2.1.2 Alexander Technique
Alexander Technique is a method that I came in contact with through Gal Ben Or, he is a teacher for people with disabilities, mainly children, in Israel. Alexander Technique is not a form of therapy, it is a method that uses the things that people do in everyday life as its main inspiration. Gal Ben Or demonstrated to me the different ways of how to use my body movements with less energy and effort. Based on his knowledge I developed my own tools so that I could paint more easily.
I wrote an article while preparing a workshop that I prepared and Gal Ben Or carried out. The article was published in the magazine of the Alexander Foundation:
Article
(SVLATinfoASPTA Nr. 77 Sommer / Eté 2012, p.15 by Petra Stokar, translated from German)
The choice of free and playful movement with the Alexander Technique is the title of this article. I chose this title because it describes the best, the experience that I got when Gal Ben Or an AT teacher from Israel specializing in working with disabled and non disabled children and adults. He came to Switzerland for four days, I invited Gal because I wanted to research how and if the AT could be applied to my restricted body, this happened in cooperation with Hochschule der Künste in Bern because it was part of my master degree in arts education also I wanted to research how it could be used in abstract painting. I found out that playing and not doing were the starting points of where our journey begun. My name is Petra Stokar, I am a women with cerebral palsy, it is a restriction of the body in which there is a extreme tension in the muscles.
The first task that Gal gave me when we started to work was not to do but to relax, he said that in words, but he had a second way of communication, he communicated the same message with his hands by touching my neck very gently and lengthening it, into its natural direction. The second way of communication is often used while working with young children. This is because the Alexander Technique is not based on intellect but on the natural knowledge of the body. The second way of communication was also the easiest for me because it allowed me to let go of the tension in my muscles and therefore I could move more freely. I was laying at this point on my bed and was surprised because normally I hated it when people touched my head because they always used force to tell my body what to do. This touch however was pleasant and gave my lungs air so I could breath easier, it was a guidance, a direction but not a forced one. After the session he asked me to paint my experience, he said just paint what you feel, I felt that my body had become alot bigger and that the paper was not big enough to paint the experience that I had just had. He said draw as big as you want because it is not the action of big painting that counts but the intension you put in it, by doing this I created a very clear and quick movement and the painting had its own dynamic feel.
The next activity I did with Gal was in the physiotherapy space where we did a game of bowling, he threw the ball back at me and gave me the task not to catch it, even not to react in any way in order to protect my body, this turned out to be a very difficult activity and it only worked after ten times of trying. My natural habit is either to catch the ball when it is thrown at me or to protect my body so it can not get hurt. After I had allowed myself not to catch the ball it was much easier to catch it and to direct the ball to throw at the pins because I had a choice not to use my automatic habits. After that we worked with standing and because Gal gave my head the direction forward and up and my spine the direction to lengthen, it was much easier for me to stand up and I could do it more often and was not tired. I had to stand up with the assistance of two people supporting me, it was my belief that standing up was only difficult for me. Later on when Gal was working with my assistants, i saw that standing up was difficult for everybody when they do it the wrong way. I also saw that every body is different, some have alot of tension in the muscles and need to be relaxed, while others have too little tension in the muscles and need to be more active in order to have a posture that fits to there individual body.
On another occasion we decided to go out and do some sight seeing, we went to Häftli which is a nature reserve, on the river Aare, which is a sanctuary for birds and other animals. There was a watch tower from which you could see the whole area, I was there with my husband,my assistant and Gal. There was a wooden structure leading to the watch tower which was ideal for me to hold myself, I asked Gal and my assistant if it was possible to stand up. He guided me in the same way he had previously done in the physio space and helped me to stand up, it was a wonderful feeling to feel my feet for the first time in my life directly on the earth and to smell the nature while standing, a feeling I will never forget. Later on my husband who has the same disability that I have but in a lighter form, wanted to go on top of the watch tower, it was a spiral stair case with no support on the side. He had first tried himself to go up but felt uneasy at attempting it and went back, later Gal guided him going up by walking behind him. For him it was a very powerful feeling, a big accomplishment to be able to reach the top. It cost him alot of effort although he said this is not work, this is fun and that is exactly what I think the Alexander Technique is. It is working for things you want to accomplish, goals that you like to reach and then the work becomes fun and gives you energy.
Later on we saw a game called Hornussen, a national sport played in Switzerland. I wanted to try it as well, spontaneous as I am I came to realize that the stick was too heavy and too long or so I thought. Gal taught me how to use it in an effective way, it was a wonderful game to see and we all tried out the stick which had an elastic piece in the end with something round attached to it, I decided to use the inspiration of this stick and to recreate it in a lighter form and make a painting tool out of it. I used a bamboo stick with a rope hanging of it, attached to the end of the rope was half a plastic bottle which I had cut previously. I created an abstract painting using all the possibilities from the bottle,rope and the stick. I dipped them into paint and moved them around on the paper, because I had worked with the AT and could give my body directions, I could choose to show what I actually wanted to paint consciously and not only the tensions of my body. When I was finished I reflected on the painting and saw the shape of a man which I then highlighted. The painting was 1m 60cm long and 70cm wide, it is definitely one of my largest pieces I have ever done.
It is my aim to make the work of Gal more known in Switzerland because I found out that although the founder of the Alexander Technique was in a wheelchair at the end of his life, there is not much known about the AT and disability. Therefore I would like to organize a workshop with AT teachers and disabled people in order to create more possibilities for disabled people to get to know the benefits of the AT on their specific body. It was a unique 4 days and I hope many more will follow and that this article is an inspiration for another workshop to come. If there are other AT teachers that are interested in such a workshop they can contact me on pstokar@gmail.com
