 a nice little bit of decoding alexander technique just looking at how you're sitting and standing doing some small corrections small measurements and hopefully getting you all aligned and getting posture perfectly stacked your hips on top of your knees your waist on top of your hips your chest on top of your waist and your shoulders on top of your chest okay this is called the alexander technique the first thing I'm going to do is just take a look and assess your current posture could you stand up naturally for me as you would okay so I don't you think there's any funny business going on here this is called ASMR relaxing posture adjust adjusting alexander technique roleplay but this is like totally kosher guys this is like therapeutic and and healthy all right this is this is the good kind of roleplay okay and just relax as much as you would a little bit of overarching in the back here next slightly forward so we'll work on that hips slightly turned all right go ahead and have a seat okay so it's a very very nice very healthy alexander technique roleplay because I was just reading the New York Times Sunday magazine headline how a 14 minute video on posture changed my life hint it wasn't because it fixed the way I stood or sat it has nothing to do with posture at all boy this is intriguing so according to the author the crown jewel of unintentional ASMR is a 14 minute video that was uploaded seven years ago to a channel that has no other content in alexander technique lesson with Diana David Dawson woman teaches a law student how to sit and stand up from a chair without causing excess strain on the body so David Dawson the instructor makes microscopic adjustments to a pupil's posture and movement all the while issuing an enigmatic catchphrase allow the neck to be free presumably filmed as an educational video on the alexander technique a method of posture and movement coaching the video has all the sufferific features of a winning ASMR video even the video's color palette is subdued with a theme of gray and muddy purple boring as it sounds this video has become a court object it now has 5.6 million views more than 4,300 comments with new ones added on a weekly and sometimes daily basis fan some of whom claim to watch the video nightly of court at the citizen cane of ASMR videos and possibly the greatest 14 minutes in ASMR history the video is memorizing in large part because it's out of mystery what does it mean to allow the neck to be free that phrase the rosebud of the ASMR world precisely what modifications is David Dawson making to a student's posture so on commenter notes watching this literally 1000 times but I still have no idea how to do the alexander technique who is David Dawson the YouTube start with a single video on her channel so let's have a look at this mystery video we're going to play it in normal speed hello Gita I'm Diana would like to introduce some alexander principles to you so would you show me how you would just sit down and stay so when I interviewed alexander technique teachers I asked them if they were intimidated about teaching the technique or what were the biggest challenges and I think one of the best answers I got was we're just here to teach certain principles of a movement and how to be at ease with yourself so I like that so one principle that I often use is expanding the field of awareness so right now I'm seeing both sides of the room simultaneously in my vision as well as everything in front of me helps create soft eyes and when I expand my field of awareness I go up I let go of unnecessary muscular tension I kind of rise up I get a lot more upward movement going throughout my body and I move much more into the present moment right when you're seeing both sides of the room simultaneously and everything in front of you you're not stuck in the past nor projecting into the future you're not daydreaming you're very much in the present but you're in a state of awareness much more than a state of judgment so it has a softening effect and up just in your way all right and then standing up and are you at the computer quite a lot yes mm-hmm eight hours a day eight hours a day okay and you're studying law okay then so you and it's full on for you not much reflection on perhaps how you're sitting at the computer just getting in and doing it perhaps getting what you have to do done that's all right so when you sit down you'll notice that your world steadily starts to shrink particularly after about 10 minutes of sitting your world becomes a lot more narrow and you will start to put all sorts of strain on your body just stand in front of the chair again where the Alexander reeducation or pointers or the Alexander technique as a lesson is referred to it can help you pay attention to you during the act of whatever it is you're doing so this is the first time in my life that I started becoming a good friend to myself right I was about halfway through Alexander technique teaching training about 18 months in I remember one Friday after school I said I'm going to go home and be gentle with myself this weekend I've never spoken that way before but as I let go of all my unnecessary muscular holding patterns let go of kind of the punitive way that I would tighten and pull myself down and in I became a lot more gentle with myself then that opened me up to going to 12-step programs sitting at a computer going for a swim riding your bike you are conscious of a particular area that brings into balance the whole organism and it really is so one thing that's jumping out right now to me is this indent here in the bottom of her spine so notice how she's going to tipping backwards from the hips and then the head is kind of jutting forward to compensate the head neck back relationship so that sort of simplifies it if you like and the little guiding orders are