the source of those impressions. Did the
respondent give answers that the investigator wanted to hear? Did
the respondent give answers that were inconsistent with what other
subjects had said? Did the interview seem satisfactory, or
unsatisfactory because of the way the subject chose to respond? Did
the interview seem to meet or not meet the investigator's previously
unrecognized expectations? In other words, this was a time to
identify and reflect upon potential biases created over the course of
the whole interview and to set them aside before transcription and
analysis.

Recording and Transcription


Interviews were recorded through a PhoneMate micro-cassette
telephone answering machine and transcribed verbatim to a
Macintosh SE personal computer. Transcription was done as soon as
possible after the interview by the investigator, usually within 24
hours. Each 90 minutes of interview took approximately 4 hours to
transcribe. This provided the investigator the opportunity to hear
and relive the interview over an extended time period and to ponder
the responses and the probes with a fresh ear after having identified
and set aside initial impressions.

39
Anecdotal Historical Sources
The literature and sources on the Alexander Technique were
reviewed for references to athletes, for letters from athletes (or
other students if relevant) to teachers, for journals kept by teachers
or students who were athletes. These represented additional sources
of data. Such references were found in Alexander (1932), Gelb
(1981), Jones (1954), Jones (1965), Thompson (1988), and Westfeldt
(1964). These sources were used to augment the analyzed interview
data.

Triangulation
Patton (1990) described four types of triangulation in
qualitative research as triangulation of sources, triangulation of
methods, triangulation of analysts, and triangulation of theories. This
study principally used a triangulation of sources, by interviewing
different athletes from a wide array of sports with varying amounts
of experience in studying the Alexander Technique. By including
quotes from letters or anecdotal stories or journals from the
historical record a form of methods triangulation was achieved.
Analyst triangulation was also used through member checking.
Respondents were mailed both an outline of the content analysis of
their interview, and a more complete content analysis of all subjects.
All subjects were subsequently telephoned and their comments and
approval ascertained. This method of presenting the investigator's
analysis to the subjects to elicit feedback regarding accuracy of

40

interpretation and theme development, was critical in lending


credibility and authenticity to the research (Hanson & Newburg,
1992).

Inductive Content Analysis


Procedures for a systematic content analysis have been
described in detail by Guba (1978) and Scanlan, Ravizza, and Stein
(1989). The inductive analysis consists of coding and organizing the
quotes derived from interviews into clusters. First broad, or high
order themes, and then more specific and lower order themes
emerge from the data (Patton, 1990).
An alternative but similar approach has been described by
Glaser & Strauss (1967) and Strauss & Corbin (1990). Content
analysis is divided into three distinct but overlapping processes:
open coding, enhancing theoretical sensitivity, and axial coding. Open
coding is the process by which data is systematically broken down
into discrete categories. The analyst approaches the data by asking
questions and by drawing comparisons between phenomena. From
these two processes categories are identified and labeled, and are
described by their respective properties and dimensions.
After open coding the researcher begins the process of relooking at the data fresh, in an effort to peer into the data without
the blinders of self bias and expectation. There are several
techniques to enhance theoretical sensitivity, which is described as
being both an aid to analysis and a hindrance. Without it, the analyst

41
would not know what to look for. Thus, the researcher's experiences
in the field provide theoretical sensitivity to the subject matter.
However, they may also color expectations and what the researcher
sees in the data. Therefore the authors offer techniques designed to
assist the researcher in overcoming these biases and seeing new
possibilities. The simplest technique is that of asking questions:
who?, what? where?, when? how? how much? and why? with
respect to an observed phenomenon. Using what the authors refer to
as free association and creativity (Strauss & Corbin, 1990), the
researcher can open up the field of interpretation of data by
following this and other procedures.
As an example, if the purpose of a study is to understand what
happens during a lesson in the Alexander Technique, it might be
useful for the researcher to ask those questions upon observing or
hearing about a lesson.
To a casual observer without theoretical sensitivity a student
doing chair work with a teacher would see the teacher guiding the
student in and out of a chair. It would appear to the outside observer
that the student is being taught a correct way to sit and stand. In
fact, the student might have this perception in the beginning of
lessons. However, the teacher knows that what is being taught
actually has to do with response to a stimulus, any stimulus. Now, a
researcher seeing this with that theoretical sensitivity still has to be
careful. Who is performing the movement? Is the student moving, or
is the teacher moving the student? The researcher must ask these

42
questions so as to be sure that what is presented after analysis
accurately reflects the experience of both student and teacher.
Different teachers teach and perceive who is doing the moving
differently. Perhaps the teacher perceives it one way and the student
another. This would be important perceptual information and might
go unnoticed if the researcher either (a) does not have the theoretical
sensitivity to understand what is happening, or (b) the researcher
from experience presumes what is happening and being experienced
by both teacher and student, perhaps inaccurately.
The insights into and methods for developing theoretical
sensitivity to the data provided by Strauss & Corbin (1990) were
invaluable to the investigator, as was, in a more general sense, the
overall conceptual framework of developing grounded theory
provided by the authors. A brief attempt at constructing linear
relationships between categories, described as axial coding by
Strauss & Corbin, 1990 was abandoned. The investigator concluded
that the holistic nature of the data was not amenable to linear
conceptualization.
To summarize, the process of inductive analysis consisted of
identifying categories of phenomena through a method of constant
comparison and the search for discrepant cases. Procedures closely
followed those of open coding and enhancing theoretical sensitivity
described by Strauss & Corbin, 1990).

CHAPTER IV
CONTENT ANALYSIS

In qualitative research the rich, descriptive words of the


participants are the raw data. During the content analysis, emergent
themes are inductively derived from the data (Patton, 1980). The
analysis in this study began with a methodical reading and rereading of the first interview. Salient categories of experience
emerged from the data and these were labeled on the body of the
transcript. For the most part category labels were named using the
athlete's own words, such as "wholeness" or "early warning system".
After category development seemed exhaustive, these categories
were organized loosely into larger, more general themes. Judgments
were made by the investigator to articulate categories that could be
verbally described discretely, and that seemed to be the most salient
and rich themes, recognizing that they were in reality unified as part
of a broader holistic context.
As indicated earlier, initial efforts to organize these themes into
linear relationships according to axial coding procedures (Strauss &
Corbin, 1990) were abandoned. The second interview was analyzed

43

44
similarly to the first and patterns from the first to the second
interview emerged, as did divergent themes.
The remaining 3 interviews were analyzed by means of
constant comparison with the themes derived from the initial 2
analyses in search of both common trends and discrepant cases
(Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Computer files for each category and theme
were created and quotes reflecting those themes from all the
interviews were grouped together into respective computer files. As
new themes emerged new computer files were opened. The
previously analyzed interviews were re-read to see if the new
themes were also present in those interviews but had previously
been unobserved. Broader themes developed as specific categories
merged. Throughout the process the data was periodically put aside
for a few days to a week in order to allow the investigator time to
reflect, and then to come back to the data with a fresh eye.
The written presentation of the analysis included the use of
extensive excerpts from the data reflecting both the emergent broad
themes and the specific unique experiences respectively. Allowing
the participants to speak for themselves, in their own words
(Seidman, 1985), served to help preserve the true holistic expression
of ideas.
The scope of this research was limited. The environmental
context of the study was shaped by and restricted to the
personalities and experiences of the 5 participants, as portrayed
through their verbal descriptions in response to questioning from the

45
investigator. By allowing the individual athlete's words to be heard
at length in illustration of a particular theme, readers may be able to
get a sense of who each subject is as a unique individual. This may
aid readers in deriving more personal meaning from the study in
relation to their own experience. In qualitative research of this
limited scope, this is the only true measure of transferability, the
equivalent of external validity in positivist research (Hanson &
Newburg, 1992).
In the interest of clarity and of illustrating particular concepts,
verbatim text was edited to eliminate extraneous words and
repetition (Patton, 1980). However, all the transcripts were reviewed
by the participants to assure that the intended meaning was neither
inaccurately misrepresented nor ascribed out of context.
One of the purposes of qualitative research is to capture the
holistic essence of an experience without breaking that experience
down into discrete, quantifiable, but perhaps ultimately meaningless
parts (Martens, 1987). At the same time, the method presents a
paradox in requiring an analysis of that experience that attempts to
isolate broad, discrete themes and concepts that are reflected in that
experience. These discrete categories are then, perhaps, related to
each other linearly, in order to give a sense of structure and order to
the experience, so that theory can be generated (Strauss & Corbin,
1990).
While a qualitative approach to any topic has inherent
difficulties within this paradox, the study of the Alexander

46
Technique presented particular challenges. The Technique by it's
own definition represents a view of human behavior and experience
that is holistic, rejecting Cartesian dualism. The Technique's
principles, while perhaps discrete linguistically, are practically
interwoven and inseparable. This difficulty was summed up well in
Alexander's own words, when he suggested that to have freedom of
use the individual must (a) free the neck, (b) allow the head to move
forward and up, and (c) allow the back to lengthen and widen. He
then added the rather cryptic instruction that this must happen "all
together, one after the other" (Alexander, 1932, p. 29). While
Alexander teachers may, in their use of language teach that
awareness of habits, inhibition or suspension of habits, and direction,
or allowing a new consciously directed choice are discrete principles
of the Technique, for many teachers the practical effect is that once
learned, they function as a unit, that they are not, in fact, separable.
Because many of the concepts that emerged from the data in
this study reflected broad and holistic experiential phenomena such
as Awareness

or Wholeness,

it was not easy to dissect long and rich

statements and segment the experiences. Often Awareness

seemed to

be at the base of an experience, because at least without it, the rest


of the experience would not exist. Awareness

was a rich experience

with many different perceptual levels. It was a state of being. It was


difficult to separate it from the equally rich and multi-leveled
experience of Wholeness,

which seemed to be less a state of being

than a perception of self. Similarly, to describe a phenomenon such

47
as, for example, Injury

Prevention

concepts of both Awareness,

as something separate from the

Control, and reduced Physical

tension

seemed pointless.
An attempt was made to distinguish between two categorical
types of phenomena: (a) experiential phenomena, such as
and Wholeness,

Awareness

that were essential components of the innate,

phenomenological experience of studying the Alexander Technique


and it's relationship to the experience of competitive sport; and (b)
effects of studying the Technique, such as Injury

Prevention,

that

were perhaps more concrete and measurable, that did not reflect so
much an essence of the experience, as they reflected an effect or byproduct of the experience. The reason for the distinction was twofold: (1) the nature of the experiences seemed to emerge into those 2
distinct types of categories, and (2) this was consistent with the
stated research purpose to explore both experiences of the Alexander
Technique and the perceived benefits (potential effectiveness) of
studying, as they related to enhancing athletic performance.
There was strong consistency of experience across all subjects
with respect to the 6 broad themes. Quotes reflecting Awareness
Stress

Management

were derived from all 5 subjects. The remaining

themes Wholeness; Injury Prevention and Recovery,


Mastery,

and

and Confidence; and Learning

Control,

were reported by 4 of the 5

subjects each. In addition, with respect to the process of learning the


Alexander Technique all 5 subjects identified the essential structures
of the Alexander Technique: Awareness, Inhibition and Direction.

48
The body of this analysis will consist of (a) narrative vignettes
describing each individual participant athlete (the names used are
pseudonyms); (b) analysis of emergent themes or phenomena
inductively derived from the data; and (c) the participants' own
words in excerpted form. Following the narrative vignette
descriptions of the athletes, the content analysis is organized
according to the outline in Figure 1. First is an analysis of the broad
experiential category of Awareness.

Second is an analysis of the

other most salient experiential type of phenomena,

Wholeness,

followed by (c) Control, Mastery and Confidence.


This is followed by the introduction of the second type of
category of datathe effect experiences, which some of the athletes
referred to as "indirect". These are (a) Stress
Prevention and Recovery and (c) Learning.

Management; (b) Injury


These phenomena clearly

seemed to relate to, appeared to be by-products of, or were in fact


resultant of the phenomena of increased awareness, and the sense of
control. Finally, these are followed by an attempt to analyze and
construct a sense of the process that the athletes described,
presenting Awareness, Inhibition and Direction, a Paradigm for
Performance

Enhancement in Sport.

EXPERIENTIAL CATEGORIES
Awareness
Way of being
Movement habits
"Expanded field of attention"
Sensory perception and effective thinking

Letting go of ego
Wholeness
Unity of self
Whole body in movement
Unity in performance
Flow of life
Control, Mastery, Confidence
Peak experience
Self empowerment
EFFECT CATEGORIES
Stress Management
Physical tension
Responding to external sources of stress
Pre-competitive anxiety, arousal level
Human imperfection
Injury Prevention and Recovery
"Early warning system"
Recurring, chronic injury
Reduced risk
Recovery and prevention
Ongoing improvement, longevity
Learning
Process variables
Information processing
Open-mindedness
PROCESS DESCRIPTION
Awareness, Inhibition, Direction: A Paradigm for Athletic
Performance Enhancement in Sport
Awareness
Habits, inhibition and choice
Direction: allowing, letting go

Figure 1 Flow chart of inductive content analysis

50
Narrative

Vignettes

Henri
Henri is a 49 year old male master's level downhill, slalom ski
racer. He competes in the Canadian National Master's Championship
annually, and from 1965-1968 was a member of the Canadian
National ski team. He competed most intensely from 1960-1968,
between ages 16 and 24. Henri has been studying the Alexander
Technique privately for the past 18 months. For the last 3 months he
has been studying once every 3 weeks. Prior to that he studied once
a week. All lessons were with Peter, also a participant in this study.

Peter
Peter is a 38 year old male Canadian living and teaching the
Alexander Technique in Montreal. He has been teaching the
Technique for 9 years and trained in England with Patrick
Macdonald. He teaches runners and skiers, among other athletes. He
is also a running coach and competes as a middle distance
runner800 meter, 1500 meterand is going to compete in steeple
chase this year. In the 1970's he ran marathons before switching to
middle distance running. He has been competing for 16 years.

Cheryl
Cheryl is a 42 year old competitive dressage rider residing in
Connecticut. She competes at the top national levels. She has been

51
competing for 20 years and has been studying the Alexander
Technique for the past 4 years. The last 2 of those she has also been
in training to teach the Alexander Technique. In the 2 years prior to
beginning her training to teach the Alexander Technique she studied
privately once every 2 weeks and attended a group workshop 1
weekend out of every other month. She has studied with various
teachers.

James
James is a 66 year old male ultra marathon runner and teacher
of the Alexander Technique residing, teaching, and running his own
teacher training program in England. He has been teaching the
Alexander Technique for 23 years and trained with Walter
Carrington. He began to study about 3 months prior to beginning his
training in 1967.
As a University student from 1945-1948, James competed as a
general all around track and field participant, mostly the 1/2 mile
and the mile. From 1950-1952 he was a member of the Canadian
National team as a marathon runner and represented Canada in the
1952 Olympics. He then stopped competing for upwards of 20 years
due to severe recurring injury of the knees and ankles. He chose not
to undergo recommended surgery for his knees because doctors
could not assure him that he would be able to run again.
At age 50 James renewed his running as an ultra marathon
runner, running 50K, 6 day, 1000 mile races, and so on. He set

52
veteran (master's) records in the 50-54 year old bracket in the 6 day
race, the 200K, 300K, 400K, 200 mile, 300 mile, 400 mile, and set
time records for 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 day races.

Bob
Bob is a 47 year old club professional golfer residing in
Massachusetts. He has been competing for 35 years, currently in the
New England sectional level. For a few months, years ago, he played
on the U.S. Pro Tour. He has been studying the Alexander Technique
the past year and a half. He takes lessons privately once a week. He
intends to enter a teacher training course in the near future, in
preparation for which he is part of a pre-training group that meets
once a week for 2 hours.

Experiential Categories

Awareness
The broad experiential category of increased and expanded
awareness ran continuously through all of the experiences related by
the athletes in this study. What follows are first, some defining
parameters regarding the concept of awareness from the perspective
of the leading researcher of the Alexander Technique, Frank Pierce
Jones. These are followed by descriptive passages illustrative of the
significance and nature of awareness as experienced by the athletes
in this study.

53
Jones (1976) wrote that the purpose of the Alexander
Technique is to re-educate the kinesthetic sense, to increase
kinesthetic awareness and improve perception. Furthermore, he
wrote that "movement within an expanded field of attention is the
means by which change is effected in the Alexander
Technique" (p. 158).
Jones (1967) offered the following definition of awareness, as
distinct from attention or concentration. These distinctions are
important to bear in mind because these concepts are often vague
and subject to differing interpretation.
Awareness is knowledge of what is going on while it is
happeningof what you are doing while you are doing it.
It is a generalized alertness to present events....Awareness, as I
conceive it, is a general, unfocused condition in which a person
is wide awake and alert to whatever may be going on without
being concentrated on anything in particular. It has been
compared to a spotlight on a dark stage....The ability to give
attentionto concentrateis much sought after and is often
overvalued in proportion to its intensity and the degree to
which everything else is shut out...The spotlight may be too
bright and the rest of the field too dark to make the
observation. In the method which I am going to describe [the
Alexander Technique], attention instead of being narrowed, is
expanded to take in certain key relations in the body as well as
the activity on which attention is focused. To use the figure of
the spot light again, this time the spot is still bright but the
stage is merely dim instead of blacked out. (pp. 1-2)

A guiding assumption of this study was that the athletes


participating would describe a sense of increased kinesthetic
awareness. However the depth and multi-leveled nature of the

54
experience of awareness was one of the most salient features to
emerge from the athletes' descriptions. Several described the process
of studying the Alexander Technique as one of ongoing self discovery
that included but went beyond a sense of increased awareness of
their movements, movement habits, and tension patterns.
The depth of the phenomenon and the levels on which each
athlete experienced changes in perception and awareness varied.
Consequently, the meaning derived from the experiences as they
related to athletic performance varied (Giges, 1993). How one
phenomena related to another phenomena varied as well.
The broad narrative descriptions of the concept of awareness
are followed by more in-depth descriptions of the experience of
awareness on psychological and perceptual levels regarding both self
and the environment.
The movement back and forth between the general and the
sport specific in the athletes' responses reflected two distinct
features of the interview. First, it reflected the nature of the way
these athletes learned the Alexander Technique. In their verbal
descriptions of their lessons they all learned the Technique in a
largely traditional manner, spending lesson time doing what are
referred to as "chair" and "table" work, standing, sitting, walking, and
lying down. Occasionally they might do a sport specific activity like
swinging a golf club in their lesson. In general, the transfer to sport
was the athletes' responsibility. That the transferability to sport was
not difficult is evident in their related experiences.

55
Secondly, the movement from general to specific also reflected
the structure of the interview. Initial questions were intended to
elicit the general nature of the participant's experience with the
Alexander Technique in order to verify that experiences of what the
Technique is were consistent across subjects. In other words, the
investigator sought to assure that the entire sample had studied the
same technique.

Way of Being
The athletes reported a generalized increase in awareness of
themselves. They perceived their movements, tension and behavior
as products of habit, and they had an increased awareness of what
those habits were. They described more or less a general "way of
being", one that impacted sport performance non-differentially

from

the rest of life. There was a sense that what is learned in studying
the Alexander Technique affects the self, and as the self participates
in sport, sport performance is impacted.
I think my experience consistently has been one of self
discovery in awareness as to my own patterned way of being,
and as to learning a different perspective or approach or way
of being. C h e r y l
With the Alexander Technique you have a basic awareness, a
lot more awareness of what's going on at any particular time.
Peter
I am much more aware of my bodily movements....I'm finding
much more ineffective movements than I would have

56
otherwise....I notice I'm paying attention to what I'm doing,
literally being self-conscious I guess. A good part of the time,
unless I'm preoccupied, as I'm walking from one end of the
grounds here on the golf course to the other, 111 notice how I'm
walking. If I happen to pass a window I'll notice what my
posture looks like....My goal is to have it be a way of being. Bob

As Bob illustrated in the last excerpt, awareness was


intertwined with an ability to employ conscious choices regarding
behavior, whether muscular or otherwise. In essence, in studying the
Alexander Technique the athletes learned that they had some
increased measure of control over whether they behaved one way or
another. The athletes had an ability to inhibit or suspend negative or
less useful patterns. This phenomenon of control over habits and
inhibition of behavior will be treated in more detail later, although it
is clearly an outgrowth of awareness and can be seen throughout the
excerpts from the athletes.

