I took up running almost 3 years ago and have found the Alexander Technique an endless source of support and interest in helping me keep going, to avoid injury and to actually be able to enjoy it. I’ve previously talked about how some of our habitual ways of moving and thinking can get in our way of doing what we want or need to do. With running I was lucky, because it was something that I’d not done before and so I didn’t have particular unhelpful habits to overcome. The Alexander Technique is great for learning something new! – through it you learn how to learn.
So, when a friend invited me to play Padel, I was looking forward to trying out a new sport. She’s extremely experienced and good at it, and we were going to be playing against two people who it turned out were also pretty good, despite not having played quite so much before. In the event, I must admit I was disappointed in myself – not because I wasn’t immediately good at it (I certainly wasn’t!) but because I instantly fell into some of my old habits from way back when I used to play squash and badminton. In other words, I approached Padel as if I was playing these other games, rather than being able to use my Alexander Technique skills to figure out how to go about this new sport.
Some of the habits I recognised in myself were what you might call more ‘physical’. For example, I kept bringing my racquet back before hitting, as you might in squash or badminton. This was despite my friend clearly explaining that’s not how to do it and showing me that it’s more of a ‘push’ forwards rather than a swing. I also noticed an old tendency to find myself landing in a position from which it wasn’t easy to spring back out of again. However, those habits weren’t the worst ones – if I play again, I think I’ll be able to work through them fairly easily with a bit of practice.
My more pernicious habits belonged to my attitude, with a fear of failure, ‘particularly of letting my side down’, and an over-eagerness to win. The latter was most noticeable when I was receiving a serve, when nine times out of ten I was unable to resist the last-minute urge to smash the ball down the side of the court for the winning shot – I invariably failed in this! Perhaps this wasn’t surprising as I don’t yet have enough experience to form the necessary skill but that didn’t stop me trying, and so I kept on losing points for us. What’s worse is that I knew that all I had to do was to keep the ball in play and my partner would very likely win the rally for us. So why did I keep changing my mind at the last moment? FM Alexander talked about how hard it is to make a decision and to stay with it. This can apply to everything from sticking to our New Year’s resolutions to very small everyday movements such as standing up from sitting (deciding not to do it the old way and to keep preventing the habit from kicking in, while allowing a different way to emerge). During Alexander Technique lessons we get lots of practice at making a decision not to do a habit that we don’t want to do and keeping with our decision right through. It gets interesting when we try and apply this skill ‘in the real world’. With time, most of us find that we can successfully apply the Alexander Technique in daily life to overcome many of our unhelpful habits, perhaps certain movement patterns that might cause tension or pain, or are simply more effort than they need to be. However, other habits are more deep-rooted and we have to learn to work with them, rather than try and make them completely disappear.
I am perhaps being a little harsh on myself in my disappointment at the re-emergence of old habits (that’s another ingrained habit of mine. Indeed I can find myself ‘telling myself off’ for telling myself off!). It wasn’t that all my Alexander skills went out the window while I was playing. I was certainly very aware of myself, I was also telling myself I had time and I didn’t need to endgain and I kept thinking my Alexander directions. While none of this made me into an instantly good Padel player, I did have moments where it all worked beautifully. More importantly, I think it kept me safe from my over-competitiveness leading me astray into possible injury that might come from over-reaching or losing balance.
It just goes to show that some of our habits of thinking (for example attitude) are very powerful indeed. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been practising the Alexander Technique, whether you’re a complete beginner, or like me now almost 30 years since my own first lesson – we’re all still learning. At the same time, in the moment we can always make small yet significant changes to improve things for ourselves, even if not in all the ways that we would want.