All About... THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE!

hi you guys welcome back thank you so much for tuning into my channel this week I'm so sorry that I missed putting up a video last week those of you that subscribe may have noticed that there was nothing when there was supposed to be something last Wednesday and that is because I had a crazy busy acting week which is fantastic but I swear to you when it rains it pours like there's either nothing or everything all at once it was like to TV show auditions one commercial audition and then a commercial callback a couple other things like it was just nutty and there was no time for me to sit down and make a video so I'm really sorry but I'm here now so today's video is all about kind of a hidden gem in the actor's toolbox and I am talking about Alexander Technique have you heard of it the Alexander Technique is incredibly useful I am NOT an expert on it but I have taken a couple courses on it but I'm gonna tell you what I know and I really encourage you to continue to check it out and research it after you watch this video okay let's just get started I was first introduced to the Alexander Technique when I was studying at Stella other academy of acting way back in the day like when I first moved here that was the first place I went to study and that's cool like you can take in individual classes but to graduate the Academy the two-year program you have to take certain courses and Alexandra is a required course to take that's how important it is yet it's not like an insanely widely known class just not a lot of actors have heard of it let alone practiced it and it is so important to have in your practice all the time it's so beneficial I wish it was more widespread I think it's getting there it's getting everyone is realizing exactly how valuable it is but I'm really glad that I was introduced to it so early that I can put it into practice early on and I recently took on Alexander Technique workshop with a teacher named Brett Hershey it was a really incredible workshop he's so good and explained things so clearly and it was a really great refresher course to what I had learned back in the day at Stella Adler PS I will link that teachers info down below ok so what is Alexander Technique basically Alexander Technique method or a practice of bodywork that allows you to have more power and more freedom in your acting and it has a lot of focus on the head your back and the neck areas you know every artist has an instrument there's musicians there's painters there's actors as an actor your main instrument is your body and your other major instruments are your voice and your facial expressions and if things are in line and in tune with your body then everything else is not gonna be functioning properly or as best as it could does that make sense so just to kind of give you an idea an example of what I experienced in my most recent workshop that I took with Brett Hershey he hands out a scene and I had and I was paired up with another actress and in the scene I'm supposed to be very dominant and I'm supposed to be telling her what to do and my general go-to is to be very nice that as me as a person I'm not very authoritative as a person and so that can show in my acting a little bit that I'm not as strong as I could be and using all my power that I have so basically in this scene he had me read it to her once and when I did it you know I said the words but my shoulders were definitely kind of forward and I was hunched a little bit and I think my neck was forward like I was trying to tell her trying to express something and then he came and corrected he used Alexander Technique to kind of correct my posture and I want to say that it's not just about posture when we think of posture we think of like shoulders back and down and head up and that but that actually creates so much tension and that is what the creator of Alexander Technique I'll tell you about in a second that's what he noticed was the big issue is that there was so much tension and that was causing his voice to have problems and everything so basically the focus of Alexander Technique is more about letting go like letting your shoulders drop down and letting your head kind of float off your neck so that it's not you're not pulling it up you're not pulling your shoulders down you're not pushing your head forward it's all just supposed to be aligned and nice and so then when I redid this scene with her and I had men had was you know more back in line the back of my head is more in line with the back of my shoulders and my you know my shoulders are resting back and it's much more comfortable and my voice is freer I was able to really tell her was a lot more authority what I was trying to say and it just felt like I can't just great you have to take one of these workshops or take a class to really understand how it feels because it is the biggest difference in the world and any character that you go to portray has a different body language and so much of a seeing his body work and Alexander Technique is like where you should start as far as figuring out the physicality of your character so now I can give you a little bit of history on Alexander Technique so that you can know where it came from and exactly how legit it is Alexander Technique was started it wasn't called that yet of course but it was started by FM Alexander and he was an Australian actor he was born when was he born he was born in 1869 he died in 1955 and every time he would do a performance on stage he would get a very bad case of laryngitis and he saw a lot of doctors they couldn't treat him they couldn't figure out what the problem was and so he went to work on himself he was so sick of it that he decided he was gonna find his own solution and he figured out that it was all the tension in his neck and shoulders and back that was causing him to lose his voice every time and get laryngitis so then he taught his findings and his new method to all these doctors who were able to use it on their patients he also then taught the technique which now is called Alexander Technique to students and actors for 35 years and he also taught other people to teach Alexander Technique so he is gone now but you know you can find a certified Alexander Technique teacher anywhere in the world and there's a lot of great ones here in LA in most big cities where there's actors and I want to say this is not just for actors if you have something to say you should be able to say it and having your body aligned properly it really helps you get your board across I mean it's not having to raise your voice it's about the instrument that the voice comes out of am I being clear I hope I'm making sense and this is hitting home because again I just can't express how valuable I think this is and I really do think you should try it I mean why not like I said guys there's not too much more I can give you on this topic because I am NOT a certified Alexander Technique teacher the last time that I took a very long course was a very long time ago and I'm sure there's even been new developments and teachers that can just say so much more than I can and I I really want you to go check it out go to Alexander Technique comm you'll find a plethora of information there and if you want to follow my advice and go ahead and find a certified Alexander Technique teacher near you you can go to AMSAT online org that's AM sh e online org that is the American Society for the Alexander Technique and I will link that down below for you of course but that is where you can just type in your zip code or your city or whatever and you can find an Alexander Technique teacher and Brett Hershey who I mentioned earlier I was pleased to see is on that website so luckily it turns out I did take the class from a certified teacher there I'm sure there's plenty of uncertified teachers out there so I would advise checking out this site so you can make sure that you're getting you know the proper education on Alexander Technique please check it out you guys even if it is just a one-day workshop it will be worth it I promise it will change you alright guys that is it for today please don't forget to subscribe and I'll see you soon bye