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But we are proud to say that Elyse Shafarman contributed 142 entries already.
I got sick in May and ended up binge watching, “The Good Wife.” This is how I came to meet the character of Eli Gold, played by Tony award winning actor Alan Cumming. I couldn’t help but notice his extraordinary “use.” Eli rants and raves with joyous verve without ever jutting his chin forward (the […]
A yoga friend asked me to comment on the, “Alexander Technique approach to finding length and lengthening by paying not so much attention to the muscles, but to the bones and the spaces between the bones.” I suppose the simplest way to think about lengthening is to consider that the action of muscles is to […]
This shameless “selfie” doesn’t look like I’m harboring infectious agents, but I am. Although I had been called to Oakland for the weekend to take care of a vomiting family member, I had managed to pick up another amazing $10 Besty Johnson dress at the Alta Bates Hospital thrift shop. I was feeling pretty pleased […]
The Seattle Space Needle* with it’s 360 degree wall of floor to ceiling windows and rotating restaurant bar, is a fun image to use to release your head upwards. Without the jaw, the head, or skull to be more precise, looks a bit like the top of the Space Needle. It helps to know that […]
Quick protocol for stopping “The Angry Rant”. You know what I’m talking around. You walk around rehearsing the most brilliant ways to take down your enemy. One hundred times a day, you demolish their stance with a few cutting words that reveal just how bogus and unjust they really are!!! Your body is energized as […]
We call my friend’s five-year-old, The Tiny Zen Master, because of his unerring ability to cut through crap and tell it how it is. Maybe kids and teenagers are more certain about and who and what they are about, because they have had less life experience telling them otherwise. I was lucky enough to get […]
In Tango Escuela last night, what I was dealing with was the nuts and bolts of follower’s technique: That is, walking and waiting. These notes are mostly relevant for followers, and more so for people like me with bowed legs and bunions. The bowed legs make bringing my knees together extra hard, and the bunion […]
Alexander Technique students get really hung up trying to make their necks feel free. Then the teacher rather unhelpfully says, “Think don’t feel,” which can be quite confusing for someone who is already quite out of touch with his body, and is taking lessons to gain body awareness. The point is to feel exactly what […]
Out walking on this unusually warm night in San Francisco, thinking about the Alexander Technique in relation to acting. Although the Alexander Technique can give you a marvelous sense of calm and harmony, the point is not calm. The point is to allow who you are to show up without the protective mask of habitual […]
“Knowledge and expectations automatically affect action. Changing habits to produce more efficient coordination requires addressing its underlying mechanisms, which depend on our ideas. … This is markedly different from using ones existing ideas to simply perform different movements.” — Science and Alexander Technique, by Tim Cacciatore, Direction. Vol 2, No. 10, August, 2005 This is where […]
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