Movement Habits
While awareness of specific habits and behavior patterns was
experienced variously on a physical (muscular) level, a psychological
level, and a behavioral level, physical movement habits were
reported most frequently by all 5 subjects. Cheryl experienced the
contrast between her habitual ways of moving versus when she
allowed herself to move in an unfamiliar way. Movements seemed
more whole, more rhythmic and integrated. These experiences
occurred whether walking across a room or riding in competition. In

57
fact, Cheryl said that the more demanding the task, the more obvious
the effects and the changes.
With the assistance of a teacher, discovering the possibility of
not moving in a habitual patterned way..., walking, getting in
and out of a chair...any type of simple movement of that nature.
On a physical level...I've discovered, how strong my own
personal habitual use, or ...way of moving is. Meaning, that I can
be performing the simplest task...that doesn't require any
enormous amount of physical effort or strength, and I can
become aware of an enormous amount of unwanted tension or
tightening or efforting going on in myself. If I allow myself the
possibility of inhibiting my familiar, normal way of doing it...,
I'm discovering...a whole way of being that is lighter, more
athletic, more fluid in my own movement direction....It feels as
though, somehow, the forces of gravity are minimalized. In
terms of adjectivesmore alive, more fluid, less effort, so that
the task, going across the room to pick up a book, feels, on a
feeling level, easier. Cheryl

James and Bob described some of their sport specific misuse,


specific habits that interfered with their athletic performance.
The qualitative difference was that I was running along the
track, so to speak, I wasn't running down into the track. A track
surface, after all is an object that is placed horizontally to the
surface of our world, so I have to run along it horizontally. If I
attempt to go vertically I get nowhere. And for the first time in
my life I was actually going horizontally, rather than spending a
lot of energy going vertically. Now of course that made things
very easy, it had a tremendous effect on my endurance, pretty
obviously....Athletes would say that previously I had been
pounding. The main energy of my legs, and of course the whole
body system would have been to dig holes in the ground, rather
than to use leverage to take me along the ground. James

58
To be specific it would be the rounding of my shoulders at
address and falling down on the clubs....I am six foot four, I had
been somewhat round shouldered. My father was round
shouldered, I figured it was a fact of life, heredity, and due
partly to my height. In the course of taking Alexander lessons I
became much less round shouldered....I feel the energy going up
from the ground, up through my feet, out through my head....I
can actually feel my spine lengthening....Its not in a
metaphysical sense....If I'm swinging effectively on the back
swing I can feel myself continuing to release up along the spine
through impact. Bob
We all tend to do certain things when we run, and you can call
these things personally acquired habits...Broadly speaking, bad
habits in running are things that make you go backwards. And
good habits in running are things that make you go forward.
Which sounds very simplistic, but that's what it boils down to.
To give you a specific example, if your legs are trying to take
you forward, and your arms are being used in such a way that
they are in fact taking you backwards, then of course you have
a basic struggle. J a m e s

James offered an interesting insight into the Alexander


Technique and movement in general. Asked to respond to the idea of
differentiating between the principles of the Alexander Technique
and the studying of those principles, he offered the following
response which illustrates the aforementioned concept of a "way of
being" and self exploration.
A great many people think of the Alexander Technique as a
thing in itself, and that there is a way to reach out and grab
this thing in itself called the Alexander Technique, and to learn
it and apply it to what you do. Therefore, the thing itself and
the application, the learning of it, are two separate and distinct
objects. One is possibly existing in some sort of platonic field of

59
ideal, and the other is right down here on Earth. I don't go
along with that, although it is quite often an idea that is held
by Alexander teachers and Alexander students, that this is a
thing that is handed down to a person from outside. To my way
of thinking that is complete nonsense. The Alexander
Technique is merely a realization of how I as a person and you
as a person and everyone else as a person and we are all
completely different persons, how we are designed by nature,
and how we can best realize that design in operationis
something that you might decide to call the Alexander
Technique, although you might decide to call it factor X, X the
unknown. But it comes from inside the human framework, it's
not applied from the outside. J a m e s

"Expanded Field of Attention"


As the concept of awareness was further broadened and
defined by the athletes, there were numerous examples of the
phenomenon referred to by Jones (1967), where the athletes' field of
perception or attention was expanded to include both themselves
and the environment at the same time, without separating the two.
Henri recounted having attended a coaching seminar and being
told that focus was either internally or externally directed, broad or
narrow, and so on. Henri recounted discussing the concept with Peter,
his Alexander teacher, who suggested that alternatively, there might
be no need to separate the field of attention between the internal
and external. He described how this impacted his approach to skiing
a slalom course, and then contrasted it with his former skiing
experiences.

60
In the Alexander Technique approach you should be able to
take in sort of both the internal and external world at the same
time and have both a narrow and a broad awareness if you
want. And that makes a lot of sense to me in skiing, because
basically you need kind of a broader awareness of the whole
course in front of you, and what's happening to your skis and
your own body and so on. So I guess that's what I'm trying to
get at here in terms of the effect of the Alexander Technique in
ski racing....One very important thing in ski racing is to be
looking ahead. And if you're looking at the gate that's 10 feet in
front of you, you're too late. You've got to be looking two, three,
gates ahead and visualizing the line you're going to ski. And I
think the Alexander Technique kind of puts you in a frame of
mind where you're able to do that a lot more easily....I think
maybe it's this thing of fixingif you're concerned about a gate,
and you kind of fix your attention to that particular gate, then
you lose that aspect of flow and looking ahead and getting the
whole picture. I think maybe it's a little bit the same in the
Alexander Technique, you don't want to start focusing on just
one particular point in your body, there's something there that
seems to fit well together, to facilitate that taking in an overall
global impression of what's happening as opposed to fixing on a
single point. Henri

Henri contrasted this concept of expanding his awareness with


the less effective narrow, concentrated way he was accustomed to
focusing before he studied the Alexander Technique:
Well it was kind of like narrowing my vision right down to a
small spot in front of me where I was headed, and like the
word concentrationeverything, picture your eyes as riveting,
going straight into one point, as opposed to, you know, letting
yourself be aware of a lot more, even though you're under
stress, things are happening fast, and so on, keeping that
overall awareness. Henri

61
Similarly, Cheryl commented that dressage riders fixing their
eyes on the back of the horse's neck to concentrate is very common
in her sport, and in her experience results in excess tension, reduced
mobility, and an inability to make fine adjustments in balance. In a
detailed explanation of the relationship between an expanded
awareness, balance, and performance, Cheryl equated the expansion
of awareness with the concept of "being present", a concept reported
by Ravizza (1973) as being a feature of peak experience in sport. It is
an experience of being "in the moment", or in the "here and now".
I perceive concentration as being a negative influence on
performance, because I perceive concentration as being focused
and narrowed. The negative result of concentration is to
narrow and tighten both you and the horse. So I think it's
preferable to compete with a lack of concentration..., with an
awareness of all of the space around you, everything around
you. A lack of concentration could be described as being
present, whereas in my mind concentration invites you to be
somewhat less present. Being present to me means being
visually present, as in making eye contact, if there are other
people around. Being on sort of a sensorial, sensory level being
able to hear, see, speak, not shutting out the world around you.
On a simple level, the more you are visually present in riding
...the more you see, the more you blink, the more you take in
your surroundings, as opposed to performers who have very
tunnel visiongymnasts who spot and look at a specific point,
riders who you see as very focused into the neck of the horse
to the exclusion of all the world around them--the more you do
that in performance, the more difficult it is for your body to
keep adapting to movement and to keep re-balancing itself in
response to movement. So, from a riding point of view, the
more you are present, the more you allow [yourself] to make
all the very small adjustments in balanceand the reason I say
that is just understanding, for example the optic nerve has a
whole lot of joint receptors, they function to send information

62
basically to the brain, they are part of the whole nervous
system. So that when you fix your eyes, for example on the
neck of the horse in front of you and ride with a very tunnel
vision, you actually deny those joint receptors information. The
more you can look around and take in the space, and enrich the
optic nerve, so to speak..., [the more] information comes into
your eye and into the optic receptors in the optic nerves, the
more your body through the nervous system can respond to
small changes of balance. And so fixing the sight has the same
effect as somewhat fixing the joints. When you're sitting on a
moving horse it's a constant out of balance state, your body's
constantly responding to changes in balance and needs to be
free to make all those tiny, frequent adjustments. And that's
what I guess I'm trying to say by being present enhances your
performance, as opposed to being concentrated or very focused
in your attention, which actually gets in the way of your body's
response to the constant movement of the horse as it performs,
as it's performing. Cheryl

Although Bob did not mention this particular aspect of


awareness with respect to golfing, he did make reference to the same
phenomenon by giving the interview process as an example:
I'm giving myself directions right in this momentI just was
aware that I was slouching a bitso while continuing to talk to
you I am also giving myself directions. With a practiced habit it
really doesn't take your undivided attention. Bob

Sensory Perception and Effective Thinking


Perception and awareness are closely related. From the
perspective of the Alexander Technique, the value of being aware is
directly related to how accurate is the perception. While the
phenomenologist would argue that ones perception of reality is the

63
reality, Alexander (1932) maintained that in general the sensory
system, particularly the kinesthetic, is no longer accurate due to a
lifetime of misuse of the self, and that it is this "faulty sensory
appreciation" that is responsible for the continued self destructive
impulses evident in human behavior (Tinbergen, 1972). The reeducation of the sensory mechanism is paramount to the Technique
(Alexander, 1932). It is one reason so much emphasis is placed on
consciousness and clarity of thought. A basic principle of the
Alexander Technique is that while the kinesthetic sense is being reeducated, only through reasoning, through conscious decision making
and trust can one overcome the confines of the unreliable sensory
mechanism.
Clear, effective thinking and accurate perception seemed to also
be closely linked experiences for these athletes. As they described
their experiences, they often referred to a perception of external
stimuli as clearer and less threatening. Their responses to the
competitive arena exhibited control over conditioned fear responses
that can cloud judgment and impede performance.
Stress is often experienced in response to threats to our self
esteem when, in fact, there is no real threat to our survival (Shaffer,
1983). Athletes, however, often have their egos heavily invested in
their athletic performance. Failure is often experienced in very
personal terms. Under these circumstances, the athlete may begin to
function at a level far below ability under the influence of a fear
response (Huang & Lynch, 1992).

64
Alexander suggested that such a response is a habit of misuse
that can be consciously overridden (Gelb, 1981). It seems that for the
athletes in this study much of this fear response was suspended
through study of the Alexander Technique, allowing more accurate
perception of the stimulus of competition, allowing them to think
more clearly about what they needed to do to perform optimally.
For Henri, the changed perception affected how he emotionally
responded to and approached a slalom course.
[By awareness] I guess I meant greater, better perception of
the environment, of the circumstances you're in, of what's
required of you and so on, getting the right information so you
make the right decision, take the appropriate level of risk, and
so on..., the ability to look at a situation without having an
emotional reaction to it. For example, at a ski race it would
translate into standing in the starting gate without fear of
falling or injury, or even just failure....I think your ability to
accurately measure, to read what's in front of you, how difficult
a course is for example-if you overestimate the difficulty you
might be too cautious and end up being too slow, if you
underestimate it you might make a mistake or go off the course
or whatever. So I think...this kind of detachment helps you in
getting a more accurate picture of the situation in front of you.

Henri

In an interesting anecdote, Henri recounted how he recently


watched his daughter, also a competitive skier, shrink under
pressure. He offered the story as "kind of an extension of what I do
with my skiing", and added that he wished his daughter would study
the Alexander Technique.

65
I just came back today from watching her race. This was her
big race of the season. She was in the Junior Olympics, basically
the Eastern U.S. Championshipsthat's as far as it goes in her
age group in the U.S. Basically she's had a great season, she's
skiing well. But in the races this weekend she didn't do
particularly well. I think the pressure got to her. I think today-we just had a big snow storm in the East. The course was
fairly rutted, she was nervous about it. She showed me on
video, I could see she really wasn't skiing that well and
eventually she trashed. Talking to her afterwards she said she
was kind of intimidated by the ruts in the course. Really it
wasn't that difficult if you just stayed and skied the course,
stayed on your line, which she had the ability to do very well.
And I think it comes back to getting an accurate perception of
what's in front of you. She had the skills and everything to do
well but she kind of tightened up and didn't really get a clear
perception of what was in front of her and it became
overwhelming for her. And she didn't get the result that she
should have gotten. Henri

In this long narrative, Peter described how he and other


runners deal with the various somatic and cognitive manifestations
of the stress response. He described how the process of learning the
Alexander Technique provided a reinforcing experience of
consciously suspending stress responses. The repeated experience
transferred into preparing for competition by Peter's maintaining an
accurate perception of what was going on with himself, by
maintaining clarity of thought, and by focusing on "the basics", and
thus allowing a more optimal performance.
It helps you monitor what you're doing. It helps you be aware
of"okay, gees, I'm being a little bit anxious right now...does
this mean I'm fixing my ribs right now, does this mean I've

66
really tightened up in my chest and pulled myself down, so you
give some direction to release that....What I find, especially in
racing where fear and adrenaline and nerves and everything
really starts to play a big role, is that you have to be pretty
clear in your thinking before you start a race if you want to
run close to your potential. So you actually have to sort of think
about the race, think about what you want to do, before you
get in the situation. Because in the situation if you lose your
focus, it takes anywhere, 40 meters, 60 meters sometimes even
a hundred meters to get back on track, and that could cost you
a second. Which doesn't sound like very much, but it could
mean the difference between a personal best performance or
making the team or qualifying for the Olympics, or not. A
second at 800 meters is a lot....So...clarifying things first in your
mind and making decisions first in your mind before you
actually get into the race seems to enhance performance. [In
the Alexander Technique] we always talk about inhibiting and
directing before acting. In other words, we stop and think
before we move, or before we speak, or before we decide not to
do anything. There's a process of...bringing things up to a
conscious level and beginning to influence outcomes on a
conscious level rather than just simply reacting instinctively on
things. I don't think it's new to sport. I think that now they talk
about mental rehearsal and all this shityou know? This is all
good. I think that the Alexander Technique is just a very useful
tool in terms of, you're actually doing that every time you
inhibit before you stand up and give a little bit of direction to
lengthening before you go into movement, before and during
the movement, this is the same thing you want to do as a
runner. You want to inhibit your first reaction, whatever that
might bepanic, whatever, you know, and you want to say
"okay wait a minute, here's what I want to do. I want to get a
fast start, I want to run the first bend really quickly, I want to
relax then and get into the pack, and take the race from there".
So it's on a grosser level, while the Alexander Technique does it
on a much smaller level which then you can blow up and apply
whichever way you want. There's that process. You see most
athletes run on emotion, they don't run on their brain. So what
the Alexander Technique does is say, okay emotions are
important, you have to acknowledge them, take them into

67
account, but you also have some choice as to how you allow
your emotions to affect your decisions. And in terms of running
or racing, where emotion plays a very large roleyou know
people get very nervous and they worry about how they're
gonna do and what their friends are gonna think and are they
gonna run the time and what's the pain gonna be like and are
they gonna breakdown on the track and are they gonnayou
know you start to create all sorts of scenarios where, okay if it
hurts too bad I'll just step off the track and pretend I have an
injury or I'll back off the pace if the pain gets too badthere's
all sorts of things that your mind sort of goes through, and
what you need to do as a runnerand this is where Alexander
comes in againis going back and focusing on the basics. What
do you need to do as a prerequisite to moving well or playing
the piano or whatever? You need to free up you neck and let
your head go up and let your back get a little longer and wider
and keep your breathing going and it's within that framework
that then you take that organization into whatever you want to
take it into. Well it's the same thing with running. You organize
yourself well, and then you focus a little bit on what you need
to do to run well, and then you do it. Since that's a process you
go through as someone who studies the Alexander Technique
again and again and again and again from the simplest things
like just turning your head or just standing up and sitting down
to more complex things..., it's a model which one finds fairly
easy to adapt to situations like running a race. It's a language
with which you're familiar. Peter

Letting Go of Ego
For Cheryl, the awareness of herself in response to different
stimuli affected her on deeper, personal, psychological levels as well
as on a physical level. She found that the process of studying the
Alexander Technique was a constant exploration of her "nonhabitual" self, and that this transcended movement, impacting her
athletic experience in the form of motivation and mind set. This way

68
of being and this self exploration changed Cheryl's relationship to her
riding, to her competing.
I can begin to explore the possibility of efforting on the level of
ego and inner process..., so I frequently become aware that I
can't separate body and being, and that journey of self
discovery has been very enlightening as to what becomes
possible if I don't react to a stimulus..., if I allow myself the
possibility of inhibiting my usual familiar normal way of doing
that, then I'm discovering that there is a whole other way of
being that becomes possible..., the possibility of being more
open minded, less narrow in my thinking, less reinforcing of
my own ego..., a more connected way of being, more connected
with the world, more connected with other people, more
connected with myself. C h e r y l

Such a shift changed her motivation from one of wanting to


win, to being in competition and seeing how she responded to that
stimulus.
One of the biggest aspects of change for me in studying the
Alexander Technique and in continuing to compete is that I
find myself looking at competition as a process of self
discovery. As I move up through the ranks of competition into
harder and harder leagues of competition, I find that it's
interesting to observe myself as the pressure, as the challenge
increases, the level of competition increases, it's interesting to
observe how I am with that, relative to using the Alexander
Technique or not using the Alexander Technique. So for me,
one of the areas of change that's occurred in my life, is that for
years I would compete to win. And as I became a student of
the Alexander Technique, I definitely traded in my desire to
win in exchange for an interest in discovering how I was in the
arena of competition, who I was, how I was. So truthfully, I
think that wanting to win, psyching oneself up to win in a
competitive sense...is not useful. It does not enhance

69
performance. The further along in the Alexander Technique I
get the further away from that desire I move, and in fact now
when I'm competing I find myself using competition as an
interesting stimulus to see where I am with myself in the
moment of competing. C h e r y l
Summary
The most salient and influential phenomenon experienced by
the athletes in this study of the Alexander Technique and athletic
performance was a generalized increase in awareness of themselves
in all activity, including their sport. The increased awareness also
comprised an expansion of the field to encompass the athlete and the
environmental stimulus at the same time.
The perceived impact of this heightened and expanded
awareness affected knowledge of personal habits and muscular
tension patterns. It influenced perception and clear thinking in
competition, and by doing so facilitated performance enhancement in
a variety of ways, including reducing anxiety, tension and ego
involvement.
Wholeness
A complex phenomenon to emerge from the data, not easy to
describe, was a sense of wholeness. It seemed to relate to the way in
which one perceives oneself, both in relation to oneself, and in
relation to the world. In this sense, it was closely related to the sense
of expanded awareness that includes self and the environment at the
same time. It reflected a sense of unity of mind and body, of

70
emotional and physical. It was evident in the use of words like
"integrated", "organized", "connected", "centered", having a "core". It
reflected the teaching of Alexander that all activity is an activity of
the whole body and the whole person. Therefore, it affects the
quality of performance.
In many ways the concept represents the essence of the
experience of studying the Alexander Technique over a period of
time. One way of looking at the experience would be that it is a
return to a former state, one that represents the absence of
interference from habits of tension and stress and over-work and
ineffective thinking, all of which lead to inferior performance and to
feelings of being disconnected.
Unity of Self
The sense of unity of self, of mind and body, of physical and
emotional is reflected in the following excerpts.
One very obvious benefit of studying the Technique is an
awareness of one's whole inter-relatedness of mind and body,
of body and mind. Cheryl
I see in more and more different ways, that although I may
fondly imagine that my physical, for instance, is not affected by
my mental, or visa versa, but when I come to take a second
look it obviously is. My experience over the last couple of
decades is that if I think I can separate the physical and in
broad terms the mental, I am just simply fooling myself.

