A student said to me, "I think the Alexander Technique is great.  The trouble is, life takes over and I forget to use it."
Here are a few simple ideas to help you build reminders into your daily life.  Every time you..

• open the fridge door
• stop at a traffic light
• turn the page of a book or Kindle

... take a moment to check out your 'use'.  Invite yourself to lengthen along the spine and widen across the back and shoulders.

It's a hoary question that no 'in a nutshell' description can ever do justice to.  Alexander defined his Technique as a technique for 'the use of the self' and, elsewhere, as concerning 'the control of reaction'. Flicking through my first notebook from my days training to be an Alexander Teacher, back in 1993, I found these two summaries of the Alexander Teacher's role:

• "Our goal is to help a person become more whole, more free and more choosing."
• "Our main territory is to help people learn about themselves and carry out their activity without interfering or getting stuck in harmful repetitive patterns of misuse."

Thank you to David Gorman.

Congratulations to Jade Etherington and her guide Charlotte Evans, on winning the Super-G title in visually impaired skiing at Sochi.  I was struck how, when interviewed on BBC Radio 4 this morning, Jade attributed their success to what Alexander would have described, approvingly, as a lack of end-gaining.  Having done badly in Saturday's downhill event, Jade commented, "There's been a lot of hype and a lot of pressure and expectation, and maybe we let a bit of that in to it.  Today, though, it was like, come on, just ski and see what happens..."

This term I've run several sessions introducing the Alexander Technique to Year 4 and 5 classes at Akiva School.  It was with great delight that I popped back to class 5C this week, to see the children's lovely posters about the Alexander Technique, and the importance of taking care of their posture.

For a compelling introduction to the Alexander Technique, you can do no better than to watch this 20-minute film, produced by Frederick Lacy: www.alexandertechniquevideo.com