There are so many choices in life. Of the many possibilities, we prioritise some more than others. We choose based on values and preferences. Some directions are good for us and others not so good. Walking down a dark alley at night may not be the best choice. Abseiling down a cliff after a serious car accident may also not be a good strategic health move.

Any course of action you take in life can work for you or not. Some scenarios, probability-wise, are less dangerous than others. Some people like the excitement of the danger, while others choose to continue along the safe road.

In the Alexander Technique, Alexander said there are two main directions in relation to gravity; one is up and one is down. If you are not going up then you are going down. If you are not consciously directing your body up then gravity is pulling you down.

As people get older their willpower may weaken as well as their muscular strength, which heightens the probability of them going down and then gravity amplifying the situation.

With the advent of advanced age, certain activities done on a regular basis when young may not, on getting older, be so good for us. We need to be constantly aware of our body and listening to it as a feedback system in order to analyse the efficiency of doing certain activities.

An older rock and roll star was interviewed on television one day and at one point commented on how he could no longer do certain things which he had done on a regular basis when younger. He said that he physically could not do some of those things and also on some level he did not want to.

Alexander said that when you have a thought, it sets you up to go in a certain direction. It was also felt that thinking is a very subtle form of doing. It is believed that if you have the right thoughts, you increase the probability of the right things happening.

As we do not know for sure what will happen in life, we do need to go into the unknown of the future with clarity of knowing what we want, so as to facilitate our creating the life we want for ourselves.
Alexander wrote four books and, as their titles imply:
We have the capacity to have
1) “Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual” and this, as a birthright, is
2) “Man’s Supreme Inheritance”, and if we have improved
3) “Use of the Self”, then we experience and encourage something which is a
4) “Universal Constant in Living”.

Tags: alexander technique, exercise for the elderly, older fitness, Personal Trainers