James

71
My body, and I'm finding this about watching other people, the
bodythe reason Alexander talks about the use of the self and
not the body is because you can't separate the mind and the
body in human experience. Bob

Whole Body in Movement


Peter and James, both as athletes and as teachers of the
Alexander Technique, described how the mechanics of the body
actually dictate that all movement requires use of the whole person,
not just particular parts. Peter was speaking about lifting weights,
James about showing runners the true mechanics of running.
Strength is a whole body thing, not just a matter of shoving a
weight away from your chest you know? Peter
The arms are not swinging in a two-dimensional simple system,
but they are swinging through a three-dimensional system
which is quite complicated. So for instance as the arm comes
through, out in front and then through central line and then to
the back again, it's not only describing an arc-forward and
backbut it's also got an element of an arc from side to side.
And in fact the whole body is going to be taking part in that
arc...For instance when the right arm goes forward...the whole
of the vertebral column takes part in the twist round its central
axis. And...the opposite leg which is going forward at the same
time is taking the body into spiral working in the opposite
direction....Going forward is not going forward in a straight line,
but the straight line is just the result of two arcs in space which
happen to combine to make a straight line. J a m e s

72
Unity in Performance
In these separate excerpts are multiple examples of Cheryl
drawing the relationship between this connected sense of self and
the connectedness of her riding performance.
I think that the more you study the Alexander Technique the
more you become whole in your own use, the more all of you
becomes integrated in any performance....As you become more
whole and integrated, it becomes more whole and integrated.
Cheryl
The traditional way we're taught how to ride, is to teach people
how to position their body parts, how to hold their hands, how
to fix their legs, how to basically take themselves apart piece
by piece, learn the relationship of those parts to the
corresponding parts of the horse, and then from there we are
taught how to move with the horse as it moves. But it's a very,
sort of non-whole system. It's the Alexander Technique that's
helped me to come to understand that that basic principle of
understanding my head and neck to my back, has given me
wholeness, and I trust that, and know it...on an intellectual
level [and] on an innate level..., and I can take that into any
endeavor, whether it's riding or teaching riding, a wholeness
makes it all easier. And it just reinforces the experience.
Cheryl
In a performance, or in a competition, there is no sense of the
parts. You move through the performance with no awareness of
a particular aspect of yourself, again back to the riding, you can
go through the entire performance with no specific sense of
how your legs felt, or how a particular movement felt. In other
words it's the whole of the performance that you experience,
not a part of it. C h e r y l
I think of optimal performance as being the ideal combination
of riding technique and artistry. It becomes a performance, a

73
performance becomes beautiful, elegant, when the technique
aspect of it is harmonized with the aesthetic aspect. And the
Alexander Technique has the direct effect of allowing me to be
more efficient, so that when I call upon myself to do something
that requires strength, or stamina, by using the Alexander
Technique, by giving myself direction while performing the
part of the performance that challenges me more, I am able to
give more in the difficult parts, because I'm not tired, I'm not
tense. Like any athletic performance, there are parts that are
easier, parts that are harder, so things, parts are allowed to
flow together into a more aesthetically appealing totality.
That's one benefit of the Alexander Technique I've discovered.
Previously in performance, prior to using the Alexander
Technique there would be parts of the performance that I
might dread, because I considered them the most difficult. And
what I've discovered is that the Alexander Technique allows
me to integrate all the parts in a way that the piece flows from
beginning to end without the prior obvious difficult sections
occurring....And there's some kind of connection there, so that
your performance has more sort of uniformity of quality to it,
because you have more uniformity and integration in you.
Cheryl
Now what Alexander does is it helps you maintain a certain
level of good use even under pressure. You have more of a
sense of what that core is, and you bring that with you, and
you keep that with you, as you're performing. Peter

Flow of Life
The sense of wholeness and connection to the world assumed
almost spiritual dimensions for both Cheryl and Bob as they
described a sense of flow and life force that the Technique afforded
them.

74

I believe that the Alexander Technique facilitates the flow of


Chilife force or energy.... I studied Aikido for several years as
a neophyte and my experiences with Chi in Aikido are similar
to some of my experiences with using the Alexander Technique
or experiences I've had while using the Alexander Technique,
as I continue to study and practice it. These are very difficult
to talk about, not difficult in a sense of unwilling, but they're
hard to verbalize. The energy can actually move through your
body to the target. And I believe in a physical sense, not in a
metaphysical or spiritual sense. In a sense that if you're in a
room, and someone's staring at you, without turning around
you know someone's looking at you. You can feel it. You're on
the highwayyou look at someone, they look at you. You don't
look at them, they don't look at you. Everyone has these
experiences. So the Alexander Technique allows, in my opinion,
this movement, facilitates it. Bob
It seems to me that when Alexander was talking about
direction and a movement through each of us, of freeing and
opening ourselves, that he was talking about on one level a sort
of flow of life. Call it what you will, for each of us it's our own
belief system, our own beliefs, but for me personally becoming
more open-minded, freer, more connected, more allowing of a
kind of flow of life through myself, gives me the sense of
connectedness with something larger than myself. Cheryl
Summary
Representing perhaps the most powerful but difficult to
articulate perceived outcome in the experiences of the Alexander
Technique with respect to athletic performance, most of the subjects
experienced, on one or more levels, a sense of wholeness, of unity. It
manifested itself in a sense of the whole self, of monism that was
reflected both personally and in performance, and for some, in an

75
almost spiritual experience of inner flow of energy, of life, and
connectedness to the world.
Control. Mastery. Confidence
Clearly related to the sense of wholeness, a highly significant
behavioral and psychological experience that the athletes reported
was one of increased confidence and a sense of being in control. As
they were more in control of themselves, had more control over the
use of themselves, naturally their performances improved. On a
physical level the greater sense of control was probably related to
the general sense of less effort, greater ease, greater awareness of
interfering habits that all the athletes reported. The athletes
experienced more strength, better coordination, greater stamina and
less fear of injury, leading to a sense of assurance and confidence.

Peak Experience
Peak experience is generally conceived of as being a moment
when "it all comes together", where there is a sense of harmony
between oneself and the environment, a heightened sense of
awareness, when everything seems effortless and peaceful, where
one feels as if someone else is doing the work (Ravizza, 1973).
Whether or not the athletes in this study experienced the sense of
wholeness and mastery with the same intensity as marks peak
experience, there was clearly something in the essence of the
experience of the Alexander Technique and its impact on these
subjects' athletic performance specifically, that approached these

76
feeling states on a relatively consistent basis. This sense of self, this
way of being affected their athletic performance because
performance was inseparable from the human participant.
Peter described the sense of effortlessness and contrasted it to
peak experience.
This idea that when things are working well, or what peak
performance is, it's almost like you're not even running, that
something is running for you, or something is running
you....Now with Alexander I find that you are able to have
those sorts of performancesmaybe not at that level, but
beginning to approach that kind of performance..., simply
because it makes you aware that good performance is more
than just muscle. Good performance means learning to allow
muscle to work and learning how not to interfere with i t allowing things to happen....It's not laissez faire, it's not just go
out thereyou know if you haven't done the work and you're
not gifted in a certain way as a runner, you're not going to
break any world record. But it means that if you've done the
work and if you have a particular talent, knowing that at some
point you've got to let go and let it happenI think it can
sometimes help you achieve more, because, I don't know, I
guess on just a practical level, you don't over do it. P e t e r

Both Henri and Bob alluded to experiences reminiscent of peak


experiences in sport (Ravizza, 1973). Henri reported a sensation that
time seemed to slow down, Bob reported a feeling of infallibility.
I don't know if it's a certain detachment, or feeling of mastery,
feeling of control....You're erect and centered and you feel
like...things are balanced and you're aware of things around
you and you're less disturbed by the pressures of the event
and so on. You know these things are kind of touchy-feely, it's
hard to really be very categorical about them....It's an

77
impression that I get from lengthening and relaxing the neck
muscles. I feel that mentally it gives you a feeling of being on
top of things, as opposed to reacting to things happening to
you...I play some squash as well....I think it relates to the same
feeling about skiing. I sort of feel more on top of things....I don't
know if things are happening more slowly, or you're just more
alertit probably boils down to confidence. Henri
While I'm...giving directions...effectively I feel as if I can't miss
the ball, I can't hit a bad shotit's hard to....Hitting the ball is
much lighter, the ball feels lighter. There's less effort. The
muscles are releasing, as opposed to contracting. The ball goes
further, and the shots are more consistent. There isn't much
else that can happen, actually....My worst shots are better. Bob

Self Empowerment
The experience of having control over oneself has powerful
psychological ramifications. The basis of stress management is that if
one takes responsibility for one's own reaction to a stimulus, then
that feeling of control and power reduces anxiety and stress. James
talked about how his discovery that he was able to learn how to run
again and overcome his own pattern of recurring injury was
empowering and uplifting. He talked about his depression upon
quitting running, and rejuvenation upon discovering that he did not
have to be a victim to fate.
Let's say that there's been an impact emotionally....Looking at it
on a long term basis, you take a young, aspiring international
runner who's getting very near the top and hopes that they
may very well be at the top, as I was thinking and feeling
when I was in my 20's, and you remove him abruptly from one
year to the next from the whole scene, which is his whole life

78
you have to expect that he will be emotionally very down, and
will stay down, and in fact he will become very angry about
the thing, very depressed about the thing, and I was certainly
all of that. If you can manage to rescue yourself, as I did, you
lift yourself out of depression, and you realize that there is no
longer a need for anger at fate, because you've been able to do
something about it. So the whole emotional level gets
transformed once you realize that you are able to do something
about solving your problems. And you realize that you are no
longer counting vainly on perhaps having your problem solved
by other people, such as the medical profession, etc. So there's
tremendous emotional change on what you might call
groundwork level. Now proceeding from there for a moment
into the area of what you might call rational thinkingany
experience that you might have, as I did, that you can actually
change the way that you do something on a very fundamental
basis, is shall we say, intellectually exciting. Because it makes
you realize that you can control things, rather than being
controlled. So in that way the whole thing is very exciting,
because you feel that "okay, my mind isn't a hopeless victim of
what has happened to my bodymy mind and body can be
expected to interact. And you can then take that idea, and say
all right let's take it a step further, which of course over the
years I've done. J a m e s

As James is not only an athlete, but also teaches the Alexander


Technique to other runners, he was asked about his experience of
teaching runners along similar lines. He spoke of the importance of
giving runners this sense of self empowerment that he feels the
Technique presents, the idea that one has control over oneself and
one's performance. He talked about a latent desire to solve problems
and find solutions for oneself.
When I work nowadays with other runners, there's a very
powerful drive for self help which very largely, if they're in

79
trouble, has been denied. But when they're given a chance to
express that urge for self help, it's the most tremendously
lifting and positive experience that they can have....I think that
the drive to help oneself rather than to be always in the hands
of other peopleyou've got a problem, throw money at it so to
speakthrow time at it, but don't try to basically help yourself
because everybody is going to tell you "no you don't
understand this, no you don't have the medical training
therefore you cannot possible diagnose yourself, and you
cannot possible prescribe for yourself, you cannot manipulate
yourself", etc.these are very strong in our civilization. And
this idea that you cannot help yourself and that society is here
to help you and you'd better go out and get the help from this
that and the other expertthat whole area of idea is something
or other that covers up the basic, raw, experience that all
people had when they were children that they jolly well had
got on with the exploring by themselves. After all, all toddlers
are busy exploring in that area the whole timeif they didn't
they wouldn't develop, they'd just curl up and die. Toddlers are
success machines getting going and determined to succeed.
Somewhere or other that idea gets covered up for many of us,
but it doesn't die. So when you say to the person"now look, I
am going to show you, not how I'm going to help you, but I am
here to show you how to help yourself"-they look at you and
they say "thank god, that's what I wanted all along and nobody
would give me that sort of helplet's go to work". And so they
do. It's as if you've sort of released a hidden spring. J a m e s

Summary
The experiences of control and mastery, closely related to the
experience of wholeness of self and wholeness in performance
presented powerful evidence of the effectiveness of the Alexander
Technique in enhancing these athletes' sport performance. Seemingly
effortless performances that seemed at least to approach those
reported in the peak experience literature were described as being

80
accessible through the study and use of skills developed through
studying the Alexander Technique.
In addition, the sense of personal empowerment from feeling
in control of oneself served to ease physical and emotional stress and
enhance self confidence and self reliance.
Related to this sense of control, mastery, and wholeness are
two themes that are more effects of the experiences of the Alexander
Technique than experiences themselves. They are (a)
Management

and (b) Injury Prevention and

Stress

Recovery.

Effect Categories

Stress

Management

With awareness of oneself and one's habits comes an acquired


skill to release stress-related tension to an appropriate level so as
not to interfere with performance. This release of tension, this
quality of ease and freedom of joints and breath affected an overall
level of use that also impacted athletic performance, although the
perceived effect on performance results was often subtle, difficult to
quantify.
When you've got a basic sense of the use of yourselfthis idea
of running with a tall, a long back but not an overly stiff back,
breathing into your back and into your ribs, shoulders staying
nice and free, not a lot of undue tension in your neck, your
head is sort of nicely poised on top of your spine, joints staying
free so the knee comes out of the hip without pushing the hips
forward, all this kind of stuff that you develop a sense of and

81
can influence with your direction through the Alexander
Technique, this helps you cope with and deal with the rigors of
training. Peter
Just in a moment, allow myself to respond in a way that takes
me away from tightening and narrowing and pulling down and
effortingI keep using that wordand the directions offer me
just that small moment to become reintegrated, reconnected.

Cheryl
It has an impact on everything you do...The experience of being
able to release muscles, release unnecessary tension allows
more effective performance. ...The impact....in the golf game, is
very subtle. It's not as if you all of a sudden start hitting the
ball 50 yards further. Occasionally I'll have an ah ha
experience. I felt my chest pop oncethere was a release in the
thoracic area, but most of the experiences have been much
more subtle. And in fact they're virtually impossible to
describe. Bob

Physical Tension
Tension as a physical manifestation of stress is a common
problem for all performers and the Alexander Technique provided
these athletes with an ability to overcome and lessen the negative
effects of excess tension, to better cope with stress in general, thus
enhancing

performance.

For Cheryl, the effects of tension release in herself had the


added dimension of impacting the performance of her horse.
From a performance level, it's given me a number of tools to
work with myself, I would say, on an obvious level in terms of
stress reduction involved with performing. That if I am able to
give myself direction, and inhibit what might be my habitual

82
way of responding to the tension which invites tension within
myself, If I use the tools of the Alexander Technique then I am
able to perform with less tension, which enhances my
performance. So on that simple level it provides a wonderful
tool to reduce stress. On a more kinesthetic level, because what
I do involves another living creature, there are many aspects of
the Alexander Technique that allow a higher quality of
performance because in using the Alexander Technique to free
myself of unwanted and unnecessary tension, I make it
possible for the horse to do the same in himself. And since in
my type of competition the judges evaluate the athletic
performance of the horse, it becomes possible for him to
improve his performance through me. C h e r y l

Responding to External Sources of Stress


Several subjects alluded to the Alexander Technique helping
them to keep outside stressors, such as their personal lives, from
impacting their athletic performance, by giving them better coping
skills.
Well, going through things like divorcewhich is very
traumaticI'm actually in the process nowand I know that
the experience has been lightened because I'm practicing the
Alexander Technique. Emotions can flow through me as
opposed to being held and stuck. My body will tell me how I'm
dealing with situations in my life...You have a fight with your
wife and kick the dog on the way to the golf course you're not
gonna play that well, generally....The Alexander Technique
allows feelings, whether they be emotional or physical, to flow
through me, or allows me to allow them to flow through me,
rather than holding them. In other words, I feel more, but I
don't hold the things that I feel, emotionally and physically. I
believe there's no difference. B o b

83
In general, anything of the nature of the experience that we've
been talking about for me is going to affect the relationships
that you have with other people around you. It will make you
much more confident in general life, that you are in control.
And a person that is confident that they are in control can deal
with considerable degree of acronimity that other people, many
of whom are not particularly blessed with control, so one is in a
way feeling that one is in a better position emotionally, or
security like. J a m e s
Oh I generally feel more confident, more able to cope with
stressful situations. I find in stressful situations, at work for
example, I pick up on it when I'm tightening up. I may not
always be able to correct it but at least I'm aware of the
situation where my body's reacting to the circumstances again.
And I think it probably benefits me in my racing as well. I
think again, it's hard to pin point cause and effect, but I've
certainly felt a lot more confident when I do step into the
starting gate at a ski race. In my earlier racing career I always
felt that I did better in training than in racing. Now I feel I can
kind of crank up that extra level in racing and probably ski
better in a race than I ever do in training. And I've got a
feeling that the Alexander Technique has something to do with
that. Henri

Pre-competitive Anxiety. Arousal Level


Peter described in detail how he would use his skills, his
awareness and his ability to give Alexander directions, to deal with
pre-competitive anxiety and monitor his arousal level. There is again
a reference to not letting the physical manifestation of an emotional
stress response get out of control, but rather, an ability to stay
focused on basic elements of use and self.

84
I would probably lie down and give myself a little bit of
direction, which helps if my anxiety is about to race or starting
to build up a bit, I'd lie down and give some directions. I'm still
gonna feel nervous, but basically maybe I'm not fixing my
shoulders so much or I'm getting my ribs to free up a little bit.
So once I've got myself sorted out with lying down or sitting
often times you can lie down on the track which is on the
infield which is sort of nice. This starts to quiet your mind a
little bit so your mind isn't racing around thinking about a
million things, it just is slowing down and giving some
directions, and this helps control anxiety a little bit....If it's a big
race you get pretty nervousin fact you want to get nervous.
But you don't want to get so nervous that you blow yourself
out of the race before you're even started. You want to be
nervous but at a level where it still feels like you're going to
enjoy yourselfit's not life and deaththere's a sort of an
optimal range in there. At the same time you don't want to be
so flat that you're not up enough to put the pedal down when
you need toyou know? You need to be aroused, ready to
really go, ready to deal with the pain. So if you're kind of
lackadaisical about all this you won't do well either. So then
when you start to warm up and run....At this point you've done
all your training, there's nothing more that you can do at this
point fitness-wise to get ready for that race. So all you want to
do is get to the starting line in the optimal mental state, and
optimal physically so you're warmed up, you're nice and free,
you're reasonably relaxed, and your body's ready to perform.
So that when you're running around or doing your jogging or
doing your strides, I focus on things like a basic sense of length
and trying to do all these things as smoothly as possible. So
when I'm doing my strides, you know you see some runners
who are a little bit nervous and the emotions are starting to
dominate, they don'tlet's say they do six strides. Well they'll
go out and run the first one as hard as they can. Doesn't make
sense. The idea is that you want to start slower and build up, so
the last one is the fastest one, not the first one. And then for
example if they go out and run the first one as fast as they can
and it's not as fast as they'd like, and they start to worry, and
maybe they press, and so by the time they get to the starting
line they are worried about how they're gonna do. Whereas

85
what you want to do in the warm-up is create a sense of
confidence and optimism about how you're going to perform,
and I think you do that by just going through things in a
progressive sort of way, and when things get tight you simply
give some directions and release them, and slowly build
yourself up to the point where you're reaching a peak by the
time the race starts. Peter

Human

Imperfection

Although the athletes reported that the Alexander Technique


provided them with this tool for reducing stress and controlling
anxiety and tension, they also acknowledged that they are still
human. Peter was clear that he still felt nervous, but that it was
controlled. Cheryl and Henri acknowledged that the Alexander
Technique did not provide a magic bullet. They themselves were still
responsible for their responses, and were not always totally in
control. Henri's excerpt may reflect his own limitations with the
Technique at this stage. Cheryl's comments had a more philosophical
tone, borne of experience that does not see stress taking over as a
failure, but rather as a new opportunity to learn about herself.
Certainly if you've got a night where your equipment isn't
rightfor example I've got a pair of skis right nowthat when
you sharpen the skis that you can file the edges and put a little
angle on them and so on-the skis I've got now, if they don't
have the right angle they're just very difficult to ski. And if
they're not right, I mean it's very hard to think of freeing your
neck and so on, because you're so caught up in struggling with
the equipment that's not working well. When things are
working well it's easier to focus on lengthening and freeing
your neck and fine balance and so on. Henri

86
The quality of performance is always somewhat related to your
partner, the horse....The horse is affected by his surroundings:
the temperature, the fittings, any distractions in the immediate
competition area, because of the nature of the species, he's
very sensitive to anything changing in his landscape. So I can
give direction and feel a certain quality of integration in
myself, everything can go optimally, or another scenario can
occur when I feel a certain quality of integration in myself, and
someone's dog can get loose and run across the competition
arena barking and biting at my horse, and that calls upon me to
respond because in that moment my horse can try to flee. I
mean it's a complex issue because you're dealing with another
living thing. So in those moments when things fall apart, due to
distraction or outside circumstance, or whatever you want to
call it, then I feel fortunate to have the tools of the Alexander
Technique because I can sometimes get that moment to pass
and move on in competition and have it go okay, providing I
have enough time to keep working. And sometimes I can't,
because the bell will have rung and I'm required to enter, and
everything is in chaos in terms of the horse's stability, and I'm
in response to that giving directions and dealing with his
instability, and simply not allowed the time to have both of us
get back to being presentwe're someplace else. When that
happens do I consider the Alexander Technique differently
because my performance is not of winning caliber? No, I don't
think so, I think the principles remain the same, I think that
the factor is time and like every other kind of competition
sometimes you have to perform before you're ready. It's an
interesting stimulus. Cheryl

Summary
The athletes in this study clearly experienced that the
Alexander Technique, as a performance enhancement strategy,
equipped them with a sense of being more in control of themselves,
more independent and responsible for themselves, freer of excess

87
tension and more able to identify and suspend their own interfering
habits.
As a stress management tool the athletes felt they had greater
control over their own performance anxiety as well as an ability to
cope with external stressors. At the same time they acknowledged
their humanity and did not present the Technique as a panacea. They
still felt anxiety, still felt overwhelmed by circumstance sometimes.
But they maintained a sense that notwithstanding their own
limitations, they had the tools to cope. And perhaps most important,
they knew when they were getting stressed.