let the neck be free to of unnecessary tension that's on so what does it mean to let the neck be free that means that your your teacher or somebody you trust can move your neck with the least possible effort so right now my head up and down side to side but my neck is free the opposite of clenched it's the opposite of being stiff neck but you're very free and flexible with what's going on in your head neck back relationship right back to this New York Times article so this video embodies the curious nature of ASMR itself so what is ASMR what exactly does it mean it stands for autonomous sensory meridian response so as a term to describe a tingling static like a goosebumps sensation in response to specific triggering audio visual stimuli so the first intentional ASMR videos responded to clips and comments on YouTube about a weird nameless sensation that feels fitting that despite ASMR's present day popularity some puzzles within the genre persist a video such as David Dawson's feels like an encouragement to marinate in the unknown for a while to recognize the many questions it prompts as intriguing but irrelevant first time I watched David Dawson's lesson I felt so I've been transported into an office phone booth only it was the best phone booth ever serene silent with no looming editors or pesky colleagues waiting waiting to make a call this is the paradoxical beauty of it capturing the absurdly soothing quality of certain real-world situations unintentional ASMR can create the kind of peaceful environment is so difficult to achieve in life that is until it's time to exit your happy void and return once more to reality this is by Eliza Brooks brook a freelance journalist writes about culture and entertainment and design she lives in Washington DC and her article is in the New York Times Sunday magazine understood to let the head balance up on so if the head is tipping forward right that's going to create a lot of you know additional strain on your spine recently got a copy of the English Quran Tanakh is an English translation of the Hebrew Bible and when when it's balanced all right there's no great weight but when I start to hold it like this right then there's much more weight as opposed to when it's just perfectly balanced so so too with the head or way between 10 15 18 pounds so if it's tipping forward or tipping back going to distort your whole musculature and increase muscular strain and tension neck the next not leaning forward so that the spine can lengthen so my Alexander technique training lasted three years 36 weeks a year three hours a day in school so that's the typical eight Alexander technique teacher training and I was in it from January 2009 until December 2011 during the act of whatever you are doing and the shoulders can soften and widen out softening widening out so unlike almost other every other technique of which I'm aware the Alexander technique is not piling on new techniques on top of old techniques but rather is a technique of subtraction so these directions to say allow your shoulders to release to the sides to widen but you're really instructing yourself to do is to let go of any tightening or contraction in your shoulders and when you're encouraging a person to let the neck be free for the head to release forward or not to lead the whole body the whole back into length right what you're really doing is saying stop and let go of any muscular hoarding tension contraction patterns that are locking your back down so instead of piling on new techniques on top of old techniques we're trying to let go of those responses to stimuli that we've developed that get in the way of our best function across the whole torso widens so as as the student here learns to stop compressing in a lower spine and tightening with her breath and around her ribs like with every breath she's probably developed a tightening habit right then this compression in a lower back and the tension in her ribs will start to diminish and soften is one way to talk about letting go of this unnecessary tension now I'd like you to just sit down again as you did and then if you so when I first took my Alexander lessons I had to I kind of push myself up with my hands and kind of throw myself forward and then I put my hands down on the chair to sit down because I was that out of balance out of whack you stand up again so in light of what I just was talking about then the head neck back relationship was very much jeopardized mm-hmm our head so Alexander technique teachers talk about this area of primary control the head neck back relationship and so we usually begin by drawing the attend people's attention to any unnecessary holding attention patterns in the neck because there are more joints in the neck than anywhere else in the body a joint means one bone connecting with another bone so if there's any unnecessary tightening or compression in the neck then tightening and compression is going to ripple throughout the whole body they set the free the neck you then release the head to go forward and up leading the whole torso into length it weighs about 4.5 kilos that's a lot sitting on a little neck and we would rather it not go back and down when you sit down because it just puts the spiral so that's what happens when people get into the habit of tightening and compressing it usually begins with tightening and compressing in the neck so the head tips back and down and you get into some version of the fight or flight so if there's a loud noise that went up behind me my head would rotate back all right my head would rotate back compressing my neck and my spine my chin would jut up jut out and up my shoulders would rise up and I'd kind of go into fight or flight and some people walk around in some modified version of this all the time and the compression I should say rather than the spiral