comments from some of my pupils
..

..


“When playing my guitar I was putting an amazing amount of physical energy into the hard parts as if to force them to come out right -- and they weren't, for the most part.  Now I find myself enjoying the search for how little energy is really needed to play them.  When I succeed in some level of 'directing,' those hard parts can actually happen as if by themselves.”

 

Chris M. (56)
"The Alexander Technique improved my dancing skills almost immediately. After only a few lessons, my dance teachers remarked that my following abilities had dramatically improved, as if a switch had been flipped."

Holly B.  (40)

"After years of frequent debilitating headaches I haven’t had one since about 2 - 3 months after starting lessons with Jill many years ago."
 

Debbie G. (54)


"I realized recently that while shaving I don’t have to do all of these twists and bending and looking, I can just stand calmly and shave."


 Robert W. (68)

"I feel that the process is profound. There’s a mind-body connection that’s very clear.  Every now and then you come across something that opens a window and as I’m experiencing this, it is opening a window."


Winnie R. (77)

 

 

"Normally when I go to conventions I do a lot of walking and my back gets very sore within a day or so. This time I just kept going the whole time and didn’t develop any sore back or sore legs.  I was with a friend who kept complaining that his feet were hurting and I was just feeling younger."


Linda T. (71)


"I reached out to Jill after a physiatrist recommended the Alexander Technique to address chronic tension in my neck and head. After three months of study, I woke up with a novel sensation -- a relaxed jaw.  I still have much to learn, and I am doing it without a mouthguard!

 

I am delighted by the unexpected outcomes of this work -- like less effort when I sing and more comfort in daily acts of living.  My revelation is that I can unlearn the habitual muscle contractions that create pain.  And not be on a perpetual treadmill of treating symptoms rather than root cause."

 

Marissa W. (47)
 

"I used to get extreme arm pain when working at the computer or while playing the piano. After a few months of working with Jill I became aware of a constant tension I was holding in my body and soon my entire physical being shifted.
I move now with much more ease and the pain has slowly melted away. I feel like working with Jill gave me a magic key to freedom."


Natalie B. (60)


"Through my Alexander lessons, I experienced a remarkable amount of freedom in my neck and back. While I occasionally experienced neck pain due to habits of tightening in stressful situations, my muscles are much more responsive to releasing than they have been in the past. Also, I no longer endure migraine headaches, a chronic condition I struggled with for years."


Carol Y. (35)


“I studied the Alexander Technique with Jill Geiger for approximately nine months and experienced tremendous results in my posture and overall physical behavior.  As a drummer and a carpenter, my hands are in constant use and problems with tension, early signs of tendonitis and knots in my neck and shoulders were always present.


After seeing Jill, these problems are now almost non-existent and I'm able to play and work longer without the previous physical issues, all thanks to the Alexander Technique.  Jill Geiger is an excellent teacher with masterful touch.  I highly recommend her to anyone wanting to bring the Alexander Technique into their life.”

 
Dan B. (25)


“Years after it was recommended by my neurologist for my occasional severe headaches, I decided to look into the Alexander Technique.  Internet research led me to Jill Geiger and I worked with her nearly every week for about a year. That year of training produced remarkable results. I am nearly headache free and I am completely free of debilitating headaches. I have not worn my collar once in well over a year. There have been ancillary benefits, including better alignment, and probably more energy and feeling better overall. This success is remarkable, especially in the face of ever more stressful work demands.”

 

Susan M. (54)


“Since our lessons, I've managed a good biking year: 2,500 miles with no back issues.  This included a wonderful week in Tuscany on a bike tour which was brutal - crazy long and crazy steep hills.  In the year before starting lessons my back acted up 6 times.  This year just once.  Great improvement and I credit the Alexander Technique.”

 

Bob R. (63)

"I've noticed something interesting since taking lessons that I wasn't expecting. I was walking my dogs in the snow and while they were stopped to smell whatever it is that they are fascinated by, I glanced back the way we came and saw my tracks in the snow. It used to be that I walked somewhat splay-footed but I was surprised to see that my steps were largely parallel to each other."