Injury Prevention and Recovery


"Early Warning System"
A second significant effect of being able to move more freely,
easily and with less tension, was a reduced risk of injury. Peter,
James, and Bob referred to the Alexander Technique equipping the
athlete with sort of an "early warning system". This experience, or
awareness state allowed the athletes to perceive potential physical
problems that might cause serious injury before they became
serious. Since in essence, they had a healthy standard of use against
which to judge something being amiss physically, they seemed to
have the ability to adjust and avoid further negative impact. They
knew when a certain quality of movement was potentially injurious
or might negatively impact performance.

88
I'll know before I have a pinched nerve, that I need to pay
attention to my posture. I'll know before I have a tennis elbow
that I need to release the grip on the club. B o b
I think the Alexander Technique allows you~if you're doing
things with unnecessary effort or you're putting too much into
something, you know you pick that upit's like a built in early
warning system, you pick that up very very quickly. And you
can either release something, or you can start to back off, or
you can pay attention to what's going on. And that you can do
while you're running, or while you're training, and I think it
makes a big difference. It's made a big difference to me. Peter
As time goes on, it's as if one is developing much more of an
early warning system which tells you when you are about to,
or when you just have interfered with the new and as yet
barely experienced way of doing things, and are busy yet again
simply imposing old habits. J a m e s
Number one, it offers [athletes] a degree of prevention in the
sense of making them more aware of what's going on with
themselves, and to give more weight and more value to these
perceptions. Often times athletes will try to train through pain.
Or they dismiss as insignificant a little nibble in their ankle or a
little problem in their hip or whatever. Whereas with the
Alexander Technique...! think it's sort of like an early warning
system that's built in so they start to pay more attention to
these things and tend to them much faster before they become
serious problems. Peter

Recurring. Chronic Injury


Other references to specific prevention of injury, injury
recurrence and discomfort are illuminating with regard to the power

89
and impact of the Alexander Technique in the experiences of these
athletes.
Once I started doing Alexander, it was interesting that although
the training and the competition level remained high, I started
having many fewer injuries. For example my lower back used
to hurt a lot when I was marathon running, and I traced it,
interestingly enough, to a breathing pattern. You know in the
mid, late 70's, "Runner's World" was telling everyone that
you've got to belly breathyou know? And so I went out and
ran hundreds and hundreds of miles belly breathing, in which
you exhale and stick out your stomach, inhale the abdomen
comes inyou know? And I practiced that for hundreds and
hundreds of miles. And my lower back, I had tension, I
wouldn't say it was an injury, but it was uncomfortable a lot of
the time. And funny enough, "Runner's World" in the late 80's
came out and said, "oh belly breathing is no good, it causes
lordosis, and lower back pain, and also seems to shorten your
stride". Well I had figured this out with the Alexander
Technique, you know you need to let your ribs expand, as
opposed to sticking out your stomach, that this probably wasn't
a good way to breath. Peter
Peter talked about his early running injuries and habits that
contributed to them, some of which were very similar to those
reported by James, particularly pounding.
Runners have a lot of lower limb injuries....You get a lot of
problems with you feet, Achilles tendonitis, pulled calf muscles,
runners knee, all these sorts of things, and I probably had
them all. I think the most serious was a knee problem, which
might have been also attributable to the fact that I tore knee
ligaments when I was a hockey player and a football player
when I was younger, you know with the pounding and all the
rest of it, my knee would really be quite painful. Now this goes
back for awhile and I don't have my running logs here, but I

90
even had to take time off running, which for a marathoner of
course is very difficult to do and done only as a last resort. I
also had a problem with Achilles tendonitis, which is when
your Achilles tendon becomes very painful, and you basically
do not runit's a very serious injury. And I did different
things from putting inserts into my shoes to, you know, getting
a slant board and standing on a slant board and all the rest of
it. When I looked at my shoes, you know the wear pattern on
shoes, I used to come down very heavily on my heel, and wear
the outside of the shoes down quite badly. I was exaggerating
the proper pattern of running, and I found this changed quite a
lot when I started to become more aware of running and, for
example, just a simple thing like how hard you come down on
the ground. It sounds something quite simple, but when I
started to pay attention a bit to running lighter, or landing
lighter, along with better use elsewhere so I wasn't pulled
down, I wasn't arching my back when I land, I didn't have any
more problems with my Achilles. And as I say this is a problem
that most runners suffer from at some point in their running
careers. When I was a marathoner the only way I dealt with it
was mechanically, by putting an insert in my shoe, I'd raise my
heel a little bit, then the Achilles wouldn't be stretched so
much, and that took some of the pressure off. Or rest, I think I
probably had to take a few weeks off in those days to allow the
inflammation to go down, all sorts of things like this. Well since
I've done Alexander these things just don't happen. Peter

Reduced Risk
With less physical strain on the body there is not only less risk
of injury, there is less pain and more general physical stability and
strength.
Among other things, I would say that it has allowed me to play
more easily, to play in less pain, allows me to function in a
manner so I don't hurt myself while I'm playing, or at least
hurt myself far less. Most people that I work with are hurting

91
themselves by moving the way they move when they play.
Teaching me how to use myself effectively, and walk lighter
and swing more freely. Bob
Well I think there's a very a basic physical hygiene aspect to it
if you want. Before I had taken up Alexander I had back
problems for awhile. And I went to a physio-therapist who
suggested that the cause of my back problems were mostly
poor posture, the way I tended to stand and sit and so on. I
think certainly the Alexander Technique has given me a lot of
improvement in that respect. It's just a very basic benefit, but
it's there. I try to use it in all my physical activities. Like
cycling, as I'm sitting on the bike I try to focus on the
principles of the Alexander Technique....Squats in particular
relate very strongly to a lot of the sitting and standing exercise
that I've done...in the Alexander instruction. And I feel better
balanced and centered and less likely to do something to my
back doing heavy squats when I focus on the Alexander
Technique. Henri
I think the Alexander Technique makes people stronger. You
know they may not increase their bench press, but...when
people learn to use themselves well in a general sense, they
become stronger and better coordinated. Peter

Recovery and Prevention


James originally came to the Alexander Technique because of
limited flexibility in his arm movements and the restriction this
provided his violin playing. At some point, a year or so after he was
studying the Alexander Technique, he started to address his running
problems. He described the nature of his injuries and his thinking
process as he began.

92
If this thing is so darn fine good for my fiddle playing..., would
it necessarily solve problems in an area where I not only had
problems, but very definite and identifiable injury, which was
taking me further into the unknown, if you see what I mean.
Now for the running, it was things of a more fundamental issue,
as it always is when you get down to self inflicted injury. Now
that means that in 1952 I had been examined at the Yale
Medical School, I was a degree student at Yale University at
that time, and I was told that the terrible pains and the very
serious swellings that I had in both knees were problems that
could only be solved, ultimately, by giving me operations for
cartilage problems, and partial cartilage removal from both
knees, and there were very serious problems in the ankles
which were related to the knee problems. Those would not
have required to have surgical treatment, but who knows,
perhaps eventually they might have done. So those were the
problems there. Essentially in running terms, what it amounted
to was that if I ran for more than about 4 or 5 miles, the knees
very rapidly blocked, until they would not bend. So they were
very painful, would swell up very rapidlyyou could
practically see it happening in front of your eyes, and once
they were swelled up they were effectively blocked, and the
ankles swelling to the ludicrous degree, so that it looked like
the old Michelin ads that the press used to put out. And If I
was caught that way in the middle of a training run, I would
have to walk home. Then I would have to rest for a couple of
weeks while the whole inflammation went down. Then the
knees would come down to something rather that I could use
again, and then I would start to run again, yet again, and this
went on and on and on over the years. That was the thingrecurring knee and ankle injury. J a m e s

Ultimately, some 20 years later, the identification of and


inhibition of his negative habits of running afforded James the
capacity to run efficiently and without repeat of injury. And he ran
with great success.

93
I was very successful...on two counts. One was that as a veteran
athlete, that although I had all those years not being able to
run consistently because of the injuries, and not being able to
competewhich was also an important minus in my life,
because you don't go for years and years without competing
and suddenly go back into competitioncompetition-wise you
are rusted up. And so I had that disadvantage, and I went back
into competition, but it didn't seem to make any difference to
me at all. I was back in competition, delighted to be back in
competition, delighted to be with my fellow competitors who I
had of course missed very much over the years, and able to
show right from the start and prove to myself and prove to
other people that what I'd been doing to rescue my running
was not a figment of my imaginationthat it held up. The first
competitive that I did, incidentally was I plunged in the deep
end and did a 6 day race and came out of it unscathed. James

James not only succeeded in preventing recurring injury, but in


essence, over an extended period of time actually recovered from
what was considered to be permanent damage. On a more immediate
basis Peter suggested that injury recovery is also speeded up in his
experience under the influence of studying the Alexander Technique.
Obviously when you're competing at high levels...little injuries
do come along. I've found that when I've had the odd little
injury, and I really haven't suffered a serious injury, I mean
something that would take you out for more than say a
week...since I've done the Alexander Technique, which is in the
early 80's. However you do get little things occasionally, and
I've found the Alexander Technique, through direction, and
through just knowing when to back off, has allowed me to
recover faster than I would have had I stayed with the
traditional approach which is maybe coming back too fast, not
waiting long enough for something to heal, that kind of
thinking which purveys a lot of the area. I was prepared to say,
"okay, I've got a little problem here, I'll just give it the time

94
that it needs". So I think that there's some philosophical
influence that sort of trickles down to the level of behavior.
Just sort of saying, "okay, I know I have to give this time, even
though I want to improve and even though I want to run that
big race, I need to give this a little bit of time". And, I don't
know, maybe it's an example of constructive thinking, or using
inhibition, you could put different labels on it. Peter

Ongoing Improvement. Longevity


It intuitively makes sense that reduction in physical stress,
injury and abuse of the body can prolong a career. James and Peter
both referred to ongoing improvement in spite of age that suggests
that at the very lest, longevity in sport may be enhanced by
improving the quality of how athletes function in their sport.
Another area for quite a few of the runners that come see me,
is that they don't necessarily have to get worse as they get
older. Because the assumption that you get rapidly worse as
you get older is a very dis-spiriting thing, it's an idea which far
too many people have, and you have to persuade them by
showing them that this isn't necessarily so. James
I also found that I sort of becameyou know often as a runner
you go through periods where you don't seem to improveyou
get blocked. And one of the things that I experience as a
runner, even up to today, is that I'm still improving personal
times. This isn't really expected in middle distance running
you are expected to peak at about 30 or even earlier and after
that everything sort of drops off. Well I ran a personal best
time at 800 meters 2 years ago, which you're not really
supposed to do. And I have every intention of bettering my
1500 meter time this year, which will remain to be seen, but
this is one of the things I attribute to Alexander. I've remained
pretty much injury free, and I keep improving. Peter

95

Summary
A concrete theme to emerge from the data was the clear
experience for these athletes that learning a more efficient, easy and
balanced coordination in the use of the body in movement led to
reduced risk of injury. Less tension, less fatigue and less repetitive
damage to the body provided greater physical health, longevity and
ongoing performance improvement.
Learning
An interesting phenomenon to emerge from the data was the
experience of enhanced learning. Subjects referred to their ability to
process information faster and to interpret instruction more
accurately. However, the emergent theme of increased or enhanced
learning had other dimensions as well. The nature of the Technique
focuses the learner on process (qualitative) as opposed to outcome
(quantitative) variables. Because the use of themselves became a
part of the process, this model of learning was transferable to sport
related learning tasks. There was an increased enjoyment and
stimulation of a natural curiosity about the how of an activity. For
several of the subjects, the practical effect of this was that they
experienced daily improvement, partly because the standard of
measurement was not solely a typical, result oriented criterion.
Cheryl and Bob made general statements about learning.

96
It affects me daily, in riding, all the time, in everything, but in
riding specifically....Using the Alexander Technique in riding
allows me to improve my skill level on a daily basis...Obviously
that filters through into competition. Cheryl
I'm able to play more effectively with less practice. I only play
golf once a week or once every 2 weeks because of other
duties, and I do a lot of teaching. I rarely hit practice balls. Yet
I'm able to maintain a fairly effective swing. Enough to
compete on a regional level with, given the amount of work I
do, with a reasonable amount of success. Bob

Process Variables
Peter and Henri offered specific examples of how the
Alexander Technique affected learning and improved performance.
Although Henri is a skier, he offered an experience playing squash as
an example.
The Alexander Technique has allowed me to enjoy the process
of learning. 'Cause I think I'm still learning a lot about running.
I'm still working on technique and trying to run more
efficiently and run faster. And I think there's a certain basic
curiosity there that's come from the Alexander Technique that
has led me to sort of question and be aware of changes and be
aware of when things aren't working as well as they should be.
And continue to be on this learning curve in terms of
improving myself as a runner....Normally what you do in
running is you measure improvement in terms of, did you
manage to complete the workout, did you run it faster than you
did the day before, or did you run the race faster than you did
last week? So it's all goal oriented....Something else I can talk
more about as a coach and as a runner, there are phases of
development where you're not, you're building up, you're doing
steps now which will allow you to do more later, but at this
particular moment in time you may not in fact be running

97
faster, you may in fact be running slower. So if you're looking
for feedback, which you do as an athlete as to improvement,
and you only use time as a measure of improvement or as a
measure of success, or a measure of progress, this can create a
sense of frustration, "oh gees I need to do more, to run faster,"
of urgency. And all these things, in my experience, not only
personally but as a coach..., usually make runners more prone
to injury, cause them to quit, or cause them to give up. Now
what I find with the Alexander Technique is that it opens up...a
whole different field, it's like taking the blinders off. All of a
sudden you can start to measure improvement for example, in
ways which you might not have thought of as important, or
weren't even aware of before that they even existed. I'll give
you some very practical examples. Running effortlesslya lot
of times when you run, for people it's a struggle, it doesn't feel
good, it doesn't feel smooth. Your feet are pounding the ground,
you're running inefficiently, you're body's moving too much,
you're not paying too much attention to your stride, so maybe
you're not getting the maximum amount of flush that you
could, anyway you're not paying much attention to you arms
and your arms might not be working very well in terms of
synchronizing with your legs. There's literally tons of things
that you can pay attention to: your breathingare you
breathing well when you're running or are you holding your
breath, are you fixing your chest? Many of these things, when
you pay attention to them and you allow releases to take place
so, for example, let's say you stiffen your ankles or behind your
knees when you're running, you give a little direction to that,
all of a sudden you start doing the same thing but easier and
smoother and with more flow. So a 4 mile run can be, "okay,
just get out there and do your 4 miles," or it can be sort of an
exercise and exploration of improving yourself as a runner.
When you bring that level of attention and awareness and
with the Alexander Techniqueof direction to what you're
doing, just a piddly little run which is just sort of helping you
keep you aerobic base going and helping you keep you mileage
going, can still be interesting and...there can be a lot you can
get out of that run in terms of noticing improvements. Peter

98
I was taking a squash lesson 2 months ago, and the instructor
was working on a particular stroke or whatever, and I started
to get a little overwhelmed by it, we were sort of doing a drill.
And then I thought "okay, you can do this, it doesn't matter if
you miss or not, just focus on using your body well and just do
it." And then I started to be able to focus on what I was trying
to do as opposed to struggling to keep up. I guess I began to
focus on the right thing, as opposed to focusing on keeping up,
which wasn't really that important. Then I started to play and I
wasn't beating the instructor or anything, but I felt that I was
doing the best I could with what I had at that time. Henri

Information

Processing

All of the athletes in this study also teach and/or coach their
respective sports. Several brought this additional perspective
regarding learning and teaching of sport skills and the effects of the
Alexander Technique.
One of the most important things about the Alexander
Technique is that it helps people learn faster. When people
have gone through a series of Alexander lessons and then they
go back and their teacher says "listen I want you to focus on
this today, or I want you to work on this, or teaches them a
new skill," they learn it much faster. They're able often times
to interpret what a teacher is telling them to do without
injuring themselves or without hurting themselves. So, for
example, if an athlete is told to "run tall," he knows that it
doesn't mean stick out their chest, hollow their back and pull
their shoulders backthey know what it means to "run tall." So
as a coach when I tell people to "run taller, run straighter," I
get a lot of people [who] start to lift their chests and pull their
heads back. Somebody with Alexander has a better chance of
not interpreting that direction in that way....Someone who's
studied the Alexander Technique knows that they can actually
think a little bit about the spine being long and they can think
a little bit about staying nice and free through their ankles and

99
their knees and their hips, and you know they can think a little
bit about releasing in their shoulders, and they can give
themselves these directions or entertain these thoughts during
the course of their run. So it's almost like they are aware of
what they're doing and they're also influencing what they're
doing as they're doing it, as opposed to just going out and
getting your ass from A to B. Peter
The thing that keeps me in the game is teaching, and that's the
primary reason I became interested in the Alexander
Technique....I believe I need to be my own laboratory. There's a
line in a book by Dan Millman, who wrote, among other things
The way of the peaceful warrior...which says "don't teach
anything you don't embody." I also studied Aikido for several
years...In the martial arts you need to become a master before
you're allowed to learn how to teach, being a master doesn't
mean you're qualified to teachit means you're qualified to
learn how to teach....I consider myself an epystomologist, one
who learns about learning. To say the least I send all my pupils
[to study the Alexander Technique]. They don't all go, but
they're all given the opportunity. Bob
I teach riding. It's become very obvious to me that the earlier I
can integrate the principles [of the Alexander Technique], the
easier it is for a person to learn how to ride....Once they can sit
on the horse, not have a fear of falling, begin to discover their
balance with the ongoing movement of the horse, even simply
at the walk, then I think the principles can be introduced.

Cheryl

Open-mindedness
From Cheryl's perspective, however, there has to be some
degree of skill at riding, or perhaps more important, an openmindedness of the student before the principles of the Alexander
Technique can be introduced effectively into learning to ride.

100
I think what I'm learning is that it depends on the individual
student, and probably...it has to do with how strongly attached
to their own habits they are. So I would tend to say that people
who are able to feel comfortable with a variety of perspectives,
who are not worried about controlcontrolling themselves,
controlling the horse, not worried about doing it right, doing it
wrongpeople that tend to have sort of a moreable to take
the risk type personalityseem to be able to integrate the
Alexander Technique very early on in the sport, even if they
have a less high skill level. As opposed to people who have a
higher skill level, who are very attached to their way of doing
things, are very attached to being in control, are very attached
to only learning in one waythose people might have a higher
skill level, but mightyou might not be able to integrate the
principles of the Alexander Technique into teaching [riding].
Cheryl
Summary
Learning was enhanced through a combination of mechanisms
including greater self control, improved ability to follow and
interpret instruction, and greater attention to process variables. All
of these in turn enhanced performance, by making training time
more consistent and more productive. The athletes also all offered
their perspectives as teachers of their respective sports that in their
experience, their students learn faster after or while studying the
Technique.

101
Process Description
Awareness. Inhibition. Direction:
A Paradigm for Performance Enhancement in Sport
Throughout this analysis have been references to use, to
awareness, inhibition, and direction, all of which are essential
structures of the Alexander Technique and make up the ongoing
process of being that the Technique teaches. All 5 athletes talked
about these various principles with respect to the Alexander
Technique.
What follows is an attempt to "put it altogether", to illustrate
this process by drawing from the athlete's experiences and
organizing them into a paradigm for athletic performance
enhancement: using awareness, inhibition and direction to achieve a
higher standard of overall use in life and athletic performance.
Awareness
As increased awareness provided a basis that runs through as a
constant in all 5 of the athletes' experiences, it also formed the basis
for the process that the athletes learned in their study, and then
continued with on their own in their life and sport. The process
provided a window into a way of being that the athletes chose, a way
of being that brought consciousness to their lives and activities,
including their sport and athletic performance.
A critical element in the experience of these athletes was a
recognition that it was the suspension of, or inhibition of, negative

102
interfering elements of their use in their performance that led to
improved performance. In other words, they did not feel that they
had to do something to reach high level performance, rather they
had to prevent themselves from interfering with their own potential
and then allow the performance to take care of itself. In essence,
habit and inhibition, choice and allowing were all intimately related
to each other. Studying the Alexander Technique seems not only to
have given these athletes an intellectual understanding of these
concepts, but a repeated experience of those principles.
Most important, it gave them a quality standard of what is
referred to in the Alexander Technique as "use" (Alexander, 1932).
In the glossary to Jones' Body Awareness in Action (1976),

Brown

defined "use" as follows:


In the narrower sense, use describes posture as it changes over
time. You have poor posture at a given time because of the
poor way you use your body. In the broader sense, use
describes the total pattern of behavior in the ongoing present.
Alexander emphasized that by use he did not mean use of
specific parts, but use of all parts of the organism acting in
concert, (p. 196)

Good "use" is characterized foremost by the coordinated and


balanced relationship between the head, neck and back, which in
turn affects the generalized level of tonus in the body (Jones, 1976).
For more detail refer to the literature review.
The athletes referred to giving themselves "directions" or
"direction" which are, among other meanings, conscious intentions or

103
orders to the head, neck and back. The following excerpts reflect this
concept of "use", "direction", and the relationship of the head, neck
and back, and its central importance to general functioning, balance,
degree of effort and overall athletic performance. There was an
implication in many of the statements that "good use" is a natural
state that is somehow disturbed by stress and habit.
I think there are just benefits to using yourself better..., using
yourself more effectively, probably the way the body was
meant to be used, as opposed to ways that are distorted from
the stresses we've been through or the bad habits we've
acquired....I would be improving the quality of movements that
I use in skiing in such a way that my balance would be better.
I'd be achieving the same body displacement with less effort.
I'd probably be able to do more with the strength I have.
Probably do it with more of a feeling of control, of mastery.

