Tips to Soothe Yourself during stressful times

With the drastic changes that have occurred because of the spread of COVID-19, our stress levels have risen. Fear and anxiety are everywhere. It’s easy to carry the weight of the world in our bodies and I want to give you “tools” to better manage this unprecedented level of pressure and worry.

I will be creating simply videos to help you release tension and SOOTHE yourself so you can feel calmer, more grounded, and more at ease. You do not want to make yourself sick with stress. You want your immunity strong!

Jaw Tension is a symptom of stress and worry. Here is my first video to help you release your jaw:

For more practices to soothe yourself, sign up for “5 Ways to Instantly Reduce Stress” to the right of your page. You will learn more about Alexander Technique and how it can help manage stress, relieve pain, and calm your nervous system.

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Why Do Actors STUDY ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE

Sharon Jakubecy Klehm was interviewed for The Actor’s Summit last year. She has worked with many professional performers so they “nail” auditions, overcome Performance Anxiety, and perform with confidence.

Watch this interview and see what an Alexander Technique session looks like. See the transformation that the interviewer experiences as Sharon guides him through a release of compression and collapse in his body.

Want this openness, presence, and power for your performance? Train with Sharon in the Alexander Technique. Find out more about private, individualized sessions HERE

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Couples Valentines session

Want a special and unique way to celebrate Valentine’s Day with your loved one?

Image Source: https://onehugaday.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/alive-in-the-fire_sarah-rhoads-2.jpg
Image Source: https://onehugaday.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/alive-in-the-fire_sarah-rhoads-2.jpg

Want to release tight muscles and open up your body to the one you love?

Schedule a Couples Session in the Alexander Technique for Valentine’s Day

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Feeling stressed, tight and overwhelmed interferes with your
relationships by distracting you with bogged down thoughts and pain. When you and your partner (or dear one) unravel stress and tension in an Alexander Technique session with certified Alexander Technique teacher, Sharon Jakubecy Klehm, you feel light, open, relaxed, and HOT!

The physical release of the chest and muscles across the heart release and you feel vulnerable and connected to others.

Here is what one happy client wrote about her couples sessions:

We heartily recommend Sharon’s couples class (semi-private for friends) Alexander Technique. The information and new way of moving your own body is fantastic enough but seeing the immediate, clearly visible, positive changes in someone you love – your partner in life, family member or best friends – adds a whole other dimension. I literally felt myself more powerful and calm and saw that in my fiance too. He looked so strong, powerful, confident and at peace in his body. (guys, be prepared to get pounced on after class…seeing our men look like that has an effect on us!:)

The physical learning was surpassed by the emotional/spiritual experience for me. When your body is in natural alignment energy flows easier allowing you to meet your day with big support. We both realized the Alexander Technique sessions brought us closer and helped us support each other in ways we wouldn’t have otherwise thought of. We remind each other to ‘bend at the knee’ when we walk and it’s at once helpful, shows we’re thinking of the other, and is our in-joke that we share.

There are many excellent reasons to choose this experience – gaining understanding of your body and how it can move, increasing energy available to you in your life, new perspectives on physical and emotional experiences, deepening your relationship and a new kind of intimacy with your partner.

Sharon is a wonderful, knowledgeable, fun teacher and a fantastic leader for your Alexander Technique adventure! We each did a package on our own then did a package of couples sessions. Clearly we think she’s fabulous 

Have a great time!

During your Couples Alexander Technique Session, you and your loved one will:

  • Release old painful patterns of tension
  • You both experience Stress Relief and Pain Relief
  • Calm your nervous system so you both feel Relaxed and Open
  • Experience the Joy of breathing free and easy together
  • See each other stand tall with great posture and Embody your Full Powerful Height
  • Shed physical armoring that closes your body off and blocks your intimacy
  • Feel your bodies so you feel sensation
  • Experience true Confidence with each other

The Valentine’s Day Special is an hour  of lightness and freedom in the body.

