A yoga mat is used, with a book placed under the head and the feet resting on the floor, with the knees bent and pointing towards the ceiling. The hands rest comfortably on the abdomen or chest.
This “position of mechanical advantage” creates ideal conditions for the body to release unnecessary tension and gradually reorganize itself naturally, allowing for greater expansion of the back and torso, which supports improved breathing and circulation.
Whether you have a great deal of experience or very little, this is a position that greatly helps to develop body awareness and to discover your own way of working on yourself. In this way, we learn to trust the body’s innate intelligence, whose functioning does not depend on external impositions or rationalizations, but which has an inherent capacity for adaptation, balance, and self-regeneration.
For this, it is important to establish a daily practice, setting aside at least ten minutes of your day for this conscious pause.
Constructive Rest
Allowing time to say No
May 16, 1983
One of my pupils from Portugal was telling me this morning that a friend of his, a man in his late forties, had injured his back and was in a great deal of pain. He had been to the doctor and had all sorts of treatments which had made the pain rather worse than better. So my pupil said to him,
"Look, I will tell you a small secret. What you need to do is not to do any of these exercises and things. You want to find a bit of space on the floor and you want to lie down on your back and you want to have your head supported and your knees up, " and he showed him. Then he said, "now you want to do this every day."
Well, he didn't say anything more about it. About a month later, an Alexander teacher was in Lisbon, so he phoned his friend and told him that an Alexander teacher was in town for a little while and perhaps he'd be able to get a couple of lessons from her. And that was that.
About three months later, he met his friend at the ball club, looking really very up and in extremely good form. He went up to him and said he was so pleased he'd made such a good recovery, and what had he been doing? And the man looked at him in amazement and said, "Doing? I've been doing exactly what you told me to do. I've lain down on the floor for an hour every morning and every afternoon since you told me." And that's all he'd done. I think he'd had three Alexander lessons. But he'd done this lying down for an hour every morning and every evening.
I'ts so difficult for people to believe that just lying down like that and doing nothing will bring about these changes. But it will, if you can only persuade people to do it.
If they get into the semi-supine with a proper attitude, there's absolutely nothing else required because time will do it.
The point to be emphasized is that, given time, the pupil will learn to withhold consent whether lying down on their own, or in a lesson, or in their daily life.
That is to say, given time, the pupil will learn to say No.
excerpt from Thinking Aloud by Walter Carrington