Henri
I find at least for me it's almost like...Alexander gives you a
core..., helps you learn what the basics arehelps you improve
your ability to keep your basics going under pressure, when
often times basics seem to breakdown....And that's comforting,
becauseyou know there are so many things to deal with in a
situationit's like playing musicthere are so many variables,
that if you can make a few of those variables, and we're talking
now about mental preparation and use of yourselfif you can
make a few of those constants, it reduces anxiety....You can
count on your use a little bit if you've been at this for a little
while, it's gonna be there working for you as opposed to
working against you. P e t e r
I think that it's very simple, probably too simple. By giving
myself direction, I am saying to myself neck free, head forward
and up, back lengthening and widening, back back. And those
words are a stimulus to me to lengthen and widen in myself.

104
And I can take on the most physically challenging and difficult
and demanding task and find it easier and less efforting if I am
lengthening ongoing as I'm doing it. Cheryl

Habits. Inhibition and Choice


The athletes described learning a process of discovery that
gave them control over their habits, their habitual reactions, not only
of movement but of behavior. They experienced choice, and they had
a constantly reinforced experience in lessons of moving and
responding without the influence of habit.
The process is understanding the choices, the choices that are
possible for each of us. Cheryl
In the following excerpts James spoke both from personal
experience as an athlete, and also from his teaching experience with
other athletes as he described various personal experiences of
identifying and inhibiting habits that interfere with athletic
performance.
It isn't until you start using the Alexander Technique to say
specifically "now look here, now what am I doing to move
myself backwards?Ah, I see it's my arms. Well can I do
anything to change that?" Because the Alexander Technique,
you see, has to do with the changing of habits. Okay, "If my
arms are holding me back, what do I do to let go of that, so my
arms will start to take me forward?" J a m e s
I was able to perceive more accurately when I was allowing
this general freeing up and lightening effect to continue to take
place, or when I was in fact interfering with it. Because in the

105
process one gets these experiences, these general experiences
of more freedom and lightness of physical movement and of
balance, but one is generally pretty ignorant about how soon
one starts to interfere with them through the application of
very very strong, old habit patterns. James
I've been working with a fair cross section of the running
community, anything from runners who are very very fine
club athletes to people who you might call weekend runners.
Now basically the sort of people that I'm working with on my
running courses are people who come up against what I would
call barriers: some of these barriers you might say are physical
barriers, that is to say self inflicted injuries which keep
recurring. Other people have less obvious barriers, such as
inability to sustain a competitive attitude throughout a raceall of a sudden they become quitters and that becomes a
habit....The basic problem in a situation like that is where the
person feels that they are helplessly in the grips of an attitude
which is, for example, going to make them quit 2/3 of the way
through the racethey're in the grips of a situation where they
cannot make a choice....They have formed a habit by accident,
shall we say, a quitting attitude, they've got to get back into a
situation of being able to make a choice. James

Bob described his realization regarding the force of habit.


I thought that if you got out of your own way, your body would
do what it needed to do. And in some cases it did. But I didn't
realize that the force of habit is so strong that you needed to
inhibit the conditioned response. Alexander talked about
inhibition being the key to the Techniqueand I agree with
that. I had all these people who came to me with bad habitsineffective habitsI don't like to use the word badhabits that
don't produce what they want. If they stop trying to do what
they're doing they can get some better, more effective results.
But if they can learn to inhibit, and then allowthe results
were much more effective. Bob

106
Direction. Allowing. Letting Go
The athletes reported a sense of being more able to let go, to
allow their skills to take over. There was an experience of less doing,
of not trying so hard, not efforting or muscling. Somehow, if the work
and practice had been done, then there was an ability to get out of
the way and allow performance to flow. There was an experience
that potential was being reached. From a performance enhancement
standpoint this is a critical experience, because it lies at the heart of
most enhancement strategiesto free up the athlete to do in
performance what he can do in practice. Henri, Bob and Peter
expressed this experience of allowing, of not doing, of getting out of
the way in their own words.
When I was younger when I was racing...I always felt that
there was a better skier that never quite came through in my
racing, that I had all these great training runs but couldn't
quite do it while I was running. And I think as a result of, or
somehow connected to the Alexander Technique I now have a
feeling that I'm focusing on the right things and using my skills
reasonably close to their potential....For a long time when I was
racing earlier I kept trying to think about what I was doing,
and if I was studying a race course, say a slalom course, I
would say "okay when I get to here I've got to do this and that
and that", and it never really worked because when you get
there you're not really thinking anyway. And I think the
process you go through in the Alexander Technique where you
think about what you want to do first and then you let it
happen is very relevant to that kind of situation. You look at a
course, you try to imagine how it's going to be when you go
through there, and what you should be doing, and when you're
in the starting gate you just go~you don't try to think as you
go down. H e n r i

107
As you give directions, let your body extend in that direction
and so on, I kind of extend that into skiing in letting a lot of
things just happen by themselves, you don't have to do
everything. Maybe I carry this too far, but you know the skis
themselves will do a lot for you if you don't get in the way and
just let them, put them in the right position, put your body in
the right place in relation to the skis and then just let the turn
happen. And I think the concept of the Alexander Technique
kind of extends to that. Henri
This is a method to teach what I believe. This is a method to
teach allowing, to teach letting, how to let go....I've been
working on ideas like not "trying"....I do not use that word
["trying"], or attempt not to. Trying is always failing...The
harder people try the worse they get....They also think too
much, in that they are trying to control their body parts in
motion, they're always interfering with the body's ability to
move. I had read "Zen in the Art of Archery"things of that
sortso when I saw this Alexander Technique I said "holy shit-this is the missing"I didn't even know a piece was missing
"this is the missing piece!" The thing I like about this is that
inhibition followed by direction allows an effective useit isn't
that I'm doing effective things, I'm allowing myself to have it
occur. Giving the body it's own wisdom. Bob
In an example of how lessons demonstrate the principle of
doing less, of not trying, Peter recalled his earlier lessons in the
Technique.
Alexander's always showing us that we can do less and get
more. We need to do less if we want to get more. I remember
[my teacher] Macdonald would say "work with your legs less,
don't push with your hips here, just release your ankles, let
you heals go down", and it got to the point where you didn't
feel like you were doing anything, except you were floating
straight up out of the chair at an angle which was absolutely

108
impossible, and Macdonald only had one finger on you while
you were doing it. Peter
Peter and Cheryl referred to the fact that in studying the
Alexander Technique there is an experience of process

that is

constantly reinforced. There is a repeated experience that going for


results is self-defeating. They extended the concept into their sport.
Well, one of the things that we learn with Alexander is that the
process is very important. It's not just getting to your
destination, it's how you get there....Now one of things that gets
in the way of changing habits, is this undue focus on the result
and this neglect of the things that you need to do to achieve
that result. So I think with Alexander I might just sort of let go
of the importance of achieving a time, without completely
letting go, but not focus on it as I think I once did, and then
give myself the opportunity to learn how to run, to go through
the process, the steps that were required to change what was
perhaps not inefficient on one level, but my running technique
was extremely limiting in the sense I had a very short, sort of
shuffly stride, which would sort of get me from A to B in a
fairly efficient manner, but basically did not allow me the
possibility of achieving any kind of potential in terms of
running fast. Peter
Wanting to win, wanting to do it right...is a stimulus to which
we all seem to respond by working harder, tightening,
efforting, calling upon ourselves to do more, going the last mile,
all those sort of ingrained cultural concepts of work ethic that's
in all of us. So that in many ways, the more you call upon
yourself to win the tighter you get, as opposed to a direction
which calls upon you to just be, to be. And as a result of just
being, as opposed to doing, your performance gets enhanced in
the areas of elegance and grace and ease of movement. Cheryl

109
Peter elaborated on the process by stressing the importance of
using thought, of the idea that being aware and then consciously
inhibiting interference and giving a conscious direction or thought is
a process of thinking in activity that is a hallmark of the Alexander
Technique. Speaking as both an athlete, a coach and a teacher, he
talked about the connection between Alexander lessons and running
on the track. In this long excerpt Peter addressed how the training
process and the desire for a result at the expense of sticking to the
process can lead to poor performance and injury.
I'll give you a very good example. Most running training
involves interval training in which runners will run, let's say a
series of 400 meter repetitions at a certain pace. So the
workout for the day may be 8 times 400 meters, and you're
going to try to run all of those, in let's say at 68 seconds, and
you're gonna take a 1 minute break. Now what often happens
is that runners will start to increase the pace. They find 68 too
easy, they'll run the first 2 at 68, then a few at 66 or 64, and
the last two will be at 75 because they'll blow up. Another
variation might be they run the first 4 or 5 at 68, and then
they'll start to increase the pace, and it will turn into a race.
Now both those things show a lack of inhibition in the sense
that runners are too eager to show how fast they are and they
end up running in training, which the odd time is okay, but
when it becomes a pattern of training, this leads to runners
putting a lot of pressure on themselves, and injuries because
their competing in a training situation, and it's turned a lot of
runners off or it's led to serious injury and all sort of problems.
Good coaches sort of say when you pick a pace for your
repetitions you should stick at that pace for the whole workout,
so if you say you're going to run 68's you run 68's for the
whole workout, and you don't vary from that. If it's too easy,
well the next time you come out maybe you do it at 66. But
there's a certain idea of thought preceding action and
influencing action while it's actually taking place. Now it's very

110
easy when you're out there with the boys and someone's
feeling frisky, and you forget about what your first decision
was and then you get into racing. That isn't usually very
helpful in terms of improving performance. What pays off is
starting with a plan and sticking with it and then allowing the
improvement as a result of training over a period of weeks and
months and years. That's where you get improvement, not by
going all out in one training session. Now to me this is what
Alexander is about. It's not about learning to get out of a chair
properly, it's about going back and learning what the basics
are, and continuing to interpret those basics, or discover the
ways you interfere with those principles again and again and
again and again. And what happens along the way is that your
general basic level of use improves and keeps on improving.
Why I'm jumping to that, I mean that's one of the things
Alexander said, there's no sitting on the fence, you're either
getting better or your getting worse. Now most athletes don't
believe this. Most athletes believe they can plateau and
maintain. Well I don't believe that. I believe you're either
getting better or getting worse, and that's always influenced
my training. I feel if I'm sticking with the basics and doing the
work that I need to be doing that I will get better. Now often
times you don't get a short term result that indicates to you
that that's happening, but what starts to happen over a period
of time, over a period of years, that it does happen, that you
continue to get better, continue to improve. A lot of it is by
paying attention to what you're doing and not trying to over
achieve and not trying to rush back from and injury, you're
actually giving yourself more time to train, and when you give
yourself more time train you tend to improve. If you're always
injured and as we say climbing out of the valley of injury, you
know you never get a chance to be up on the mountain top,
you're always trying to get better. Peter

The same concepts were voiced by James, as he spoke from his


teaching experience about thinking in activity versus doing. He
remarked that about 10 percent of the athletes he works with are

Ill
initially resistant to the idea of using their thinking and
because they are so conditioned to muscling and

allowing,

doing.

To start out with, maybe for the first day on a course you may
find...them resistant to the idea that you've got to stop and
think. They want to get out and do. Their idea is that you don't
make any change, any improvement to your running except by
going out and doing it and doing it, and if you can do it more, it
will be better than if you do it less. If you run 30 miles a day,
and the other bloke of approximately your standard, only runs
10 miles a daytherefore you will beat him [laugh]. That is a
very powerful idea in athletics. And if you take such a person
who just wants to get out there and do more and more and
more of what is actually, ultimately stopping him or herthen
if you want to stop them and say now let's slow down and
considerthey'll be very reluctant to begin with, to take on
board the idea that actually not running, and thinking about
the running and experimenting with the movements that are
involved in running, that that can have any possible advantage
to them. But once they see other people who are succeeding,
then they'll change their tune. J a m e s

Summary
The athletes in this study seemed to have a demonstrated
increase in awareness of themselves in activity. They had a standard
of good use and health within themselves against which to judge and
experience old and new habits that were interfering with the best in
themselves. And finally, they had an ongoing experience of knowing
how to let go, to get out of the way, to give themselves direction and
to allow performance. For these athletes, this process, the essence of
the Alexander Technique, seemed to be an effective model for
enhancing athletic performance.

112
Summary of Content Analysis
The primary sources of data in this study were provided
through the in-depth interviewing and analysis of the 5 participating
subjects. A content analysis of their experiences revealed the broad
themes of Awareness; Wholeness; Control, Mastery and Confidence;
Stress

management; Injury Prevention and Recovery; and

Learning.

In addition, the process that the athletes referred to was illustrated


by organizing the principles of the Alexander Techniqueawareness,
inhibition and directioninto a paradigm for athletic performance
enhancement.
As an additional source of data for this study the literature on
the Alexander Technique was thoroughly reviewed for references to
sport and experiences of the Technique specifically in relation to
sport. The following accounts are offered because in many ways
analysis showed the same concepts derived inductively from the
primary data. The dominant experiences of increased awareness,
wholeness or unity of self, ease in movement, reduction in precompetitive anxiety, a sense of increased control, of allowing, of the
ability to overcome lifelong habits, an overall improved use oriented
around the relationship of the head, neck and back that affects all
activity; are all present in these letters. Unlike the text of the
participants in this study, these experiences have not been broken
apart to illustrate the discrete themes. Rather, they are offered in

113
their own wholeness as they were written, or at least as they were
published.
The following autobiographical experience is related by Michael
Gelb in his book Body learning: An introduction to the Alexander
Technique (1981). In it the author described his first experience of
running under the guidance of an Alexander teacher, who
interestingly, is the subject James in this study. Although the author
is not a professional runner, he is athletic. He performs as a juggler
and has a black belt in Aikido.
My old style [of running] was like that of the typical athlete:
torso leaning forward, head thrown back, shoulders rolling and
legs over-working. All good runners and coaches know that the
upright posture is most efficient. Not only did...[James] tell me
this, he actually 'gave' me the experience. He started by
working with me while I was standing still, helping to activate
my antigravity reflexes. As I started to go 'up', he would launch
me into running and then run alongside me with his hand
lightly on my neck, helping to prevent interference with the
Primary Control. The result was almost incredible. I ran in a
completely new way, floating along effortlessly. My legs had
much less to do in order to keep me goingthey seemed to
disappear. My awareness of the environment passing by as I
ran was heightened. Freed to a great extent from the drag on
my body, I found more energy to appreciate the flow of the
ground and trees as I ran along. Suddenly I understood the joy
of running. When I run on my own now the results aren't
always as dramatic as the initial experience, but I do
experience running as a lighter, easier processand not just on
a physical level, (p. 109)

The following two letters appear in F. Matthias Alexander: The


man and his work by Lulie Westfeldt (1964). There is no way to

114
objectively verify the authenticity of these letters, nor to determine
the amount of editing that went into their published form. The first
writer was apparently a recreational athlete. The second, however,
was clearly a member of the Italian National ski team.
One of the techniques I have tried to learn is to "meet the
unexpected without tension"; by maintaining an easy balance in
whatever position in space the body may happen to be.
Applying this idea to sports, in my case badminton, or in any
game where co-ordinations [sic] of eye and body are essential,
is a fascinating exercise.
To play well you must never force or allow the speed or
unexpectedness of any shot to throw you off balance, but
maintain a smooth easiness of body and mind, however fast the
game becomes. When one's back is lengthening and widening
this is much easier to do as there is just one's normal weight to
cope with and not weight plus pressure. The knees and legs are
therefore able to move more freely and quickly in any
direction. The calm awareness which is produced by the use of
this technique makes for a greater control which you can
depend on and re-establish during play, by running lightly
through the orders.
Applying these techniques will not make you a champion
if you are not equipped to be one, but it makes for an
awareness of the co-ordinated [sic] one-ness [sic] of your body
which you can use in every activity.
But the greatest change of all which an understanding
and application of your work has given me is the knowledge,
both theoretical and practical, that my long-standing habits of
body and mind can be changed even in middle life. That the
enormous tyranny of habit can, with steady application, be
understood and changed. B.D. (pp. 117-118)
As you remember,
was a Junior in college.
concentrating on skiing,
of the lessons was first

when I first took lessons from you I


At that time athletically I was
but it was in track that the significance
demonstrated to me. Previous years I

115
had been out for track and had run the one-hundred-yard dash
but never faster than 10.7 seconds. The spring of my Junior
year I did not go out for track and I did no training. Rather
than doing the usual exercises I worked on the head, neck and
back pattern. I went into an intramural meet and the first day
qualified for the finals. The next day, encountering none of the
usual second-day stiffness common with those who are out of
training, I returned a time .3 of a second faster than I had ever
done.
This point is constantly being brought home to me that
exercise serves only to reinforce bad habit patterns if
the...[head, neck and back] pattern is beginning to disintegrate.
Thus the athlete who trains and trains will see his efficiency
and co-ordination [sic] decrease. He envies the "natural athlete"
with his apparent ease and success. It has been my experience
in watching many athletes in this focus that the naturals and
champions have a fine pattern, good use. This is particularly
true in the physiologically complicated sports such as skiing or
tennis. Specific co-ordinations [sic] may be developed in such
sports as distance running where a habit can become
established and take over. These men pay the price in erratic
and rapidly slipping performance while increased training only
speeds up the disintegration.
Athletic coaching normally assumes good co-ordination
[sic] as a prerequisite and then goes on and applies its theories.
The exciting part of the Alexander Technique is that it deals
directly with the total pattern of co-ordination. The athlete
then, with a higher level of general co-ordination, confronts the
problems the sport presents. He is basically better equipped
and is therefore capable of reaching a higher level of
proficiency. Co-ordination is not such a fixed or settled thing as
is believed; a lot can be done about it.
Athletes tend to think in terms of specific motions and
lose sight of this total pattern which conditions the individual
part moving to an extent of ten feet or three seconds, and
makes the difference between a mediocre and a fine
performance.
I certainly can go on about this subject; being here in
training camp winds one up on these problems. Before coming
here to train with the Italian National team I went to

116
Switzerland and starting from the beginning tried to relearn
the art of skiing. I have made some progress, but it is a
tremendous task to relearn something established and so
complicated. I had always envied the natural athlete his
apparent ease and success, and now I begin to understand how
the head, neck and back pattern make action easier and more
efficient.
The ability to come back to a "balance resting state"
(Barlow)that is, one where the...[head, neck and back] pattern
is operating between moments of encountering the stress
situationis essential to the athlete. This has been particularly
helpful to me in handling the anxiety states that an athlete in a
dangerous and competitive sport must learn to cope with. J . B .
(pp. 120-121)

CHAPTER V
DISCUSSION

Introduction

In-depth interviews with 5 athletes who have studied the


Alexander Technique revealed predominantly positive experiences
with respect to the Technique and athletic performance. The
Technique was apparently effective in enhancing athletic
performance for these 5 subjects in the areas of (1) increased
awareness; (2) increased sense of wholeness; (3) control and mastery;
(4) stress management; (5) injury prevention and recovery; and (6)
learning. The experiences were consistent with those in the extant
literature on the Alexander Technique with respect to generalized
experiences of studying the Technique. The rich and holistic nature
of the experiences themselves and the findings suggest a potential
benefit in further exploration into the use of the Alexander
Technique with other athletes. Further, the findings support the use
of the qualitative method as a valuable tool in assessing real world
sport experiences and the potential benefits of specific performance
enhancement

interventions.
117

118
The discussion will deal with both some of the specific
experiences the athletes reported, and with broader issues as they
relate to these athletes' experiences and the overall relationship
between the Alexander Technique and sport psychology. The
discussion will be organized according to the following major
headings: (a) Habit; (b) Awareness, Attention and Wholeness; (c)
Learning to Be in the Moment; (d) Stress Management; (e) Movement
Efficiency and Injury Prevention; (f)Methods to Teach Athletes the
Alexander

Technique; (g) Philosophical Compatibility With the

Technique;

and (h) a final conclusion including a summary of

findings, implications for the Alexander Technique and performance


enhancement, and recommendations for future research.

