This important new book draws on knowledge from many disciplines to illuminate Alexander's principle, refine its application, deepen our understanding, and revitalise the teaching and the technique.
To create a book that stimulates and challenges experienced Alexander Teachers, yet which is also a balanced and accessible introduction to newcomers is a real feat--and Missy Vineyard has done it.
We shall be returning to this book on a regular basis.
The Students of the Oxford Alexander Training School, Oxford, England
Missy Vineyard has written the book I have been waiting for. You will marvel at the integration of neuroscience into Alexander principles. The complex becomes clear, accessible, and enjoyable. I love this book and want to recommend it to all who struggle to define the Alexander Technique. A wonderful read!
Judy Stern, MA, PT, Alexander Technique teacher
I am in the midst of your book, and it is changing my thinking and teaching enormously, not to mention my own use! I have been in contact with a man in Washington, DC over the past year, who keeps reading books on the AT, but has yet to have a lesson. I told him about your book, and he bought it, and said it is the best he has read. He said he is now ready to take lessons. So I congratulate you, and thank you for your gift to the AT community.
Meade Andrews, Alexander Technique teacher, Florida
I think your book makes a major contribution to the literature on the Technique and you have much to be proud of in having written it.
Gerald Foley, Alexander Technique teacher, London, UK
I love your book. I have been exploring many types of group activities over the years and it is wonderful to get your approach. I am also appreciating many new ideas that you have developed. The neuroscience information is wonderful. Next semester I have graduate students and I will have some of them work with your book. . . Thanks for all your years of deep investigation of AT, your dedication and the courage and wisdom to write the book.
Nada Diachenko, Alexander Technique teacher, Colorado
I really enjoyed your book. I believe that it is a wonderful answer to a long-standing need amongst literature about the Technique. After my first reading of it I liked it so much that I decided to use it next semester for my class, “Acting and the Alexander Technique.” I am really excited to reread it with students.
Matt Dubroff, Alexander Technique teacher, Virginia
Vineyard explains how human evolution, our brains and our senses function, and how the AT supported by neuroscience can be the vehicle that takes us on an extraordinary personal journey. She offers in depth self-explorations that are suitable for the beginner as well as long time students and teachers, and she illustrates her points with pertinent examples from her own practice. Most importantly, she challenges us to give up our assumptions about what and how we “think” and “feel” and truly go on an adventure of exploration. As a teacher, I found Vineyard's own journey to be particularly inspiring as she sought to deepen her understanding of the Alexander principles of conscious inhibition and direction. She encourages us to do the same.
Jane Kosminsky, Alexander Technique teacher, Faculty, Juilliard School of Dance
How You Stand, How You Move, How You Live is an engagingly presented, comprehensive book with usable, practical advice on the complex study of the AT. Insightfully, she has emphasized and expanded the important concept of inhibition, an often overlooked or understated aspect of the AT that is the key to change. I applaud her work.
Evangeline Benedetti, Alexander Technique teacher, Cellist, New York Philharmonic
Vineyard has developed an innovative and creative approach to teaching the basic mind-body skills that are the foundation of the AT. She has a rare talent for explaining key ideas in simple, everyday language. Missy tells engaging stories about herself and her students to illustrate her points, then she presents a sequence of 'self-exercises' that teach the thinking at the heart of the AT. By breaking down the learning process into small steps and avoiding jargon, she makes it easy to understand the interaction between mind and body. I have experimented with these 'self-exercises' myself and tried them with my students and they are truly effective teaching tools.
As an AT teacher, I am enthusiastic about the possibilities this book offers as a valuable practical introduction to the AT for my students and as a resource for anyone who is interested in finding out what the AT offers and how it works.
Phyllis Richmond, Alexander Technique teacher, Editor, AmSAT News
When I was in my twenties, I never thought about my body. It worked reasonably well to do what I needed it to do. As I got older, things seemed to be going wrong. When I ran, did aerobics, or weeded the garden, my knees would hurt. When I trained for a bike trip, my hip became painful. When I sat at my desk writing, or leaned over the tripod in photography, my lower back complained. I developed a frozen left shoulder, and then a frozen right shoulder. I asked myself: Why am I so accident-prone? Do I have to give up the activities I enjoy? Why am I not improving, despite all the various therapies I am trying? I know I am not alone in having such experiences and questions. Missy Vineyard's book answers the questions succinctly but thoroughly, and is an engaging invitation to explore the AT as a way to inhabit our bodies more enjoyable over a lifetime.
Frances Moulder, Ph.D., Student of the Alexander Technique
I really admire your willingness to expand on Alexander's work in a way that many teachers wouldn't dare to-no doubt Alexander was meticulous in has parsing of ideas and directions, etc., but people respond to different things on different days and your ideas may help get us to new levels of accomplishment. The unique thing about your work is the depth to which you address the thought processes involved in Alexander, and that is the most challenging and elusive aspect of the AT.
Paul Garner, Student of the Alexander Technique, clarinetist, Dallas Symphony Orchestra
Dear Missy-You're not only a great teacher, but a fine writer, with the ability to involve your readers in both the technical and the imaginative components of your work.
Alice Parker, composer, conductor, teacher
How You Stand, How You Move, How You Live is the most wonderfully lucid and compassionate account of wisdom gathered experientially. Vineyard is so readable. All people interested in the mechanics of change should read her book.
Chloe Stallibrass, Alexander Technique teacher, London, UK
Vineyard has distilled 30 years of work with the Alexander Technique into this volume. My own experience of the technique, which spans the same length of time, has continued to reinforce my estimation of its power. I wish the success of this book to encourage many readers to undertake the quest for this invaluable experience of rediscovery in the wisdom of the human body.
Chungliang Al Huang, founder/president of Living Tao Foundation ; author of Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain, and Esssential Tai Ji; and coauthor of Tao: The Watercourse Way, Thinking Body, and Dancing Mind.
