Alexander technique

assignment 2

chapter no4: Inhibition

The main points of the chapter:

‘ignore your own desire’
non-doing
timing

‘ignore your own desire’: sometimes is important to know to

say ‘stop to a bad habit’. As a person when someone asks
something from you we have a tendacy to respond
immediately. In the alexander technique, the student has to say
no to a habit and to let the teacher to help him. For instance, in
our individual lessons, I used to ‘’help’’ the teacher by doing
what she was asking for and do an automatical reaction instead
of letting her guide me.

non doing: it is one of the names of the paragraphs in the

chapter. I chose it because I found very useful this 4th
paragraph. It explains the nature of the alexander technique.
The feeling that you are not doing something, for example
improving the vibrato, but actually there is a difference. And
that is because it comes naturally without having the thoughts
if I am doing wrong or correct, without forcing the muscles or
the brain. The was that I have experienced this main point, is
that when I am overthinking in my own practicing if I am doing
a technical or musical thing correct, then most of the times is
wrong. So, alexander technique helped me here to ‘’relax the
 way I am thinking’ .

timing: another spot that I found important is the moment in

the chapter that is about the timing and to be more precise, the
waiting. Most of the times we have the tend to do what we
have in our minds instead of listening the teacher and let him
to explain.So, what we do, so I, is just to repeat the same
mistake few times after the teacher has explained it. And that is
a bad habit that I personally think I have. The reason is because
I cannot wait to make it right so I don’t let the teacher to
complete the explanation. As it says in the chapter, a teacher
takes the instrument from the hands of the student until the
student understands 100% what he explained to him.
In the last individual lesson of alexander technique, I realized
that while the teacher was trying to guide me by talking to me
and coming closer to me by bringing the violin, I had a trend to
go back to my bad habit and putting my violin in my neck
immediately.