For several years—since my mid-40s—I have been troubled by gradually worsening numbness and tingling in my hands and arms, along with near-constant tension and pain, particularly in my shoulders, lower back, and legs. I talked to my doctor, a naturopath, who recommended supplements, dietary modifications, exercise, a few tests, compression stockings, and physical therapy.

 I tried all these things and several others, and saw some small measures of improvement. But none resolved the problem or really provided significant relief. Even attempts to have a massage resulted in so much pain I could barely allow the therapist to touch me. I assumed these were symptoms of aging and I tried to accept my fate. I figured this meant I would always need help to clean my house and vacation rental, and that any walking I would do for the rest of my life would need to be very slow, to avoid the debilitating leg pains that nobody could figure out how to diagnose or treat.

In February 2022, I was in my doctor’s office discussing the latest physical therapy progress on my tennis elbow, a new symptom I had added in the previous nine months. We were both a little discouraged by the lack of obvious options for improving it. Then she asked if I was familiar with the Alexander Technique. I thought I had heard of it, but didn’t know anything about it. She suggested with my background as a performing musician I could benefit from it, as she knew it primarily from its association with performers. A quick Google search brought her to utahat.org, where she discovered that an open house was to be held the next evening, and which she encouraged me to attend.

I could not have predicted what would happen at that meeting. Two other women and I convened in a comfortable basement studio in Murray, where we were joined by Christopher Neville, an Alexander Technique teacher. When he asked for a volunteer, I stepped up. He guided me through a series of what seemed bizarre physical movements, pushing on my back until I stumbled forward, and then getting me to sit down and stand up over and over again. This would later become a very familiar and useful practice, but at the time was very odd to me. 

He explained how over 100 years ago F.M. Alexander discovered his own solution to the physical difficulties that had plagued his reciting and acting career, and had shared his findings, including training people to teach these solutions to others. Then he had us lie on the floor while he talked of spinal refreshment and meditation, and he came to each of us in turn to manipulate our legs and arms and head, techniques broadly known in Alexander circles as “table work.” Again, this seemed strange at the time but has since become one of my favorite experiences each time I have it.

It was what I felt after this meeting that had the greatest impact on me. You may choose to believe or not believe that F.M. Alexander and others after him discovered the great secrets about how the human body functions best, and you may choose to believe or not believe that it’s possible to teach these secrets to anyone and everyone, and thus provide them with the skills they need to help their body function its best. But although I had scarcely begun to learn these skills, or even realize they existed, I left that evening with a sure knowledge, bone deep, that the Alexander Technique and the principles behind it were truly life-changing and exactly what I had been searching for.

I hardly know how to describe the physical sensation. I’ve heard others say it’s a lightness, or freedom. I suppose I could call it a feeling of floating. Each movement I made took very little effort and felt purposeful in its ease and grace. It was a marked difference from the laborious and painfully plodding way my body was accustomed to moving around in the world. I especially remember how easy it was to shift gears in my car. I barely had to touch the gearshift and think about the next gear, my fingertips resting ever so lightly on the knob. I was all in from that first day.

Within a week, I had communicated with Christopher and scheduled my first Alexander Technique lesson. Through twice-weekly lessons I became aware of habits that kept my muscles taut, ways I was hindering myself from using my body with ease, and very interesting and immediately applicable facts about how our bodies developed and evolved to support us in the ways they do. I had never given much thought to my bones and muscles before, and now I was becoming aware of them in exciting ways. Christopher’s hands and words guided me to new ways of moving and resting, he provided books and other materials to supplement his very able knowledge, and I was eager to keep learning and practicing at every moment.

Indeed, the Alexander Technique is something that one can, and probably should, learn about and practice at every moment. There is no doubt that it is life-changing, but it is also life-consuming in the sense that every moment you are in your body you are in a position to use or not use any part of your body well, at any point along the spectrum, and in any combination thereof. Although the Technique is fairly universal in the way it’s learned and taught, each student and teacher brings such a unique perspective and group of experiences to the work as to make its understanding and application infinite.

Through all this, I have been blessed to have Christopher as my teacher and guide. His kind and gentle manner, along with his intelligence, vast knowledge, and respect for the diversity of thought and experiences that have shaped him and others, have been the perfect foil to the discoveries I am making. He is a master of encouragement and of acknowledging and celebrating each win, no matter how minor. He has fielded my questions, challenges, complaints, and occasional rebellion with bottomless patience and wisdom. My journey has scarcely begun, but I am already seeing profound effects and am thrilled with my progress and the promise of more.

This week I turned over my vacation rental, a process which, when I needed to do it alone in the past, took a significant amount of time and cost me dearly in physical pain and exhaustion. I was astonished to discover, since the previous guest had stayed for a full month, how much I had improved in that time. The first evening I felt no pain at all, and somehow I didn’t want to stop cleaning. I kept looking for more things to scrub, and even though I began to tire as the hour grew later, I didn’t want to stop because my body just felt so good. The second evening was devoted to floors, usually my least favorite job, but even that didn’t pull me under the way it usually does, and after the vacuuming and mopping were done I found myself on my hands and knees reaching under the cabinets and appliances to make sure no speck of dirt escaped annihilation.

A similarly miraculous occurrence happened when I visited San Diego last week. I wanted to go to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, a sprawling property that is home to animals from all over the world. With my husband leading the way, we launched ourselves to Australia, through the bonsai trees and succulent gardens, then to the desert, back to Asia, over to the African plains, and on to the gorilla forest. My Fitbit logged over 12,000 steps that day, a significant increase over the four or five thousand daily steps I usually manage, and I felt nothing but excitement that I could keep up with him all day long with not one twinge of pain.

Despite all our various differences in physical and emotional makeup, there are certain truths that are, or should be, universally acknowledged. And one of these, I’m convinced, is that our bodies, miraculous and marvelous as they are, need our care and attention to last our whole lives. While aging and eventual death are inevitable, we have some choice about how that process unfolds. I have known people who overuse their bodies in their youth and enter older age broken and destroyed in body and sometimes in spirit. Others are more gentle with their bodies, but in their underuse they encounter as they age a body that is susceptible to significant infirmities, and in which they are destined to live out their days in increasing discomfort and debilitation. That was the path my body seemed determined to take for me, and I couldn’t find an alternative way forward, until I was led to Alexander.

No matter how you experience life in your body, Alexander will improve it. Are you looking to be more graceful? More confident? More visually striking? More physically capable? A better actor, artist, musician, dancer, singer? Happier? Healthier? More youthful? More vigorous? You can have all these results and more as you learn how to use yourself well.