Dennis W. (46)

"My neck and shoulders were so injured that I really felt like this would be me for the rest of my life, that I would never be able to relax them.  Even when I tried to relax them I couldn’t.  And now it’s like nothing.  Now I’m worried about other stuff, not the relaxing of my neck and shoulders."

 

Janet R.  (63)


"One of the things I've learned is noticing tension in almost anything that I do.  Whether I'm doing yoga or weight lifting, I find that you don't have to have your whole body being tight and tense and if you can release and not have that tension everything becomes so much easier."


Laurie T.  (68)

"Before coming here I had very severe shoulder pain that disrupted my sleep.  Little by little over the past 3 - 4 weeks it has subsided so that it no longer wakes me up at night and I can raise my hand over my head without pain."


Susanne I. (48)


"The AT has helped me become more aware that certain things I’ve tried to do consciously like sitting up straight, standing straight and using my body without too much tension can be done with less tension and more ease - can be done more effectively by doing less."


Victor D. (74)
Lenore talks about the changes she experienced

Lenore



"It’s good to know that no matter what the circumstances I have the choice to be able to free tension in order to be more effective or just to improve how I’m doing things.  It’s always a virtue to be freeing."


Brandon R. (22)
..

quotes from notable pupils of the AT
.. ..


"Mr. Alexander has done a service to the subject [of the study of reflex and voluntary movement] by insistently treating each act as involving the whole integrated individual, the whole psychophysical man. To take a step is an affair, not of this or that limb solely, but of the total neuromuscular activity of the moment, not least of the head and neck."


Sir Charles Sherrington (1857-1952) Neurophysiologist
Nobel Prize for Medicine 1932
"We already notice, with growing amazement, very striking improvements in such diverse things as high blood pressure, breathing, depth of sleep, overall cheerfulness and mental alertness, resilience against outside pressures, and in such a refined skill as playing a musical instrument."

Nikolaas Tinbergen (1907-1988)
Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine 1973

  (from his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, half of which was dedicated to the AT and changes that he and his family experienced from lessons)

"Mr. Alexander's method lays hold of the individual as a whole, as a self-vitalising agent. He reconditions and reeducates the reflex mechanisms and brings their habits into normal relation with the functions of organisms as a whole. I regard his method as thoroughly scientific and educationally sound."


 George E. Coghill (1872-1941)
Biologist, Anatomist
member of National Academy of Sciences


"Through the Alexander Technique I was able to rehabilitate my running after 25 years of being unable to run through injuries, to the extent that I was able to set ten world records for veterans in 1982."

Paul Collins
Canadian National Marathon Champion 1949-52; veterans world record holder


"Forty years ago, after one of my concerts, Adrian Boult told me that if I continued to conduct like that I'd become a cripple, and that I must take lessons in the Alexander Technique. Today I am still having lessons - as with music, there is no end to the learning process.  It affects not only the use of the body, but also one's views of oneself and one's behavior. For the aches and ills that come with the years, the Technique can work miracles."

Sir Colin Davis
Conductor

"My times became faster as I looked at the readouts on my displays while training using the AT.
It was a real boost to my mental training to have the AT in my back pocket when I placed ninth in the 1999 Canadian women's Open Lightweight Erging Championships and when I rowed in the Masters Nationals (5 gold) and World Lightweight Championships (2 gold) and the Royal Canadian Henley Regatta (1 gold).
I was thrilled with my placings in these events and I can definitely say without hesitation that I wouldn't have had the rowing success that I have had the luxury of experiencing in my short time on the water without finding the AT and the great teachers that I have had the privilege to work with."

Valerie Thompson Williams
Rowing masters gold medalist
"I find the Alexander Technique very helpful in my work. Things happen without you trying.  They get you to be light and relaxed. You must get an Alexander teacher to show it to you."