all the way down your back it also for women interferes with our pelvic balance and to not least of all the feet so almost everybody has interior pelvic tilt right so usually your right hip your right pelvis will tilt forward because if you're right handed or you're driving right you're using your right foot probably more than your left foot and so that encourages more tension on the right side of your pelvis and because the central nervous system is programmed to try to keep your eyes level at all times when you get develop right interior pelvic tilt your back has to wrench to keep your eyes level as your your pelvis starts tilting forward and so eventually your back will quite a quick go out and you may be immobilized for a day or two our feet ago and not going to be grounded if the head is kept throwing back and disturbing the pelvic Pony says when that woman disappeared after an Alexander Technique lesson with 40 it was a coincidence just bad luck wasn't bad luck or a coincidence she just graduated to a higher spiritual plane bro she crossed the bridge to total freedom balance now I'm going to guide you into the chair this way with those principles so you can think about them during the act of actually so you take if you Alexander Technique lessons you might realize you know I'm not really a guy I'm really a woman inside or you might realize I don't want to play tackle football anymore or you might realize I want to stop you know posting nasty memes online or I'm no longer you know a political activist I want to live in harmony with everyone or you might you know open up to 12 set program or to therapy or to a life of light and love just never know what happens when you let go of unnecessary muscular tension most people become easier to deal with but some people they kind of let go of their fear and then they become who they really are which can be you know occasionally quite challenging and prickly using them if you like so you'll be doing thinking and I'll be doing the moving of you just to in a general act of sitting down we do it all day long sitting down standing up we don't pay attention to this now stand with a little your feet a little bit wider apart just to give you some grounding about hip width a little bit wider that's fine so now we think I'm going to sit down all you have to say to yourself is wait a minute not my old habit allow the neck to be free the head to balance up which it is so most people when they think right they start tightening the neck and the face and the whole body when most people are about to speak you'll see a tightening kind of rippling through their face and the whole body when people breathe often with every breath they tighten and compress now some tightening is inevitable when you think and when you speak you just want to have the least necessary amount of compression and Alexander clarified that a little he said allow the neck to be free the head to balance forward and up during movement and you just bend your knees quite quickly and then we wait for a moment so notice a lot of compression and tightness here the head tipping forward and back though the teachers hands they're trying to minimize that so there are other techniques to get to that same place of allowing the neck to be free so the head can release forward and up one technique is to expand your field of awareness right so when you see both sides of the room simultaneously and everything in front of you you've expanded your field of awareness that will give you some upward direction in your torso you'll tend to let go of unnecessary tension and compression patterns another technique to get to the state is to let go of everything you think you know I just allow myself to let go of everything that I think I know moving into a state of awareness rather than the state of judgment and it's such a light feeling I just feel my back and my neck unlock and I let go of everything that I think I know and it's come come on over here to this wonderful world of awareness rather than judgment now there are absolutely times for judgment but if you don't need to be in judgment it's a beautiful beautiful thing to just be in a state of awareness have an expanded field of awareness to let go of everything that you think you know just hang out here in this happy present moment of just being in awareness rather than in judgment and then we just gently come back just sitting quiet but you might be as trad as all get out you may be a medieval Catholic or now traditional Orthodox Jew you might be Mr. Trad but when you're in just in a state of awareness you don't have to negatively react to Pride Month or transsexual parades or Fox News you can just you can just be here in a state of awareness recognize hey there may be a lot of monkey pox going on out there but I'm just going to be in a state of awareness right now I'm gonna let go of everything that I think I know I can let go of judgment and I can just look outside the window and see a sky of blue trees of green you can hear children crying and you can think to yourself what a beautiful world so that during that act we're going to not put compression on this back so that you have you allow what those last words those little last guidelines say allow Nick to be free the head to balance up the spine to have a sling the right so you want the head you know balance on top of your neck on top of your torso because if it's tipping forward or backward it's going to be distorting and it's going to make movement more difficult thank you're probably wondering 40 why you so light in your loafers like why is it that when you walk you don't really walk you just glide like 40 you know how come you can just get into the most unbelievable intellectual splits like 40 how are you able to run 70 intellectual paradigms at the same time that way you such an