The Alexander Technique has no age limit or contraindications for practicing it. It is also applicable and beneficial when active; such as running, swimming, playing soccer, biking and doing Pilates.
The AT is a practice that allows you to move more mindfully, therefore, it can help you remove what is impeding you and enhance performance.
The Alexander Technique has prevention as a basic principle. For example, becoming mindful of your knee alignment while you are working at the Pilates Chair would prevent you from hurting your knee. If you maintain awareness of your knee alignment, while you walk in your daily life, it would also prevent some knee injuries.
Having taught Pilates for more than 10 years, I know that Pilates Instructors spend the majority of their time in movement, showing exercises and at times using weights. Because of this, instructors sometimes strain themselves. This is another example of where AT could be a great preventative to injury. Pilates instructors could benefit greatly from learning the AT concepts for themselves and for teaching Pilates.
It is a real possibility to engage your mind while you are doing any physical activity. I would call this, in more Alexandrian terms, ‘expansion field of awareness’.
This enhances performance and decreases strains because you are moving mindfully. I would say as an Alexander Teacher that this is ‘thinking in activity’, and one of the great benefits of learning the Alexander Techniques.
Taking Alexander Technique lessons teaches a constant call to expand your field of awareness and to think in activity in order to catch yourself repeating maladaptive patterns, stopping them and choosing a better way to engage yourself in an activity. This process can bring fewer injuries, improved performance and also more joy in the experience of movement.
Deborah Bayardino George
Alexander Technique Teacher
AmSAT Certified
503.753.6436
"You translate everything, whether physical, mental or spiritual, into muscular tension."
F.M. Alexander