John Cleese
Actor, Comedian
Ministry of Silly Walks

“Using the Alexander Technique empowers me and gives me a balanced sense of tension rather than relying on creating tension to do something in order to produce a sound or an act that is preconceived.  I realized that I cannot control a set of circumstances outside of myself so I can go on a journey relying on the state of mind and body that the Alexander Technique gives me.”

 Alan Rickman
Actor

"I was born with no natural aptitude. I wasn't pretty. I moved with no grace at all. I auditioned for the London Academy of Musical and Dramatic Arts but was not accepted. When I was finally admitted to Central School of Speech and Drama and showed up at my first movement class with my hump back and wearing a leotard, the movement teacher said, "Oh God." He sent me to the head of the school who then sent me to study the Alexander Technique with Dr. Wilfred Barlow. That whole semester I took Alexander lessons instead of attending movement classes which helped me enormously in my training and in subsequent years in my acting work. Now I can play people who are graceful and beautiful."
Lynn Redgrave
Actor
"Lesson
"Lessons in the Alexander Technique taught me how to sit in a state of lumbrosacral poise, and my chronic low back pain gradually became cured. The Technique is true education. Compared to surgery (e.g. for low back pain or for chronic obstructive lung disease) a course of instruction is inexpensive."

John H. M. Austin, MD
Professor of Radiology; Chief, Division of Radiology
Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, New York, NY

"The Alexander Technique can help relieve pain and prevent recurrences by correcting poor posture and teaching proper patterns of movement."

Andrew Weil, MD


"Alexander established not only the beginnings of a far reaching science of the apparently involuntary movements that we call reflexes, but a technique of correction and self control which forms a substantial addition to our very slender resources in personal education."


George Bernard Shaw
Nobel Prize for Literature, 1925
Academy Award, Best Writing, Screenplay, 1938


"The Alexander Technique keeps the body alive, at ages when many people have resigned themselves to irreversible decline."



Robertson Davies
Writer

"Personally, I cannot speak with too much admiration--in the original sense of wonder as well as the sense of respect--of the persistence and thoroughness with which these extremely difficult observations and experiments were carried out. In consequence, Mr. Alexander created what may be truly called a physiology of the living organism. His observations and experiments have to do with the actual functioning of the body, with the organism in operation, and in operation under the ordinary conditions of living--rising, sitting, walking, standing, using arms, hands, voice, tools, instruments of all kinds."

John Dewey
Educator and Philosopher

"The Alexander Technique can be sustaining; it is something that if learned well, can be carried along with you for the rest of your life. It gives you confidence to be who you are when you are up in front of an audience."

Patrick Maddams
Managing Director, Royal Academy of Music

"Good acting is revealing yourself, not covering yourself up. If your body is free, your mind is free.  [The Alexander Technique allows] you to feel what it's like to stay open physically, and also stay fully involved in whatever you're supposed to be doing."

Annette Bening
Actor
 
"[The Alexander Technique] is a way to transform stress to joy.  It's my

way of keeping on track with work and truth and the world I’m in which is working with people and creating. It’s for anyone who wants to be in contact with their own body and the way we tense ourselves and relax ourselves. It’s another way of moving."


Juliette Binoche
Actor



"Together with improved physical and mental health I have found that the Alexander Technique has brought about a general heightening of consciousness on all levels."

 Aldous Huxley
Writer

"I started in radio at age 23. When I get nervous my voice tends to get higher and faster and I sounded like Minnie Mouse. The thing that really helped me is that I took Alexander Technique lessons for many years."

Terry Gross
Host of Fresh Air, NPR radio program

"The Alexander Technique works... I recommend it enthusiastically to anyone who has neck pains or back pain."

Roald Dahl
Writer
"Instead of feeling one's body to be an aggregation of ill-fitting parts full of friction and dead weights pulling this way and that, so as to render mere existence in itself exhausting, the body becomes a coordinated and living whole, composed of well-fitting and truly articulated parts."

Sir Stafford Cripps
 Former Chancellor of the Exchequeur



  

Jill Geiger, AmSAT, STAT
teaching the Alexander Technique since 1990
Newton, MA

617 527 7373
bjill@verizon.net