Film Courage: How were you introduced to the Alexander Technique?
Acting Coach and Specialist in the application of the Alexander Technique Jean-Louis Rodrigue: I
was introduced to it in 1969. I was working as an actor and training and my teacher
Sonia Moore was a director and a teacher of the Stanislavski system and one day she said
“I have invited an Alexander Technique teacher,” and we were all very excited. We thought that we
might have to wear togas. I thought it had something to do with Alexander the Great.
To my surprise there was this small woman that came in and she started working with us
in a silent sort of way but she was asking us to move and be aware of our bodies and
when she placed her hands on my neck, I'll never forget it, I took the biggest breath in a long
time. I had asthma as a child, so she unlocked something inside of me and it was so shocking
and exciting and surprising that I could breathe like that but thank God she did that and I thank
God I went to that class, it totally changed my direction in my life. I decided that I wanted
to know what this Alexander technique was and I did ever since that class I've I've never stopped
where was the class San Francisco it was in New York oh in New York oh yeah yeah the school it
was in yeah 1969 New York City but that was a fun time yeah yeah it was it was it was
what is the Alexander technique the Alexander technique is a form of psychophysical re-education
and better said or more simply said it has to do with you learning about using yourself better and
you learn to observe so the first big principle that we use is awareness you learn to become more
aware of your energy and how you use it right and you also begin to understand how you interfere
with your best use so how what that means is if I reach for this card here if I'm collapsing just to
pick up a car that weighs nothing it doesn't make sense that that's not the best use right so you
learn that you can just Lane thin and you learn that you can bring yourself a little bit forward
and just pick it up as lightly as you can like that if I were an athlete that would mean that
I can I can run faster if I begin to use more Consciousness more awareness that's the first
principle the second principle and and probably more complicated is the idea of slowing down
I call it I have time so if I say to myself I have time
I can be okay about stepping back a little bit and taking care of myself
and in the process I can feel more accurately what's going on in my body
and then I'm left left with a choice do I want to continue using myself this way
or do I want to make some changes you see so choice is part of this technique
the third principle is that there's a relationship between I don't know
if you can see it better if I do it this way but there's a relationship between your head
and your spine and sometimes when we are not conscious we tense our neck a little bit too much
which begins to pull your head back and down and then the whole spine collapses forward
and now I I'm having a really hard time breathing because I've just collapsed into my diaphragm
and my whole rib cage is collapsing and then I'm beginning to hold my hip joint it's a system right
so you learn that this primary control can change how you organize yourself to go into activities
I call it an "attunement." If I compare it to music playing music it would be the violinist
putting the violin on the shoulder and and tuning the instrument listening and then making delicate
shifts in the in the tension of the string to get the right pitch right I'm doing that
with my own body you tune yourself up so then you can go into your performance free
I know it's it's a little crazy but and then we have a thing called Direction
and Direction has a lot to do with the organization that where you're where you want
your head to go and what happens to the rest of the body you see it's a way of talking to yourself
you said something a mantra that you had I have time yes what if you don't have time but that's
been part of your calming technique so lovely question yeah most people think that they have no
time including myself sometimes we feel like we're in a rush we have a lot to do we have children and
they're screaming we have to take the dog on a walk so the fact is we do and and we're not
saying that people should step back for hours on end we're talking about just a few seconds
just enough so you can improve yourself I'm going to make a compare an example a really good example
if you are seeing a diver an Olympic diver you will see the diver going up to the diving
board and then when they reach the the edge of the diving board they stop they're saying I have time
to organize themselves and then when they feel that they're ready then they pushed and they dive
so it's a moment just to get it together you see to get to gather all the energy as one whole human
being I do that with actors in fact I think I've become famous because of that that I do that well
that they can be in us on a set with a hundred people right and they take the test a few seconds
before they go and do the scene what is rooting what is rooting
I think I know what you're talking about you mean in terms of the FL of the feet okay so it is very
important for all of us not just actors but everybody to have a relationship with the Earth
in fact right now more than ever in our history of human history people are disconnected with
the Earth so if you're disconnected from your roots you you make it up in the neck
so that's where that tension in the neck comes from is that there's no Foundation at the bottom
so you compensate the lack of balance by tensing the neck you're literally holding yourself
imagine doing a scene where you need emotion and freedom to an expression you can't express
if you're still holding the jaw and the neck you're busy doing that and so the character
is not free the characters need freedom to express so it is the actor's responsibility
to find that freedom and of course every character is different so it demands different kinds of
freedoms why is the Alexander technique the most efficient method to help you connect with your
body because you use it in the act of living so a lot of techniques you do have to do exercises and
procedures they're usually called procedures in the studio and and they're a very small
movements that you do with the breath but you continually are doing them disconnected from
activities what what was dramatic for me about Alexander and Illuminating was that you did it as
you applied it to things that you would do in life like standing bending walking sitting speaking
singing and then you take it into more complicated activities that require skill or artistry so that
is exciting but I've had one of my first students in San Francisco was a mailman and I loved it
because he had to do this activity of walking and delivering and repetitive very repetitive activity
and he had a back problems and he would get tired and he was shy and he had really bad skin
but what he became so much better and through through awareness and the process of the Alexander
technique and somehow he got better in all these areas even his skin started looking more clear I
don't know why but maybe he just was more free did he tell you why he wanted to take the class
yeah oh yeah he said that if he did not study Alexander he was going to look for medical help
he was in pain he was in pain so lifting all that male bags and stuff right wow what is one of your
favorite stories on how the Alexander technique has saved someone's life or improved their life
oh I have many but one that I remember I had this Japanese older gentleman he was about 84 years old
and he came with his son and he wanted to walk again he had he had not been able to walk
and and he looked into my eyes and he said I want to walk to my garden I have a beautiful
Japanese garden and I love tending to the plants and I would love to do that again
so we worked on that and I wasn't really sure that I could actually help him because
he really was not walking at all and then about about five to six months into our work together
after his lesson I said to him would you like to go around the block with me
so we went out to the street and I helped him go around the block and he did all by himself and
of course he went back to gardening so that that was and now his son comes for Alexander lessons.