Concentrated relaxation

“When you move better you feel better. When you feel better your whole life improves!”

Before you begin playing the harp, I will teach you how to sit, how to breathe, using your arms and hands – actually you are not” allowed” to play music in the first lessons. It is a matter of gaining the technique of relaxation and allowing there to be a flow in the body when you play.

This was the message I got from my harp teacher last summer and I was filled with joy. It was right down my alley. The first many lessons focused on how I was standing, walking, sitting, standing up, lying down, breathing and last but not least how I held my neck, shoulders and arms relaxed and free. Every lesson started with 10-15 minutes of focus and training where we went through the earth connection, how I sit on the chair, the direction which runs up the spine, how I hold my head up and forward so that the neck is free also resulting in my shoulders sinking into place.

Shoulders tend to tense up to the neck and let me tell you… when playing the harp, it can quickly get very painful. When the shoulders are hanging freely, it affects the arms, wrists and hands which become soft and relaxed. This allows one to hit the note with precision and shapes the sounds. The body has five limbs: two arms, two legs and the jaw. I am perhaps not the only one who has a tendency to clench my jaw, especially when concentrating on learning something new, being busy or when doing something challenging. At harp lessons I learn new exercises to loosen the jaw, tongue root and neck. When the body relaxes, the sound of the harp is simply better. It is concentrated relaxation.

The direction exercises are developed by Frederick Matthias Alexander, born in Australia in 1869. He was an actor who early in his career experienced challenges with his voice. He got over the problems by training the consciousness of his own body, so that the head could ‘balance freely’ on the top vertabrae, and hence freeing the subconscious tensing habits.

Alexander Technique is a method which makes us more aware of balance, posture and movement both in day to day situations and specialised activities such as the use of voice, playing an instrument, dancing and sports. When we are in stressful situations, most of us have a tendency to tense our body in order to protect it.

Alexander Technique can make us aware of our patterns of reaction and muscle tensions and teach us to distinguish between necessary and unnecessary reactions. The purpose and perspective of the technique reaches far beyond releasing tensions and becoming conscious of our bodies. Its purpose is to ensure that the body and the soul’s potentials are optimally fulfilled.

The exercises do not only help with harp playing, but has increased my consciousness of relaxing more when driving, walking, cleaning or working on my laptop etc.

When I had a visit from my niece, it was natural to introduce her to the Alexander Technique. Here 24 year old Amalie shares her experience:

“When I was initially introduced to the Alexander Technique I was highly sceptical. The thought of lying on the floor with my head on a book, thinking about parts of the body, thus being able to help my back pain was very difficult to believe. I am quite a tall girl and have struggled with my posture since the age of 14. It has always been difficult for me to stand straight because I needed to fit in with my shorter friends, which made my back bend. It has been many years of having a bad posture which has resulted in back pain.

The most important element of the Alexander Technique is being aware, focusing and then relaxing. It was difficult at first, as I hadn’t relaxed the muscles in my back in this way before. It is not often that you find yourself lying on the floor with a thick book under your head. Something happened to my neck and back, something I had never felt before. It was hughly fascinating that so little could make such a difference. After a couple of weeks I started feeling how the body loosened up more and more, by lying and focusing in this way as a sort of active relaxation. My posture has changed. Today I use the Alexander Technique every second day by lying on the floor for about 10-20 minutes and focusing on my body. I take my time doing it and I am kind to my body. It is incredible how good it feels to truly get in touch with yourself this way.

Now friends and family ask if I have got taller and I answer “No, I have just got a better posture because of the Alexander Technique.” I have taught it to my family by guiding them all through it together step by step and telling them where to put their focus. It is the most successful technique I have ever tried and on top of that it is so easy! Don’t be sceptical, it works over time. It is a definite recommendation from my side! ”