intellectual jiggaloo falling in love with every beautiful idea that comes along but ultimately staying loyal to not well bro I've learned the Alexander technique I've learned to let go of everything that I think I know move into state of expanded awareness rather than judgment also to widen which is certainly what it's doing now and then you've got a lovely breath by a lovely breath I mean what Alexander called full capacity breathing where a natural breathing it's where the lungs are getting air down to the bases of the lungs it's not right so most breathing techniques you are layering on new techniques on top of your old maladaptive techniques but with Alexander breathing techniques it's a technique of subtraction by letting go of unnecessary compression like you know letting go of gasping for air reducing the need to have holding patterns around your ribs around your jaw and your eyes and your mouth and your forehead and your shoulders in your back by letting go of these unnecessary tension and compression patterns then you widen you lengthen as you stop compressing and pulling down and that creates more space for your lungs to breathe and then as you become more buoyant everything just works better you move more gracefully and easily just up a respiratory panic attack type nervous situations we can always come back to the inhibition of Alexander lessons learning to stop the automatic response to a stimulus and we so you learn to stop your automatic responses to stimuli and then notice your habitual responses to stimuli and let them go if they don't serve you so for example walking in LA every time you cross the street you have to really keep an eye on drivers and I've often fallen into the habit of like yelling at drivers who you know break the law would have run me over if I hadn't you know jumped out of the way who don't yield the right away as they are required by California law and then I am agitated and upset for 20 minutes 40 minutes you know two hours afterwards so if I could just get into a state of expanded awareness recognize that reality will be reality and the 100% of the time that I have no power to control other people and other drivers have an expanded field of awareness just notice what's going on with them and then make my choices accordingly and so when I get you know maladaptive responses to stimuli where I feel like you know cursing out a driver or punching one out or throwing you know hung of concrete through their window I can just notice that response and I can choose to inhibit it to not act on that response I mean I'm a heterosexual male I go through the world there are beautiful women everywhere no I don't go around like cupping you know beautiful soft parts of them that would be against the law that would be maladaptive so I can inhibit that that impulse we have the guidelines lovely little guidelines allowing it to be free the head to bounce up which it is your torso is lengthening softening and widening all that is taking place so why should that be disturbed simply because you bounce out of a chair we just do it unconsciously up goes the chin crunch goes the head and we stand up all day long so everything you need to learn about the Alexander technique you can learn just getting in and out of a chair but there's such sufficient stimuli in folding and unfolding your limbs as you get in and out of a chair that it's just a wonderful basis for learning about your responses to stimuli learning to inhibit those responses that don't serve you and developing new more adaptive responses of lengthening and widening by letting go of unnecessary comprension and tension terrible terrible compression unconsciously with this work you're not doing that so this becomes so strong and very flexible and you become free of a lot of harmful habits for me to help you or to help you get that experience we'll just stand up to allow now to before we stand up with an idea to bring the feet underneath you just so I've worked with a lot of actresses and models and I just go into an Alexander technique teaching zone so I've achieved such a state of holiness and professionalism right you know I'm not even tempted to make a move I don't believe I've ever made a move on you know any of my attractive students haven't made a move on any of my unattractive students you just go into a professional mode you're here to help people learn about their unnecessary tension and compression patterns just a little bit more and then we just wait come call so I would with the first time student I let them know where I'm going to be touching them so they're not going to be any surprise groping all right and you know definitely none of the erogenous zones none of the private parts are going to get fondled but you you bring your hands to help your pupil become aware of where they're holding unnecessary tension but I'll say okay I'm going to bring my hands to your neck I'm going to bring my hands to your shoulders I'm going to take your arm out I'm going to hold your from your elbow to your hand all right I'm going to take your leg out I'm going to scoop under your back or under your hips to help you notice and release the necessary tension patterns I'm not getting ready to push because I don't want the attention to the legs that's your stand it's already in the brain mechanisms that you're about to stand we don't have to do any more than that it's it's there what we do have to do is prevent the head the habit allow neck to be free to balance for beautiful and then I know watch the chin so notice that this starts tensing up right here these vessels these these muscles here about the most powerful in the body the neck back shorter muscles right here and so she's starting to tend and compress here the head starting to tip back in the teacher's hands are here to try to inhibit that unnecessary