Habit
Little attention has been paid to the concept of habit in the
sport psychology literature. Habit is a concept meaning a learned
response, either conscious or unconscious, to a stimulus. It is a
response of the whole self, with psychological, emotional, and
physical elements. What's more, habits compound and interact with
each other. "Habits are not 'an untied bundle' of isolated acts. They
interact with one another and together make up an integrated whole"
(Jones, 1976, p. 100). Jones (1976) defined habit as "an acquired
predisposition to respond to a certain class of stimuli with a certain
mode of response" (p. 195).

119
Habits can come in many forms. As James offered during his
interview, athletes come to him for various reasons that include
habits of poor running form, habits of a quitting attitude, and so on.
He tries to teach them that they still have a choice.
We work on the repetition injury, the problem of the person
who's got competitive barriers, the person who's got speed or
distance barriers, the person who's got barriers in their selfbelief. "Can I actually expect to be able to go out and run and
compete and enjoy myself? I never was able to do it when I
was a kid, and can I do it now when I'm 35?"~that sort of
thing. J a m e s
What James described was that some responses to competition
are habitual. For instance, some of the runners James described
teaching had formed a "quitting attitude". They have formed a habit
of not finishing a race when they, perhaps, should be able to do so.
While some element of behavior may be innate, a character strength
or weakness, the performance enhancement consultant has to
presume that behavior on the field or the court is changeable, or
there is little point in working with an athlete. To assume that
patterns of behavior are fixed personality traits would virtually
eliminate the field of performance enhancement. The Alexander
Technique addresses habit as it relates to overall use and
functioning, especially of the head, neck and back.
In order to have choice, to actually change habit, conscious
awareness must be simultaneous to, and preferably prior to the
response to a given stimulus. Awareness after the response is useful

120
for learning, but only if it leads to awareness in the moment. To
overcome habit and to employ conscious choice, therefore, the athlete
must (a) have awareness of the stimulus (external or internal); (b)
have awareness of the habitual response to that stimulus; and
(c) there must be an ability to inhibit, or suspend that habitual
response to allow something different to occur. This last step is what
Alexander called inhibition, and it is the keystone of the Alexander
Technique. It is a conscious, deliberate pause in order to suspend an
automatic, habitual response in order to make a choice. While
certainly in the midst of a tennis rally one is not going to
continuously stop and pause to make conscious choices (although on
some level that is exactly what players do in making shot selection),
the psycho-physical set, the state of mind, the disposition with which
the tennis player begins the point will greatly influence the course of
the point, or at least of the player's own performance. And the
overall use, the integrity of the head, neck, and back will influence
overall functioning. Inhibition of interference with the head, neck
and back; with fear responses; with excess tension patterns that
restrict free breathing and movement are most critical. Most often
the Technique is stripping away habits, removing interference,
rather than instilling new ones.
You're also, of course teaching...that change is not only a
question of the positive side of the ledger line, but...is a
question of what you're learning to leave out~which is
probably more important than anything new that you're
putting in. And this idea that you can consciously inhibit what

121
you really perceive you do not want, is a very very new and
big one to most people. J a m e s

The Alexander Technique teaches these skills in general, and


this was reflected in experiences of the athletes in this study.
Most people are caught in monkey traps of unconscious habit.
They cannot escape because they do not perceive what they
are doing while they are doing it. Having an unconscious
response pattern pointed out to you by somebody else is not
the same thing as perceiving it for yourself while it is
happening. The Alexander Technique opens a window onto the
little-known area between stimulus and response and gives
you the self-knowledge you need in order to change the
pattern of your responseor, if you choose, not to make it at
all. (Jones, 1976, p. 4)

For example, a golfer might have an habitual response that


includes rushing, not breathing, not taking time before making a
shot. Pre-performance routines are a method of assuring that rhythm
and time and breath and regrouping are allowed before swinging the
club. By the same token, if the athlete is aware of the habit to rush
ahead and play before being ready in response to the stimulus of
serving, and can kinesthetically perceive this lack of readiness, this
lack of postural tone, this allows for a conscious suspension of that
habit. This process in itself both serves as a routine and will make
any further routine more effective because the athlete will remain
conscious and "present".

122
When I approach the ball, I have a pre-shot routine....If at all
physically possible I attempt to be in the same position every
time, unless there's a tree or an alligator, or some body of
water that prevents me from standing in that spot. I then go
into a routine that is the same every time, hopefullythat's the
goal, and I may be aware of circumstances in my body, and if I
happen to not be in an effective use, I would then...give myself
the directions....So I then approach the ball, I may or may not
be aware of the directions at a given moment depending upon
what's going on with my body. As a matter of fact I'm more
likely to use them if I feel myself pulling down. B o b

Awareness. Attention and Wholeness


Interconnected with habit, perhaps the most provocative
finding in this study was that the athletes related an experience of
awareness and attention that on it's face seems to challenge
prevalent theoretical constructs of attention and their application in
sport psychology. The athletes reported that they had learned that
they function and perform best when their awareness was expanded
to include both themselves, and their environment. This contributed
to a sense of self unity, wholeness, and oneness with the sport
environment and performance.
The paradigm of attention most researched in the sport
psychology literature was put forth by Nideffer (1976), suggesting
that attention be divided along two dimensionswidth and direction.
Width varies along a continuum from broad to narrow, direction is
either internal or external (Albrecht & Feltz, 1987). Nideffer
suggested that success in sport is partly determined by how well the
attentional demands of the task are consistent with the athlete's

123
natural attentional style. Nideffer measured this with his Test of
Attentional and Interpersonal Style (TAIS). The theory, however has
no certain construct validity nor his TAIS any predictive validity
(Cox, 1990). Regardless, the theory is intuitively appealing and has
been widely accepted. Modified, sport-specific versions of the TAIS
have been developed and used by sport psychologists. The practical
effect of the theory has been for coaches and sport psychologists to
teach athletes to attend to external, task relevant cues for the most
part during skill execution, and to ignore internal cues. The idea has
been to focus positively on the task cues so as to block out, or
eliminate from the attentional field potential distracters, both
external and internal. The width of this focus depends on the nature
of the task. A football quarterback, for example, needs to maintain a
broader perspective than a golfer putting.
As for the internal focus, this has been reserved for pre-shot
preparation such as formulating strategy, "relaxing", mental
rehearsal or visualization (Nideffer, 1986). The one general exception
has been the suggestion that elite marathon runners monitor
themselves internally during activity to avoid injury (Morgan &
Pollack, 1977). More often internal focus has been viewed as a source
of distraction, such as negative self talk.
Addressing the theoretical construct validity of Nideffer's
2-dimensional model of attention is beyond the scope of this study.
However, Etzel Jr. (1979) offered interesting ideas at expanding the
model to include 5 additional subscales including (a) flexibility in

124
altering attentional focus along an internal/external continuum; and
(b) intensivity, or level of alertness.
From a practical perspective, however, the Alexander
Technique presents an alternate view to attention and awareness
that is linked to the concept of use, function and habit. If habit is a
product of one's overall reaction to a stimulus, then to understand
and overcome habit in order to improve overall use and functioning,
one must have the ability to maintain a level of consciousness of both
the stimulus and oneself, the respondent, at the same time. Referring
to a chapter on habit in the philosopher (and student of Alexander's)
John Dewey's Human nature and conduct. Jones (1976) remarked:
Habit in Dewey's exposition is interactional....Like breathing and
other physiological functions, habits, though learned rather
than innate, involve a relation between an organism and an
environment and cannot be understood by looking at the
organism alone, (p. 100)

A critical distinction must be clarified with respect to habit and


awareness of self as regards the Alexander Technique. For the most
part, awareness is oriented around the central core of the head, neck
and back. This represents the primary relationship in all activity, and
it is the habit of pulling the head back and down in relation to the
neck and the resultant compression of the stature (spine) that is
most harmful to functioning. (Alexander, 1932).
When...a person's manner of use is such that there is no
interference with the correct employment of the [head-neck-

125
back relationship], it means that an influence is constantly
operating in his favour [sic], tending always to raise the
standard of functioning within the self. (Alexander, 1941, p.
11)
Consciousness of self in athletic performance does not mean
attending to mechanics of stroke or movement production. It does
not mean "thinking about mechanics". By and large the athletes in
this study referred to wholeness, to integration, to how they
responded with the head-neck-back relationship, not with a leg or an
arm or a wrist. It was the totality of the experience that was
foremost in consciousness.
The experience requires simultaneous consciousness or
awareness of oneself in activity (which for the sake of argument can
be labeled an "internal" focus) as well as attending to the stimulus,
which could be either internal or external. It is a skill that needs to
be practiced, and improves over time (Jones, 1976).
It simply means that one does not try to separate oneself from
the activity, which in reality one cannot do. A tennis player, for
example, is playing tennis. The instruction to keep one's eye on the
ball, contrary to the way it may be construed (an external focus), has
nothing to do with the ballit has everything to do with seeing and
with keeping the head in the proper position at contact and during
follow through.
Jones (1973) offered an example of the phenomenon pertaining
to a student of his, a jazz musician:

126
The jazz musician has to be aware of what he is doing, what he
is going to do next and what everyone else in the band is doing,
without losing feedback from the audience. He must be able,
my student wrote, "to conceive and execute his own ideas while
keeping the music that is coming at him as a reference". This,
he added, "is nothing more than maintaining a balance between
internal and external environment." "Self -monitoring" is the
term he used to describe this ability. If you do not have it
instinctively, he said, the Alexander Technique is the only way
to get it. (p. 10)

There is a way to maintain awareness of self, consciousness of


self that does not include unwanted interference, which comes with
judgment, self criticism, "watching" oneself, self consciousness.
Judgment, self-consciousness, is a pitfall in the process of learning to
know oneself, to developing self awareness.
Self-conscious standing is not the same as conscious
standing. In the sense of the word that I am trying to develop,
it is not standing at all. It is a reaction, not to the pertinent
realities of one's own inner structure and living needs, but to
the real or supposed judgments of others, either actually
present or remembered in the past. It is the core of stage fright
and of our frequent queasiness about being photographed.
It is thus that work on conscious standing, or arriving at
the point where the felt realities outweigh he imagined
opinions, can be as truly a work on coming to oneself as is the
long and, for the beginning, arduous sitting in zazen. (Brooks,
1974, p. 39)

The Alexander Technique is a vehicle to help sort out these


distinctions, to increase the likelihood that performance will be
mindful and free of interference. This sense of self in the activity,

127
this oneness is a critical feature of peak experience, or what
Csikszentmihalyi calls flow.
When people first learn about flow experience they sometimes
assume that lack of self-consciousness has something to do
with a passive obliteration of the self...But in fact the optimal
experience involves a very active role for the self. A violinist
must be extremely aware of every movement of her fingers, as
well as of the sound entering her ears, and of the total form of
the piece she is playing, both analytically, note by note, and
holistically, in terms of its overall design. A good runner is
usually aware of every relevant muscle in his body, of the
rhythm of his breathing, as well as of the performance of his
competitors within the overall strategy of the race. ...So loss of
self-consciousness does not involve a loss of self... but rather,
only a loss of consciousness of the self. What slips below the
threshold of awareness is the concept of self, the information
we use to represent to ourselves who we are...When not
preoccupied with our selves, we actually have a chance to
expand the concept of who we are..., to a feeling that the
boundaries of our being have been pushed forward...This
feeling ...is based on a concrete experience of close interaction
with some Other, an interaction that produces a rare sense of
unity with these usually foreign entities....During the long
watches of the night a solitary sailor begins to feel that the
boat is an extension of himself. (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, p. 64)

In other words, in a flow state there is consciousness of self in


relation to the activity, but there is an absence of ego. There is an
experience of self transcendence into a union with the object of
attention.

128
Awareness and Peak Experience in Sport
During peak experiences in sport, Ravizza (1973) concluded
that athletes narrow their focus of attention to "just the ball", or to
the object of their task, that they become totally immersed in the
experience at the expense of everything else around them. Ravizza
described this as "being in the moment". The athletes he studied
described a heightening of awareness, a feeling of oneness and
wholeness with the ballthe stimulus. The athletes in his study
described this phenomenon as a narrowing of their attention. Ravizza
then contextualized the experience of oneness and heightened
awareness along the broad/narrow dimension of attention. As an
example, one athlete described narrowing his attentional field to
"just that block" (p. 101), for example, another to just the ball.
In this study of the Alexander Technique and athletic
performance, a different concept of attention and awareness
emerged. The athletes consistently described an apparently similar
phenomenon to what Ravizza described. However, they described the
experience as a broadening, or expansion of awareness to include
both themselves, their responses and the stimulus. They rejected the
use of a narrow focus, of "tunnel vision". Given the athletes' general
statements about "allowing", effortless and light movement, and even
some allusions to feelings of omnipotence and time distortion, the
investigator proposes that the essence of the experiences of
expanded awareness and wholeness reported by the athletes in this
study and those described by athletes in the peak experience

129
literature are very closely related, although the intensity of the
experience may vary. However, the language used to describe the
antecedents of those experiences has led to different theoretical
conclusions.
In light of the experiences and explanation of expanded
awareness offered by the athletes in this study, which are consistent
with the extant literature on the Alexander Technique, it is worth
speculating that the experiences of peak performers might be
interpreted from an alternative perspective. The investigator offers
the alternative hypothesis that the essence

of the experience of

oneness, wholeness and heightened awareness is in the unification

of

the internal/external field into one field. It is a unification of oneself


with the activity. Oneness with the ball is a unification of the
internal/external field. The Zen archer at one with the arrow and the
target is a unification of the directional field. The athlete in peak
experience who feels at one with the world, with his environment
has unified the gap between the internal self and the external world.
This essential structure of the experience of wholeness and oneness
is not related to the width dimension of attention, to broad or
narrowthat is a separate issue pertaining to basic task execution
and distraction control. It is perfectly possible to narrowly focus in
on the task cue and perform the task to perfection mindlessly, as
opposed to mindfully, the latter producing an experience of being in
the moment and wholeness, the former producing automaticity.

130
Jones (1976) outlined the problem clearly and offered his own
perspective.
The organism has at various times been divided and
subdivided into a great many parts and categoriesthe mind
and the body, the five senses, the vascular system and the
like...There is one division however, that is seldom questioned-the division between the self and the environment. It is
regularly assumed that attention must be directed either
outward into the environment or inward into the self....
I should like to take a strictly unitarian approach to the
problem and deny the necessity for making any such division,
even for convenience. Information about the state of the body
and the state of the environment is being recorded in the brain
at one and the same time. Attention is ordinarily directed
either one way or the other but there is no reason why this
need always be the case, since the organism is capable of
selecting the stimuli to which it will respond....It is perfectly
possible...to integrate the two fields, inward and outward, into
one, by selecting elements from both for simultaneous
attention. When the two fields are integrated in this way, the
stimulus pattern and the response pattern can be recorded
within the same spotlight of attention so that cause-and-effect
relations between them can be perceived....The center or core
of the field is the head-neck-back relationship. Around it can
be integrated the sensory impressions not only of the body but
of the environment as well. Within the field you can be
conscious at once of the hand and the object it is holding, of the
eye and what it sees...This does not mean that every detail on
both sides of the line must be taken in. The attention is focused
wherever it is wanted. But it is focused in such a way that
when something in the environment is central, consciousness of
the organism is not lost; and when the center is within the
organism, consciousness of the environment remains, (pp. 170177).

131
Concentration
The meaning
used to mean
point. It now
surroundings.

of the word "concentration" has been debased. It


to relate a set of surrounding factors to a central
very often means to separate a point from its
(Macdonald, 1989, p. 14)

There are many ramifications for this alternative hypothesis.


The distinction is not merely semantic, because it may affect how
and what one teaches athletes to attend to. Athletes are currently
taught to focus, to "concentrate" on task relevant cues. Most of the
literature on attention deals with improving attentional flexibility
and selectivity, with the arousal/attention relationship, cue
utilization theory, and so on. The dominant theme is of controlling
the width for appropriate task needs. Teaching attentional skills has
meant teaching athletes to selectively "concentrate" on those relevant
cues (Nideffer, 1986). They are not, as a rule taught to include
themselves in this equation during the movement. It is assumed that
if athletes are "concentrating" they are involved with the task. Often
this is far from what is really happening. Often "concentrating" is an
attempt to try harder, to regain control, it is the very opposite of
being involved. It is looking outwardly to solve an inward problem.
To regain control of self one must deal with the self, not the ball.
In the experience of the athletes in this study, "concentration"
can be tension producing. The quality of "concentration", the way in
which an athlete responds to the concept or stimulus of

132
"concentration", and the relationship between "concentration" and
physical tension have not been explored in the literature.
The seriousness of this inability of the human creature to "keep
his mind" on what he is doing is widely recognized, and
this...has led to the almost universal adoption of what is called
concentration as the cure for "mind wandering". Unfortunately,
this remedy, as I shall shew [sic] later, is in itself a most
harmful and delusive psycho-physical manifestation, and has
been adopted without any consideration being taken of its
effect upon the organism in general or of the psycho-physical
processes involved in what is called "learning to concentrate."
(Alexander, 1923, p. 28)

Alexander (1923) added:


Note the psycho-physical manifestations of the person who
believes in concentration during the act of reading, writing,
thinking, or during the performance of any other of the
numerous daily activities. First observe the strained expression
of the eyes, an expression of anxiety and uneasiness, denoting
unduly excited fear reflexes; in some cases the eyes may be
distorted, and the whole expression one that is recognized as
the self-hypnotic stare. Then turn your attention to the general
expression of the face, and pass on to the manifestations of the
body and limbs. You will notice that there is an undue and
harmful degree of tension throughout the whole organism, (p.
261)

In the current study, these particular athletes indicated that


they had explored the relationship between awareness, concentration
and tension, and found that concentrating as it is typically exercised
may, in fact, hinder performance. As Cheryl reported, the typical

133
interpretation of "concentration" brings excess tension, furrowed
eyebrows, gritted teeth and tight joints, more trying, more
"efforting". In fact, often when athletes are feeling pressure and
getting tense, they are given what may be a paradoxical instruction
to (a) relax and (b) "concentrate" harder, which can bring more stress
(Ravizza, 1986). The whole process of concentrating may be based
upon a misconception, the whole relationship between
"concentration" and tension has been largely ignored.
To be clear, this is not to say that there is no benefit in telling
an athlete to focus on the ball when playing golf or tennis or
whatever. Nor is it to suggest that the athlete who is distracted by
the fans or a personal problem or the money or whatever should not
find a focal point and use the task cues to help stay in control. On the
contrary, by including oneself in the process, by being aware of ones
habits of use and functioning in the moment, one may increase the
chances of maintaining successful attention on the task cue.
As an example, Alexander (1932) addressed the issue of why a
hypothetical golfer, despite everything he has been told by experts,
continually takes his eye off the ball (a task relevant cue) while
swinging, when he knows he should not? Alexander suggested that
the golfer's energies are misdirected, that he is going for the result of
a good stroke without due attention to the process. Further, he is
guided by a sensory feedback system that keeps reinforcing the
error because it feels more natural to take his eyes off the ball
because that is his habit. Alexander suggested that (a) his desire to

134
achieve the end of a good stroke gets him too involved in the result;
that (b) his desire to "feel right" keeps him doing it wrong because
the feeling is inaccurate; (c) taking the eyes off the ball is a symptom
of a general misdirection or misuse of the self; and (c) his desire to
please his teacher telling him to keep his eye on the ball will only
make things worse. In the following, Alexander made reference to
the issues of trying, attention, and tension, all of which were alluded
to by the athletes in this study.
It must be remembered that the greater his desire to obey the
teacher, the greater will be his incentive to increase the
intensity of his efforts, and it is practically certain that in his
attempts to translate this desire into action, he will
automatically increase the already undue muscle tension which
he habitually employs for the act, thus lessening still further
his chances of making a successful stroke. (Alexander, 1932, p.
54)

Alexander apparently worked with golfers and perhaps other


athletes during his years of teaching. The following excerpt is
revealing of his insight into performance variables and the process of
performance

enhancement.

We are all aware that a person performing acts under


different circumstances can be subject to varying influences
leading to different results, in one set of circumstances to a
good result, and in different circumstances to another. For
instance, there is the influence of the wind, or of rain-sodden
ground, whether in golf, cricket or football. Emotional strain
and health conditions may affect artistic production....In cricket
the effect of some unexpected happening, such as the failure of
the first two batsmen, upon the rest of the team is notorious...

