A Secret Key to Happiness

by Peter Jacobson

In my inbox this morning was an email from my friend and colleague Jeremy Chance. The title of the email was “A Gift from God”; it was essentially a love song to the Alexander Technique.

I felt so filled up and inspired by reading it that I had to reshare here. He even gives a shout out to musicians at the end.

Here is an excerpt:

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Alexander is the martial art of being with your Bio-Psycho-Social Self.

It takes the same amount of time - Alexander is a slow-burn learning process; you can't speed it up because it is about life itself, and life is vast. You are not learning a new technique or a set of exercises - you are learning how your personality organizes your movement system, how fear will cause contagion into your muscles, damaging their function and literally throwing you off balance. You experience how physical harmony ushers happiness into your movements.

Do you know what a happy movement feels like?

Can you bring that about any time you like?

With Alexander, eventually you can.

Because you learn all this at a granular level. You sense how your arm muscles respond instantly to fear, joy, concentration, and love. You can even see how the trapezius muscle is profoundly involved with your autonomic nervous system. You travel down infinite gateways of interconnecting influences, and there is no end in sight.

The longer you explore Alexander, the more miraculous your own body becomes to you.

Exploring how Alexander's discoveries influence your life is like embarking on a voyage across an unknown ocean, or exploring the pyramids for the first time. The longer you travel, the more you discover. It is an endless, winding road of amazement, profundity and freedom. You are discovering another universe of influence that has been residing within you all your life, without your knowledge.

A secret key to happiness that God forget to tell you about.

Yes, I promise you, it is THAT amazing…One reason musicians love Alexander so much is because they are already deep inside a slow-burning learning process - there is no way you can speed up learning how to play the piano. They get Alexander instantly.

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If that doesn't get someone curious and interested in Alexander's work I don't know what will! 

If you’d like to embark (or continue) on a voyage across an unknown ocean, discover the miraculousness of your own body and step inside another slow-burning learning process, I invited you to check out our upcoming offerings:

• How to Use the Alexander Technique & Body Mapping in Your Music Teaching – free online workshop for music educators
• 2024 Summer School – 5 online courses
• 2024 Summer Retreat – a 6-day in-person residential event
• The MBMS Prelude Program – a 40-hour introductory certificate program

 PS – You can subscribe to Jeremy's mailing list here.