tension and compression in the neck that's going to work a little bit of arms coming forward but that's all right we gently let the head float up again yes yes yes and up you go lovely strengthening letting the back lengthen torso to soften and widen and widen beautiful just quiet yes nice see that's you know trying to breathe there it's just happening quite so as you start to get out of your own way as you start to let go of these unnecessary tension and compression and folding and pulling down and tightening patterns right then you start to open up the breathing comes easier movement comes easier your thinking comes down your emotions come down everything works better works more gracefully and effectively actually and quite deeply it's very nice just sit down it's not about sitting and standing really it's about looking after this neck is free head balance right when you simply move into the present moment by expanding your field of awareness by letting go of everything that you think you know right you naturally start to move up start to lengthen and widen let go of unnecessary tension let me move you you're going to send the knees just that way free neck head bouncing up well two seconds that was sort of going down i want you to think so typically people start compressing right when people even look at a chair they're about to sit in when they're still several feet away they start tensing and compressing and pulling themselves down and in just from the stimulus of sitting in a chair and so just setting the alexander technique we start to notice these stimuli responses we have that don't serve us and so we can still be thinking up thinking about lengthening and widening releasing unnecessary tension even when we are going down in space so i'm going to be thinking i'm going to use my left hand so people don't misinterpret this i'm thinking here my hand is interpreting how i want my head directing forward and up so even when i'm coming down all right i still have that that gentle desire for my head to release forward and up pick something off the floor everywhere i go right the head releasing forward and up i think like a kite your heads follow my direction it's a little guiding direction in my hands so i want you to like a kite to think up and your so when i put my hands on students it's like jumper cables all right i am connecting my central nervous system to theirs i i'm usually in a calmer place than my students so their anxiety starts to reduce i transmit what's going on with me to them or your spine is going to be the the tail of the kite floating up and not sticking them the bottom doesn't have to stick out it's the knees that float as they just bend but neck free head forward and then you just bend your knees quite quickly that's it and then to stand we go no quiet neck free stay back in your back and up to go up and then we wait soft legs even if we just flash on all the areas allowing them to be free head to balance up letting the torso lengthen soften and widen and widen that's it and wide so you bring your your hands to the top of your students chest to their neck to their back to their shoulders if you're have a long-term student so they feel comfortable you can even bring your hand to their face their jaw and simply help them notice unnecessary tension patterns and transmit you know a calming touch you can allow your neck to be free during the movement i want you to come into that hinge that's lovely and bend the knees quite quickly well done that was easier wasn't yes lovely and then you stop okay so a lot less tension and compression there she was you know coming in and out of the chair much more gracefully so it's not about i'm not interested in the movement per se i'm interested in where your thinking is right so it's more about orientation you have an upward orientation flowing through your musculature you bring your neck so your head can release forward and up even when you're moving up and down in space letting the neck be free i know the movement will be very much in balance if the thinking is there that links that i've had two multi-billionaire clients i've had full-time models and actors as clients people with irregular tv shows you meet very interesting people when you teach the alexander technique that links that it's just lovely great to get up no not my old way yes beautiful it's it gives a flow to the whole being up you go and it's effort less you really didn't need much there at all and think i've not seen you before in all of this new experience it's very good quiet because it's it's going into the yeah i'll often like cup cup the student's shoulders just to help that that area calm down i remember the first breakthrough moment for me in my first alexander technique session was when i was lying on a table and my teacher just released my shoulders just brought her hands under my shoulder blades and did this gentle release of the shoulders and then all that unnecessary tension just flowed away and i felt amazing so light the unknown when we come along for an alexander lesson you know we're going away from our habit and all of a sudden we're focusing on this instrument it's very important so when you're cycling when you're cooking which is what you also enjoy i believe very important that you be very creative in in how you're using your head neck and your back and hopefully alexander so when you're teaching right you're spending most of your attention on yourself on your own use am i allowing my neck to be free am i directing my head forward and up am i releasing any unnecessary tension patterns i have my expanding my field of awareness so what's most important is that you are embodying the good use of the self and that you're at ease and calm and graceful in your own movements and then you can't help but transmit that to your students