135
In such circumstances the people concerned will be
aware of impeding influences, but will be unaware that they
are the result of their harmful interference with...their use of
themselves. In their attempts to counter these influences, they
instinctively react to their desire to be successful under the
unusual and adverse circumstances as at any other time. This
too often results in comparative failure, because it is simply
another trial and error attempt to achieve success under
circumstances of emotional stress and undue anxiety.
(Alexander, 1941, pp. 212-213)

To summarize, several of the athletes in this study reported


that they had changed the way they focus, the way they attend
during competition after studying the Alexander Technique.
Concentrating in an externally directed narrow, intense and tension
filled mode was replaced by descriptions of attending not only to
task relevant cues, but to a broader spectrum that included
environmental cues, and most importantly, internal kinesthetic cues.

Letting Go
Rather than "concentrating" and "trying", the ability to let go, to
allow, to do lessand learning how to do that may ultimately achieve
the most consistent, high level results in performance. If one takes
the position that optimal performance is available if one "allows" it, if
one "let's go", then the clear implication is that peak performance is a
product of technical skill and the absence of habits that interfere
with optimal performance. Negative thinking, thinking too much,
pressing, trying too hard, excess tension and poor overall
coordination or use are all habits that can impede performance. The

136
Alexander Technique offered the athletes in this study the insight
into themselves that they had the responsibility for how they
perform, had the freedom to choose allowing over interfering, and
the means to achieve those choices. That is different from suggesting
that they always succeeded. However, they had a process to follow,
that over time seemed to decrease the incidence of interfering habits
and increase the incidence of flowing, consistent, high level
performances. Although such a process may be foreign to some
athletes, as it is to beginning Alexander students in general,
the experiences are consistent with the goals of peak experienceoriented performance enhancement (Ravizza, 1984).
The Alexander Technique sets a person free from the slavery
of habit, but it brings responsibility with it. I believe the
reason some students stop having lessons in spite of obvious
benefits they are receiving is the realization that if they go on
further they will have to take increasing responsibility for
their acts. The technique is not a treatment; it is a discipline
that, to be effective, has to be applied in the activities of daily
life. (Jones, 1976, p. 163)

Letting go may be connected to taking responsibility, to


understanding habitual response and having awareness of oneself in
activity.

137
Mindfulness
The expansion of consciousness to include both ourselves and the
environment brings one into the essence of being present, in the
moment, or what the Zen Buddhists call mindfulness

(Brown, 1980).

Much like Peter in the current study recalled his teacher, Patrick
Macdonald telling him that the student must get out of the teacher's
way, and then out of his own way, and then out of "its" way, so the
Zen student learns the essence of Zen archery. The Zen archer finally
heeds his master's advice and lets go of ego and of trying to hit the
target, but rather loses separation and unifies with the bow and the
target.
Is it "I" who draw the bow, or is it the bow that draws me into
the state of highest tension? Do "I" hit the goal, or does the goal
hit me? Is "It" spiritual when seen by the eyes of the body, and
corporeal when seen by the eyes of the spiritor both or
neither? Bow, arrow, goal, ego, all melt into one another, so that
I can no longer separate them. And even the need to separate
has gone. For as soon as I take the bow and shoot, everything
becomes so clear and straightforward and so ridiculously
simple.... "Now at last", the Master broke in, " the bowstring has
cut right through you." (Herrigel, 1953, p. 61)

If understanding the phenomenon of peak performance in


order to make it more attainable, or to "set the stage" for it is what
performance enhancement is about, then the athletes in this study of
the Alexander Technique may have provided valuable insight into
that process. For they have lent support to the hypothesis inherent in
the extant literature on the Alexander Technique that the

138
internal/external field can be unified. Within that unified experience,
greater freedom of choice and spontaneity to allow, to do lessto get
out of the way to let the self perform is available. An interesting
speculation derived from this study for possible future exploration is
whether an essential structure of peak experience in sport, the
experience of oneness with the task, should be re-evaluated, not only
in theoretical terms, but with regards causal effects. One may be
more likely to have a peak experience if one is doing less
"concentrating", less task related "focusing" on the ball while playing
tennis and more staying in touch with oneself, more scanning of self,
more "allowing" oneself to see the ball. As the athletes in this study
expressed, such a stance tends to move one away from getting
involved with results and more with how one is performing, with
process, with exploring one's potential.

Learning to Be In the Moment


The experience by the athletes that their learning skills
improved was related to a natural curiosity regarding the how of an
activity, the process variables involved in the task; to being more
open-minded and less involved in the result; and with more accurate
kinesthetic sensation and feedback which allowed better information
processing.
Staying with the process

of balanced coordination makes every

conscious activity important, no matter how trivial the task. Result


oriented thinking takes us out of the present and either into the

139
future or into the past if we are beating ourselves up for a failure. In
sport and athletics, the outcome oriented sport culture typified by an
attitude that some athletes would rather play badly and win than
play well and lose (Ravizza, personal communication, September,
1991) has been confronted by a rising tide of process oriented
thinking. Recent motor learning literature has assessed the
instructional benefits of teaching in physical education that focuses
on production (process) goals rather than outcome (result) goals
(Randall, 1991). Likewise, the sport psychology literature is filled
with references to the importance of establishing short term,
achievable, process oriented goals rather than outcome goals.
Outcomes are usually beyond the athlete's control (Orlick, 1980). In
all overt movement activity there is ultimately a choice between
execution that is based upon achievement of a result, versus
execution that is based on achievement of either technical
proficiency or some rewarding physical or emotional experience.
The Alexander Technique takes this concept beyond the overt
movement, to the neuromuscular level, to a level of what can be
called internal movement. We are never actually still internally. We
are a dynamic being, in a perpetual state of postural adjustments and
vital functioning. With the Alexander Technique, emphasis is placed
upon the psycho-physical integration and neuromuscular balance of
the athlete in preparation for movement, and upon continued
balance and coordination while producing the movement, rather than
on the movement itself. Like the Zen archer's drawing of the bow,

140
each technical aspect is an achievement of its own. Each phase of the
movement becomes an opportunity to either maintain or lose the
psycho-physical integrity of the human instrument. Standing up out
of a chair, for example, becomes a vehicle for discovering how
ingrained is the desire to achieve the result of getting out of the chair
at the expense of this integrity. From a functional point of view, it is
the quality of movement that is important. As the Zen master urges
one to maintain the "right posture" (Suzuki, 1970), so the Alexander
Technique teaches one to choose length along the spine and openness
across the back more frequently than spinal collapse and downward,
compressive pressure, or inward tension. With awareness and the
reinforcement of a pleasant movement experience accomplished with
less effort, there is a high likelihood that the student will choose a
more balanced, less tension filled, less pressured, more natural,
efficient, and, therefore, healthier use of the human instrument for
the task.
It is interesting to compare what a Zen master said about
posture and what Alexander called use with respect to the
relationship of the head, neck and back.
So try always to keep the right posture..., in all your activities.
Take the right posture when you are driving your car, and
when you are reading. If you read in a slumped position, you
cannot stay awake long. (Suzuki, 1970, p. 28)
A good manner of use of the self exerts an influence for good
upon general functioning which is not only continuous, but also
grows stronger as time goes on, becoming, that is a constant

141
influence tending always to raise the standard of functioning
and improve the manner of reaction (Alexander, 1941, p. 8-9)

The athletes in this study all had a vested interest in the control
and function of their own instrument, their self, their body/mind. It
is all that they have to perform their athletic skills. As the interviews
indicated, the Technique offered an opportunity to experience and
practice the power of process and non-result oriented thinking on a
neuromotor level and as Peter said, to do it "again and again and
again and again....It's a language with which you are familiar." This
ongoing practice transferred to the athletic arena, and thus enhanced
learning, practice and performance.

Stress

Management

Stress is a major factor in the sport environment. The athlete


needs to develop coping skills to manage the stresses of performance
and social demands. Fundamental to stress management in sport is
the concept that the athlete has little control over his environment or
others (stimuli), but does have control over his reaction (response) to
that environment (Ravizza, 1982). The Alexander Technique
systematically addresses habitual response. Awareness of habitual
response within the body and suspension of that response in favor of
a new consciously chosen (and usually more favorable) response are
the guiding principles of the Alexander Technique. Learning the
Technique provides an almost laboratory-like environment in which
to observe movement response patterns with the aid of a trained

142
observer. The mental discipline and conscious direction of attention
to habitual movement patterns and new choices is experienced
kinesthetically. Combined with immediate sensory feedback, these
serve as tools that can be readily brought forth in athletic
preparation and the performance environment when needed.

Startle Pattern
What makes the Alexander Technique's usefulness in stress
management is two fold. The first element, related to stimulus and
response has been discussed. Additionally, however, is the particular
attention paid in the Alexander Technique to the very
neuromuscular patterns that characterize the stress response. There
are identifiable physical manifestations of the stress response, also
referred to as the startle pattern, or the alarm phase of the general
adaptation syndrome characterized by the "fight or flight" response
(Shaffer, 1983). The pattern is characterized by a contraction of the
neck which recoils the head, an elevation of the shoulders, arm
extension, collapse in the chest and flexion of the knees (Jones,
1976).
Jones & Kennedy (1951) studied the startle pattern and
demonstrated electromyographically that the physical pattern is
initiated in the neck. The Alexander Technique starts to reestablish a
balanced coordination of the human instrument and suspension of
habitual response to stimuli by releasing almost universally held
unnecessary muscular tension in the neck (Barlow, 1952). Once the

143
neck is released the head can renew its proper relationship of
balance on top of the spine. This in turn affects the overall muscle
tone of the body, with an increased activation of the postural muscles
and a decreased activation in the peripheral musculature (Brown,
1980). In short, the stress response is reversed. The neck ceases to
contract, which releases the head from its recoil. This in turn leads to
an increase in stature along the back and chest and a depression of
the elevated shoulders and a release across the upper back, or a
widening of the back. The release of unnecessary tensions in the
limbs combined with an activation of the postural muscles keeps the
torso supported and stable. This allows the abdominal and chest
muscles to soften and decontract, which frees the diaphragm and the
rib cage to function properly for deep and natural breathing (Garlick,
1990). While some activities, particularly in sport may require
greater amounts of muscular effort than others, within the context of
the task there is a most efficient use of the self possible, an optimal
amount of energy expenditure and an optimal length along the spine.
A cyclist will not maintain the same degree of freedom and length
along the spine as a swimmer, but within the context of the
movement there can be greater and lesser degrees of length. Any
athlete will benefit from maximum length because with that comes
greater strength, freer breathing and more even distribution of
muscular

effort.

The ability to reverse a chronic postural set that is


characterized by an imbalanced musculature locked into a

144
permanent startle pattern serves to both ease stress and identify it.
Stress is most often perceived somatically. The earlier the athlete can
perceive tension and stress, the easier and more effectively he can
intervene. Several of the athletes in this study described their ability
to perceive early alterations in balance, disturbances in the headneck-back relationship and the whole body as an "early warning
system" which resulted in eased tension and reduced incidence of
injury. The same feedback provides for stress reduction.
As Peter described, having greater control over oneself, one's
tension and arousal level brings confidence, a sense of being in
control, which in turn serves to reduce stress. The relationship
between control, arousal, tension, anxiety and stress are in some
ways reciprocal.

Arousal and Appropriate Effort


In the Alexander Technique, the overall approach is to identify
how the person responds to any stimulus, and to teach a fine balance
of muscular effort appropriate to the task. Unlike relaxation or
meditative techniques, the Alexander Technique is concerned with a
re-balancing of muscular effort. There is a basic assumption that
overuse of the musculature in one part of the body is typically
accompanied by under-use in another area, usually the postural
muscles of the back. Although students frequently express an
experience of relaxation, physiological measurements have been
more indicative of higher, rather than lower levels of activation,

145
resulting in a feeling of lightness and increased mental alertness
(Jones, 1976). The Alexander Technique also teaches one to perceive
kinesthetic changes reflecting activation levels and a generalized
level of alertness. This state of alertness becomes associated with a
certain kinesthetic tone and experience. Changes in alertness become
associated with a different tone in the musculature, for example, a
contraction or collapse of the torso and a loosening of the postural
musclesa slump.
The field of attention has a set of kinesthetic coordinates which
supply a framework for thinking. If my thoughts pulled me off
the track...into irrelevancy, the change in direction of thinking
registered kinesthetically as a disturbance in the level of tonus
and my thought could be brought back before it had
progressed very far along its stream of associations.
(Jones, 1976, p. 13)

The same lesson is taught by Zen Buddhists.


The most important point is to own your own physical body. If
you slump, you will lose your self. Your mind will be
wandering about somewhere else; you will not be in your body.
That is not the way. We must exist right here, right now!...You
will discover how important it is to keep the right posture. This
is the true teaching...The state of mind that exists when you sit
in the right posture is, itself, enlightenment. (Suzuki, 1970, pp.
27-28)

Awareness of tone, arousal and alertness, are critical in athletic


performance. Ravizza (1986) has stressed that athletes need to have
awareness of their optimal arousal states. Loehr (1991) has reported

146
that elite athletes enjoy the feelings associated with high levels of
arousal, the heart pumping, the adrenaline flowing. What the athlete
does not like is the corollary muscle tension that causes tightness and
loss of motor control. The elite athlete is in pursuit of that
paradoxical state of "relaxed intensity,...of balanced arousal in which
high intensity and muscle relaxation co-exist." (Loehr, 1991). In
studying the Alexander Technique, the athletes in this study learned
to bring awareness to the musculature and to assess its balance.
Before engaging in movement, say swinging a golf club, Bob would
reorganize his tonus distribution by recognizing any inappropriate
muscular response to the stimulus of playing. As Peter described,
and as Gelb reported in his autobiographical account, a runner's
habitual pattern under the intensity of the competition might be to
pull the head back, to lean forward, to tighten the shoulders and the
neck muscles to the point where fluid running is restricted. The
athletes in this study had better "control of the basics", of their
overall use, and also were trained to check into and adapt negative
response patterns as they were happening. While preparing to
perform, Peter described his pre-competition routine of getting
himself organized and monitoring his stress and tension levels. Henri
described his clearer perception of the race course, contrasting it
even with his daughter's failure to accurately perceive. Excessive
tension can be produced by the mere presentation of the external
stimulus (Barlow, 1952).

147
The ability to perceive kinesthetically and with accuracy, to
maintain a low level awareness of "how one is doing" at any given
moment, and to alter distribution of muscular effort without loss of
physiological intensity or appropriate attention to the task is
different from relaxation techniques which calm the autonomic
nervous system and therefore suppress the entire activation system.
The ability to differentiate between appropriate and
inappropriate responses to environmental or internal stimuli are at
the basis of stress management education. The athletes in this study
consistently described a variety of experiences that amounted to an
effective stress management program. The had greater awareness of
their use and habit patterns of tension. They had more accurate
perception of the situation which resulted in a reduced sense of
threat from competition. They were more engaged in the process of
competition and less concerned with results and winning, all of which
served to reduce anxiety. Finally, they had the ability to influence
their responses consciously in the moment with effective thinking.

Responsibility and Effective Thinking


To bring the athlete to consciousness of a potentially negative
or un-useful habit pattern of thinking and behavior, is to teach the
athlete responsibility and effective thinking. Effective thinking is the
basis of cognitive intervention strategies, such as "thought stopping".
Likewise, stress management programs designed to change the
athlete's attitudes and perception about stress and taking

148
responsibility for the stress response are dealing with habits of
thinking.
The philosophical approach to thinking and habit in the
Alexander Technique may be similar to what Rotella (1991) referred
to as "choosing to think effectively". The athlete suspends what is an
habitual response in favor of another. Learning how to do this is the
critical issue, and the Alexander Technique would appear to be an
effective method to teach this skill of effective thinking. Teaching
effective thinking entails understanding the athlete's habitual
thinking, and often requires the athlete to give up those thought
processes and beliefs that are most comfortable, and often, most
ineffective (Rotella, 1990). The Alexander Technique asks the athlete
to take responsibility for his habitual functioning on an ongoing,
neuromuscular level, not only in high level skill execution, but in
everyday activity. Athletic skills do not occur in a vacuum. There is a
basic assumption underlying the Alexander Technique that most
habits are present to a lesser or greater degree in all activity. In fact,
the higher the intensity of the activity usually the stronger the habit
pattern (Alexander, 1910). The athletes in this study experienced
kinesthetically the connection between thinking and movement, that
the two were, in fact, inseparable. This was not only understood
intellectually, but experientially.
One reason the Alexander Technique may be beneficial in
teaching effective thinking is that in the process of learning to use
ones thinking as Alexander students do, they learn how powerful

149
conscious thinking is. On the one hand, as Peter said, they learn to
stop and think before they act, and then to let go and allow
performance. They learn that intention can be enough, that forcing is
not necessary if the overall self is well coordinated. As Henri
reported, clearer perception allows clarity of thought. In addition,
students learn to affect fine motor response changes using their
thinking, how to govern their activation and anti-gravity responses
with their thinking. Alexander described this as "non-doing", and it is
difficult to understand unless it is experienced. The athletes
described the experience as best they could.
Getting the feeling of lengthening and breathing and relaxing
the neck, and so on...[by] just thinking about it and visualizing
those things happening to my body....I suppose it's letting
something happen that's already there. As opposed to trying to
make it happen. On the other hand, there's something
happening, so it's not inert, or dead, so to speak. Henri
I'd have to say that moment allows me or invites...it's a
moment of non-doing...The directions allow you to deal with
yourself, as opposed to being caught up...wanting to work
harder at it, do it better, get it right. So in the moment that you
move away from all the wanting, to do it right, to win, all that,
than...you have a chance to reinforce a more open state in
yourself, in your body. Cheryl
I show them [runners] as much as I can, it's how they are
thinking about this lengthening process that counts, and not
what they are doing. Because I am asking them to undo their
muscles by a process of not doing, rather than doing. J a m e s

150
It should be noted that this form of "thinking" or what
Alexander called "directing" or "giving directions" is not a purely
"mental" activity. It is a holistic, psycho-physical activity, with
cognitive and kinesthetic response properties. It has, perhaps, the
quality of imaging. It seems to access the lowest level of
neuromuscular efference, an activation that can be perceived with
training, although it is usually believed to be below the sensory
register. Alternatively, it has been described as a flow of energy
through the body (Macdonald, 1989). While learning the Technique
the student is often asked to "think" a movement because anything
else results in habitual interference with the head-neck-back
relationship, the quality of the movement and over-work.
To reiterate an earlier point, thinking in the Technique should
not be confused with thinking about mechanics or constantly being in
one's head, as Peter said. Constructive thinking, constructive
conscious control should not be confused with unconscious or
conscious un-constructive interference. Learning these distinctions is
the process of learning the Technique, and to try to explain the
difference in written words is virtually impossible.
Jones (1976) made the important observation that "thinking"
can be a confusing word because it usually implies "thinking about"
something. He suggested that what one wants is to know what one is
doing, and what one is not doing.
The Alexander Technique might be defined as a method for
knowing simultaneously what you are not doing as well as

151
what you are doingknowing, for example, that you are not
interfering with the [head-neck-back-relationship] while you
are talking, listening, or thinking, using the term in the sense of
"problem solving" or "ratiocination", (p, 158)

Movement Efficiency and Injury Prevention


Perhaps the most palpable and concrete finding in this study
was that the athletes experienced a direct benefit in physical health
with respect to athletics. More efficient body mechanics, a better
understanding of movement principles and a clearer
conceptualization of how to direct their movements led to easier,
lighter, freer, less pressured and tension filled movement. Greater
awareness provided an "early warning system" that indicated to the
athletes that there was a disturbance, an interference in overall use
and movement efficiency, and there was a tendency to heed these
warnings. This led to a reduced incidence of injury, more rapid
recovery from minor injury, and in James' case, over a long period
full recovery from debilitating injury.
One might speculate that if athletes are like others who come to
the Alexander Technique, recurring injury and movement restriction
may be prime motivators in bringing athletic attention to the
Alexander Technique. Certainly pain, repetitive motion injury and
movement limitation have been principle reasons for the general
public and musicians to search out the Technique (Gelb, 1981). The
incidence of injury in athletics is so high that this finding alone
should warrant further exploration of the Technique in physical

152
education and sport. While sport can be, by definition abusive on the
body, the benefits of the Technique can bring greater health to
athletes, and provide greater longevity.

Methods to Teach Athletes the Alexander Technique


The Alexander Technique is most often taught on an individual
basis, although it is also taught in groups. The athlete subjects in this
study all received private lessons, and all but Henri had additional
training. For the high level athlete private lessons may not be easy to
achieve. For one, high level athletes are traveling a great deal and
the Technique is not amenable to sporadic learning. The retraining of
habits and awareness on a neuromuscular level requires
reinforcement and consistency. Additionally, while some athletes
may naturally be inclined toward the lengthy process of exploration
that these athletes pursued, others might only choose to study, as
Peter said, for 20 or 30 lessons. Spread out over several months, with
lessons once or preferably twice a week, could prove difficult
logistically for some athletes.
The investigator worked with a collegiate fencing team and
found it difficult to teach the principles of the Technique and give
quality experiences to the athletes in the normal full team practice
context. Working with the whole team for 40 minutes a week was
not effective from the investigator's perspective in achieving lasting
impact, although it may have been effective for particular

153
individuals as far as educating them to new possibilities, even if they
were not equipped to carry them out.
Admittedly athletes have to be interested in studying the
Technique in order to devote the time to learn. Interest could be
sparked from introductory workshops, by reading, or through need,
for instance due to recurring injury. No sport psychology
intervention will be successful unless athletes express interest and
willingness, even if accompanied by skepticism.
Perhaps the most effective way to reach the largest number of
athletes (and sport psychologists) would be the week-long intensive
method of teaching. This has been employed successfully both in and
out of the sport context. In this model, a group of students come
together in a particular location in a residential environment with
enough teachers to provide a good learning ratio, say 1 teacher to
every 6-8 students. Over a week the students receive anywhere
from 3 to 6 hours of experience with the Alexander Technique daily,
including private lessons. There are large group meetings, smaller
groups, and private work. James described his variation of this
method that he uses on his week-long running courses in England.
The excerpt also contains some specifics about things he teaches on
these courses.
I've got to work with them for a week....To begin with I have to
get them out of the idea that they know anything at all about
muscle stretching and muscle lengthening. They do not. Their
ideas are positively antediluvian for the most part....So we
generally spend up to about an hour, every morning first thing,

154
getting this general gentle revolution in how they get
themselves ready to runwhich of course has as it's most
important aspect how they think about the thing....[Next] I
introduce them to the ideaand many of them have to be
introduced to the idea of running on natural surfaces, which I
feel for people training extensively is very
important...[Throughout], what we are doing is...running and
stopping and running and stopping and running and stopping
for the best part of an...hour and a half, and each time I get
them running I am asking them to experiment with one or
other of the, shall we call them mental or physical
characteristics of running. Now one of the important things that
comes into this is something or other that you can call the
double spiral system of the muscles of the human body. Now
most people know nothing about the double spiral system,
although that in fact is the way our muscles are laid
out....Through a series of experiments with the whole body and
bits and pieces of the body, so they can see when they allow
themselves to move in relation to the actual physical set up
that each of them has got, which is as a say a double spiral
system, they will move much more easily and much more
efficiently. But probably everything they've done up to that
time has been on the assumption that we move, the whole
body and the bits and pieces of the body in straight lines. And
so, once again it comes back very much to a conceptual thinghow do I regard myself moving through space over a surface?
And breaking that down and experimenting to see that I don't
need to do it that way. And then I say let's run on for another
5, 10 minutes and I want to see you experimenting with this.
And I run along with them, and I stick a hand in here and a
hand in there, just to give them a contact point which will help
their thinking to be based in reality, rather than fondly
imagining that you're doing one thing when you're actually
doing another....Over a few days they get the hang of that
particular thing So it's all very much making continuous, small
dollops of experiments. In the afternoons...I tend to give them
individual sessions when I'm working with them specifically on
the very personal, individual aspect of their own problems. You
can call that a certain type of orthodox Alexander lesson...with
a special application to their running problems I [might] show

155
them something or other, typically, about how to walk, because
after all if you can't walk you can't run. ( J a m e s )

By teaching in an intensive week long process, the athletes get


to immerse themselves into the experience of the Technique. The
relatively short time span provides flexibility to the athlete, while
the concentrated nature of the experience provides reinforcement.
This can be followed up with occasional lessons or more workshops
on an ongoing basis for both reinforcement and continued learning.
Typically, after this type of learning the student is equipped with
enough experience to be able to continue to know how to work on
their own with some success.
It would be misleading, however, to suggest that learning the
skills of the Alexander Technique is easy or fast. The student is
confronting lifelong habits and accuracy of perception and degree of
kinesthetic awareness vary. How long an athlete needs to study to
achieve lasting benefits is impossible to predict, because everyone is
different. From the investigator's perspective, to answer the question
of "how long" is to engage in a discussion about end results when the
focus of the Alexander Technique and of educational sport
psychology is to teach the importance of process and letting go of
focusing on achieving results. To experience the benefits of the
Alexander Technique requires commitment, as does the achievement
of great athletic skill. In the ideal situation, studying the Technique
would not be something separate, but rather considered an integral
component of athletic training, as it often is in theatre and music.

156
Such an approach would be analogous to achieving systematic mental
training as part of the overall training of athletes.

Philosophical Compatibility With the Technique


Not all athletes are going to be interested in the Alexander
Technique, any more than they would be interested in sport
psychology in general. As Alexander (1941) reported from his own
teaching experience, while some were interested in improvement
and growth, others were not.
There is just as much need for the average modern person to
change habits of his use of himself as for the golfer, tennis star
or any skilled player of games...It would sometimes seem as if
the experiences of golfers and others in their efforts to improve
their game or other activities bring them to the point in
Shakespeare's words, when they would rather "bear those ills
they have than fly to others that they know not of." (p. 215)

There may be certain athletes who have a personal perspective


that makes them attracted to the Technique. This appeared to be the
case with the subjects in this study. Most of the athletes
acknowledged that they came to study the Alexander Technique with
particular philosophical beliefs that were compatible with the
Alexander Technique. In fact for many, the Technique embodied and
was the perfect vehicle to explore their own beliefs and have them
practically realized and demonstrated.
You see this is the kind of language I used before I studied the
Alexander Technique, and I said this is the perfect vehicle

157
this is a method to teach what I believe. This is a method to
teach allowing, to teach letting, how to let go. Bob
I think that basic philosophy, that basic approach rang a bell
with me in a sense that I started to pay a lot more attention to
how I was running, as well as the outcome which would be
improvement in time. I think it was a process that was
beginning before I started Alexander and I think coincided
with it, where I stopped running marathons simply because I
thought I was living the law of diminishing returns, where you
put more and more in for less and less out....I realized that
more was not necessarily going to give me more. In fact if I
was going to improve my performance, I had to learn how to
do what I was doing better, as opposed to just going more of
the same. I guess we're talking a difference of quality as
opposed to quantity here....So I think the Alexander Technique
coincided with my own philosophical change in the sense that it
was time to go back and pay attention to basics, and put some
time into basics, and allow the results to take care of
themselves. So because I was being reinforced everyday in
[Alexander] training class that you couldn't necessarily just do
it, that you had to wait and allow things to happen as opposed
to just sort of muscling them or working out a trick, I think,
indirectly [it] gave me a fairly clear message that maybe as a
runner I needed to do the same. P e t e r
Well fundamentally I strongly believe that how you use your
body affects how you feel and how efficiently you work and
how you feel about yourself and how others perceive you and
so on. I feel that better use of myself is going to have benefits
in all aspects of my life. I remember someone commented to
me that they'd heard from a handwriting expert that you could
read someone's personality from their handwriting, but you
could also change someone's personality by changing their
handwriting. I think some of the same things with the way you
use your body. I think there are just benefits to using yourself
better. That's probably my basic motivation for practicing the
Alexander Technique. Henri.

158
Asked if she always felt a lack of distinction between the
physical and mental aspects of her performance, Cheryl responded
with the certainty borne of experience:
I think I might have always been aware of that, but not felt
that I had an understanding....! don't think there is any
difference, I don't differentiate. I don't think one can. Cheryl

Conclusion

Summary of Findings
The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences and
the potential effectiveness of the Alexander Technique in relation to
enhancing athletic performance. There were four reasons for using a
qualitative approach: (1) that no prior research has been done with
respect to the Alexander Technique and athletic performance
specifically, thus making formal hypotheses difficult to develop and
test; (2) that the nature of the psychological and perceptual
experiences accompanying the Alexander Technique can be difficult
to measure quantitatively; (3) that using qualitative measures
allowed for richness in the data with respect to meaning and feelings
associated with the Alexander Technique and athletic experience and
(4) that little qualitative research has been conducted evaluating the
experiences of athletes with respect to a specific performance
enhancement intervention. The lack of exposure of the Technique to
athletic circles made the subject ideal for qualitative research. It

159
allowed the investigator to explore the experiences of the athletes on
a rich descriptive level, and in that process future directions for
research were generated. The study also proved fruitful as a method
to gain feedback about a specific intervention. Although the
Alexander Technique has not heretofore been thought of as a tool in
sport psychology, there are limited intervention strategies used in
sport psychology that are original or unique to the field. Most
techniques have been borrowed or adapted from Eastern martial
arts, Hatha Yoga, psychology, business management, education, and
so on. From this author's perspective, the main thing that identifies
an intervention as belonging to the field of sport psychology is that it
is currently used in sport psychology. Therefore the use of the
qualitative method to explore the Alexander Technique with respect
to athletic performance is as valid as qualitatively studying the
experience of imagery, relaxation techniques, stress management
techniques, or whole intervention packages. The significance of this
research is that by using a qualitative design, the rich, in-depth
information provided by the athletes related to their actual, real
sport setting environment and experience, as opposed to a
laboratory. While the nature of the study prohibits generalizing
findings beyond the scope of these 5 athletes, certainly the use of the
research method seemed promising as a means to evaluate the
efficacy of interventions, and to learn more about how athletes learn
and employ specific interventions.

160
While the study did not have formal hypotheses, there were
several guiding assumptions. It was intuited that the athletes'
positive experiences with the Technique would be related to
increased kinesthetic awareness, greater ease of movement, reduced
stress, and more of a sense of being present, in the moment. Results
confirmed all of these intuitions, and there were additional findings.
The experience of wholeness was not anticipated as it was defined by
the athletes, nor was the concept of allowing, of letting go expected to
be as central as it appeared with respect to the process the athletes
described. The sense of control and mastery, the increased learning
and the emphasis on injury prevention and recovery offered further
evidence of the depth of the experiences that the athletes reported.
All of these would appear to be critically related to optimal or peak
performance.
There was a negative expectation that some athletes would
have difficulty understanding the Technique and resistant to giving
up old ideas of hard work, muscular effort, and so on. These were not
borne out in the final analysis, but this was probably because the
scope of the study changed as it developed. It is likely that these
experiences would have been revealed by the teachers working with
athletes, as the study was originally constructed. Absent this data,
the experiences of the particular athlete subjects remaining in the
study were not likely to coincide with this negative expectation. In
the little data that was provided by the 2 teacher subjects and the 1
non-athlete teacher interview that was removed from the analysis

161
about their students, there was some indication that these
assumptions would have been borne out in a larger study.
An un-anticipated negative experience was reported by James
concerning an anti-sport bias amongst some teachers of the
Alexander Technique. James attributed this to a misunderstanding of
F. M. Alexander's writings in which Alexander suggested that
mindless exercises only served to reinforce and exaggerate negative
patterns of use and functioning.
I had that experience myself when I was first having
Alexander lessons, and people realized I was experimenting
with my running, and teacher after teacher would come up to
me and say "look, you don't want to do that, you'll wreck your
Alexander experience" And I would say to myself, "too bad"
and go on doing it. So that's the basic thing that runners are
resistant to. But you see that's not a resistance to a basic idea of
the Alexander Technique, that's a resistance to a superstition
help by a lot of Alexander teachers, which is a different thing.
James

This has serious ramifications if athletes and sport


psychologists are going to pursue the Alexander Technique as an
intervention strategy. It means that athletes and sport psychologists
wishing to explore the Technique will have to choose Alexander
teachers who have experience in sport, sport psychology, or who
openly solicit and support athletes in their teaching. It should be
noted, however, that knowledge of a sport by their teachers was
clearly not essential to these athletes. Four of the 5 subjects studied
with teachers who were not athletes. Bob even remarked specifically

162
that "my teachers know nothing about golf...but they've given me
some of the best golf lessons I've ever had".

Implications for Performance Enhancement and Future Research


The prevalent point of view in performance enhancement is
that high level athletes who can perform at their best in practice
should be able to do so in performance as well. The issue facing
athletes and performance enhancement specialists is how to
minimize the negative effects of stress and performance anxiety and
tension on the athlete so that the athlete is free to perform up to
potential. Summed up another way, the challenge for performance
enhancement specialists is to find ways to help athletes minimize
their own interference with themselves, so that they respond more
effectively to the stimulus of competition. By helping athletes
minimize interference, there is a higher likelihood of achieving a flow
state, or a peak experience state.
The Alexander Technique served as an effective intervention
for these 5 subjects in reducing their habitual interference with
themselves in performance. A comparison of some characteristics of
peak experience and characteristic experiences reported by the
athletes in this study shows that many of the experiences seem
similar, although certainly intensity differed. One reason for this is
that peak experiences are unusual and involuntary, whereas the
athletes in this study seemed to be exploring a way of being that
produced similar experiences on a more consistent basis. What is

163
more familiar can lose its intensity and specialness, its uniqueness. A
comparison is presented in figure 2.
Characteristics of Peak Experience. (Ravizza. 1973: Garfield. 1984)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Oneness, perception of harmony with the world, union with


the task object
Heightened awareness
Focused on the present, total attention to the task
Ego transcendence
Effortless effort, relaxed intensity
Loss of fear
Feeling of being in control, mastery

Characteristic experiences associated with the Alexander Technique


by athletes in this study and as evidenced in extant literature
1.

2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Heightened awareness that includes a sense of self in relation


to the environment simultaneously, a unification of the
internal/external field of attention and a feeling of unity in
performance.
Attention to process over result, to the how, to the present
Allowing, getting out of the way, not trying to do, releasing
from ego involvement in having to attain and control a result.
With improved use of the head-neck-back relationship an
experience of movement that is effortless, lighter, freer, more
efficient.
With inhibition of chronic startle pattern and fear response,
improved clarity of perception, and less ego involvement, there
is less fear, less somatic fear response, less stress.
A feeling of wholeness, integration, control, mastery and
confidence, responsibility for self functioning.
Figure 2 Comparison of peak experience characteristics and
Alexander Technique derived experiences

164
Awareness training, stress management, relaxation skills,
effective thinking techniques, concentration and attention skill
development, and focusing on the process rather than outcomes are
some of the major skills being taught to athletes toward the goal of
performance enhancement. Learning the Alexander Technique gave
the athletes in this study experiences related to all of the above.
Their awareness expanded and increased, they experienced a greater
sense of control over their reactions and stress reduction, they
experienced less muscular tension and thus freer movement and
reduced incidence of injury, and they experienced more accurate
perception, more controlled and clearer thinking, and more feelings
of self responsibility and choice. Additionally, the athletes reported
much more attention to the process of practice and performance, to
the process of learning, to a reduced emphasis on results in favor of a
greater emphasis on the how of their sport performance. These
experiences were not actually separate, but represented a holistic
experience learned through a unified and unifying process. Perhaps
reflecting this, the athletes experienced a sense of wholeness of self
and more centered, integrated performance.
The Technique was not, however, a panacea. Peter, a marathon
runner, made it clear, for instance, that studying the Alexander
Technique will not eliminate the pain of marathon running. He
indicated that the process can get in the way if it is overdoneif
maintaining consciousness becomes too much thinking and too little
competing, if the athlete tries to "run a race in his head".

165
Cheryl and Henri referred to their own limitations in applying
the work, that it only gave them tools, it did not guarantee success if
success meant that all stress was overcome. And finally, Peter
cautioned against setting athletes up to think the Alexander
Technique could answer all their problems when it will not. While it
may have the potential to assist the athlete greatly, time may be a
critical factor in determining the overall quality of experience and
effectiveness.
I've become more modest in what I say or claim the Alexander
Technique can do, and as such I think the athletes that I work
with then are sort of more accepting of it., whereas I found in
the past I would say, well gee you can do this and this and this
and this, I realized that for most athletes that would require
many many many years study of the Alexander Technique and
dedication to it that maybe they're notnot everybody wants
to be a teacher, you know? Not everyone wants to study the
Alexander Technique for 10 years. They may want to take 20
or 30 lessons, get from it what they can, and get on with their
lives, you know? And that's fine. So that's just something that
I've developed over the years, is that I don't promise so much.
And try to let them take from it whatever it is they get, as
opposed to trying to say it's more than maybe what they're
seeing or getting from it.
Peter

The Alexander Technique is an ongoing process of discovery


and learning and cannot be learned in a lecture or two. Patterns of a
lifetime do not go away without time and commitment and a process.
How much time is difficult to prescribe, because individuals learn
differently. It is probably safe to say that a good working knowledge

166
of the principles of the Technique can be learned in 20 lessons or so,
but permanent change is more likely to take longer. The subjects in
this study had all studied for at least 18 months and were
continuing. The Alexander Technique is not for those athletes looking
for quick easy solutions. It is for those who are committed to
exploring themselves and finding out how to have greater control
over their performance both on and off the field over the long run.
The pursuit of excellence in sport is also an ongoing process,
requiring years of practice.
For those athletes and sport psychologists who are interested,
the findings of this study collectively lend support to the intuition
that the Technique has potential value to athletes in the field of
performance enhancement and that this potential should be further
explored both in practice and in future research. Additional avenues
for research might include the phenomena of integrating the
internal/external field of attention, and exploring the relationship
between tension and common interpretations of "concentration".

APPENDICES

168
Appendix 1

Oral Informed Consent


Before I begin I would like to explain that all questions are
asked strictly for research purposes and all answers are kept
anonymous. Some answers may be quoted in the final document,
however no identity will be given to the contributor. In all other
instances answers will be kept strictly confidentiality. The study is
being conducted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a
Master's Degree in Physical Education at California State University,
Fullerton. Participation in this study is strictly voluntary, and
participation can be withdrawn at any time without penalty of any
kind. If there is anything you do not understand or that makes you
uncomfortable, please let me know. However, I do not anticipate that
there will be any perceived risks to participation in this study. The
sole purpose of the study is to acquire experiential knowledge about
the Alexander Technique and Athletic Performance. I anticipate that
the interview will take approximately 90 minutes.

CONSENTGRANTED

PI
witness (recording)

169
Appendix 2

Interview

Introduction

The questions I am going to ask in this interview deal specifically


with both the Alexander Technique and with athletic performance.
Most of the questions are designed as springboards from which to
jump off. I am interested in hearing as much detail and specifics and
you can offer. Take your time. Allow yourself to breath, and take the
time to think back to your experiences and to feel them.

Assume in

your answers that I am not familiar with the Alexander Technique,


so that you will have to describe your experiences in detail. Try

to

assume that I will not know what you are talking about unless you
describe it to me. Throughout, I am interested in your experience, in
your perceptions, in your feelings, your thoughts, your sensations,
your insights.

If you need to rest, let me know. Otherwise, breath,

and take care of yourself during the interview process.

170
Appendix 3

Guided Interview Schedule for Athletes


Subject #

Date

Age

Sex

1.

__LJ_
m

Do you study the Alexander Technique now with a teacher?


y

How often?

2.

How long have(did) you study the Alexander Technique?


/

How often did you study?

3.

Do (did) you study most often

privately

group

both ?

With whom do/did you train:

4.

Have you ever been or are you


y

in a teacher training course?

171
With whom do/did you train:

What sport(s) do/did you compete in?

How long have you (did you) competed?


Were you studying the Technique while competing?
y

What has been your experience with the Alexander Technique


as a student? Can you describe for me a typical lesson?
How would you describe the basic features or principles that
you learned from the Alexander Technique?
How has the Alexander Technique impacted your
athletic performance? How have you applied the Alexander
Technique to your sport? Try to be as specific as possible, with
examples.
Tell me how it has affected you or your performance?
How has the Alexander Technique affected your practice?

172
How has the Alexander Technique affected your
competing?

What about studying the Alexander Technique has been


particularly meaningful for you?

Many athletes make a distinction between their physical


performance and their mental performance. Do you make such
a distinction? Talk about your specific experience of the
Alexander Technique with regard to these different aspects of
performance?

Is there anything else about your experience with the


Alexander Technique that you would like to talk about?

173
Appendix 4

Guided Interview Schedule for Alexander Teachers


Subject #
Age

__/__

Date __/__/_

# Years teaching

Sex

Training

1.

__/__/__/__/__

What kinds of athletes (what sports) have you worked with in


your teaching?

2.

How did you typically teach these athletes? What style of


teaching did you use? For example, were you doing traditional
chair and table work, were you working in applied field
settings, some combination, or something else entirely?

Did you teach athletes specific application to their sport,


or did you teach more generally about use and let them
make the application on their own?
3.

What was your experience of athletes, and of teaching the


Alexander Technique to athletes?

174
How were athletes different from or similar to your
other students? Please be specific.

Were there specific things that made athletes unique as a


learning group in your experience?

From your teaching experience, what do you think the


Alexander Technique offers to athletes specifically?

What are the features of the Technique that you found athletes
most drawn to?

Conversely, what are some aspects of the Technique that you


found athletes most resistant to?

Is there anything else about your experience with the


Alexander Technique and with athletes that you would like to
talk about?

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