this tiny little introduction will give you the the sort of the the real conscious awareness that yes you can stop and say wait a minute that preparatory work of looking after you just into free neck just free shoulders when we hold the bicycle wheels we don't have to clench just just so even just holding a pen almost everyone holds a pen with way too much tension so i work with a student just pick up a pen very lightly and we use the amount of tension that's absolutely necessary because we tend to use way too much hoarding and tensing and compressing with everything we do from speaking to thinking to typing to lifting weights in readiness just enough neck free shoulders free arms just enough and then when we do so i inevitably notice that women's posture is much better than men's because women tend to live much more in the real world men tend to live much more in an abstract world that women tend to be much more in touch with their bodies so i've read surveys that in most areas men are better informed than women but when it comes to health usually women are better informed so they tend to better more more in touch with with their bodies more in touch with reality need to pull weeds out of a garden or what have you you've got all the strength in the world because you've got a strong back as a result of letting neck be free your head balance up it's not a week back because you're not compressing it when you move to sit down we go wait no i'd like to flow up i'm going to go up and just let the knees float beautiful so once you get to know people you can kind of almost read their thoughts on their face because whatever you have a thought they're going to be corresponding muscular tension patterns rippling across your face by learning about these habits you can let go of unnecessary muscular tension there'll always be muscular tension we we couldn't stand up straight without some muscular tension we'll always have an increase in muscular tension when you're thinking you just want to let go of the unnecessary tension free neck and even if we were to experiment very interestingly with this atlanto occipital joint to look down at computers so the atlanto occipital joints basically just below the the hole in the ear so when you look up and down try turning from here from from where the hole in your ear is so you can look up and down from up here instead of compressing your neck so you can think about your full length then look up look down and you're turning from the atlanto occipital joint and that's another thing that you're doing all the time we can tend to drag the neck forward to look down as in like that whereas you've got this hinge this atlanto occipital joint right between the ears if you put your index finger just below the earlobe there's a little hollow in there if you were to bore right through not a particularly nice thought but you'd meet the top vertebra of the neck and most people carry way too much tension in their jaws so a technique for understanding the proper resting position for your lower jaw is just to say the word boston okay at the end of the word boston that's where your lower jaw should be hanging out boston boston and the head there's little condyles that the head floats on that and that's where you can rock from to look all the way down to your keyboard enter type and so yeah one downside to the alexander technique is you become more transparent people are better able to read what's going on with you because you let go a lot of your body armoring to look at your mobile phone as well if you just let that go and yeah so that's very viable to you a very viable joint without any compression on your sternum and pulling your arms so if you've got a private thought that you don't want people to read you can just repress and sublimate and just uh let go of the normal muscular tension patterns rippling across your face with that thought you can inhibit the muscular tension patterns that typically accompany that thought it's down you know so it's allowing this lovely open chest free neck and then you can key when you are at your computer um i would like to recommend that either use the back entirely where you're resting up and against it but if you're not using it entirely please come away from it more than you are that you're more to the front of the chair the reason being so a much better technique is to allow one knee to go down so when i'm doing a lot of sitting i just drop one knee towards the floor and then that gives me a strong impetus to go up through my torso still got you know you've got still got plenty of balance on that chair but it allows you to be there and allows you back to widen more efficiently than when if you were back further you'd be leaning in and it's that leaning in that allows the slump whereas here so i've got a stationary bike that i often ride when i'm watching tv show or a movie sporting event and when i was in the habit of like leaning over onto my bike handles when i was riding that would that would create compression i guess around my stomach and i'd often throw out my back from doing that so i tend to do much better when i'm i'm sitting relatively straight on my bike you're quite solid and you've got that solid base which is really important this sacral area and particularly for women with our gynecological organs this area must be must not be yanked in just yank that in for me very tight and it's restricting the pelvis so we we want to have the pelvis beautifully balanced what balances the pelvis is not going directly to the pelvis but going to what's on top and it's the head neck back relationship which sits on top of the spine and when there's a lovely flow there the pelvis will swing into balance and it'll be so alexander technique teachers tend to be pretty insecure one there's no legal standing for the alexander