Your Valentine’s Special is only $180 (normally $120 for a single private session.)

Surprise your Valentine with this unique and wonderful Alexander Technique session today!

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Alexander Technique for Actors on Backstage

(Click on the photo to watch the video interview on BACKSTAGE)

‘Un-Getting Ready’

(This is an excerpt from the article ” Keeping Up with Alexander Technique” by Lisa Jo Sagolla.  For the entire article click here)

Jakubecy teaches mainly performers and public speakers, working with them on making direct connections between Alexander work and what they do in auditions and presentations.

“It’s all about application,” she says. “If you understand the work but can’t apply it to what you want to do, it’s not very useful. For example, when I teach, it’s ‘Okay, we’ll do some floor work, some hands-on guidance, some identify and release tension, but now let’s have you stand up and do a monologue.’ At the very beginning of a monologue, a performer’s habits jump in right away, so as soon as they go up on stage, I’ll ask them what they notice. They might notice that they’re locking their legs, or their lower back, or their chest—and that’s before they even begin speaking. Then at the next class, I’ll have them say just the first line of the monologue and notice what they do when they’re getting ready to speak. Do they gasp for breath? Lift their chin? Tighten their neck? Then I give them guidance regarding how to undo all of those inhibiting habits—’un-getting ready,’ so to speak. That’s one of my favorite terms. I teach actors how to ‘un-get ready.’ ”

Jakubecy thinks the growing interest in Alexander work stems from an August 2008 article in the British Medical Journal reporting the results of a study that had been done in England on the relationship between back pain and the Alexander technique. It compared the effectiveness of Alexander, exercise (in the form of walking), and massage in the relief of generalized lower back pain, and Alexander was found to be the most effective of the three. Patients who had 24 Alexander technique lessons experienced 85 percent fewer days of pain in a month than the control group. “So with the publication of that study, more people started seeking out Alexander technique for back pain relief,” Jakubecy says.

For the entire article, please visit Keeping Up with Alexander on BACKSTAGE

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Open & Emotionally Available Without Over-Exertion

An Acting Teacher’s Take on What the Alexander Technique Can Do For You (first posted on Backstage.com)

There’s a reason the Alexander Technique is the only form of movement training that the Yale School of Drama requires its acting students to study for the full three years that they attend. It’s an extremely powerful practice of body-mind integration that pays dividends for actors on many levels.

If you talk to an Alexander teacher, you’re probably going to hear them talk about ease of movement and efficiency—both extremely important when it comes to acting. And while studying the technique certainly requires that you invest your time and money in the practice, I’m here as an acting teacher to convince you that it’s a tremendously worthwhile investment both for your work and yourself.

A big part of the Alexander Technique is becoming conscious of the unconscious physical habits we’ve developed to move through our lives and do the things we need to do. Most of these habits involve chronic tension or overexertion aka using more effort than we really need to.

Engaged in continuously over time, chronic tension and overexertion have an impact on our neuromuscular system: the tensed muscles form a kind of body armor that we use to brace ourselves against the incoming emotional volleys we’re constantly subjected to.

For actors, this is a problem. We need to be emotionally available to the impulses being directed at us by our scene partners and the armor chronic tension outfits us with obstructs this process.

One thing we learn with the Alexander Technique is how unconscious we are of much of this chronic tension. This means we can’t expect to be able to just throw a switch and deactivate the armor when we want to—or at least not without some training. It’s this training that’s one of the most valuable things that the Alexander Technique can offer an actor: the ability to consciously promote physical openness and receptiveness, which go hand-in-hand with emotional openness and vulnerability.

The ability to be vulnerable is essential to crafting a memorable performance, but so is the ability to engage, to assert oneself, to play to win. The characters we play have needs and we need to embody these needs and then take up the character’s struggle to get those needs met. If that involves confrontation or conflict, we need to be able to enter into this conflict fully, to truly care about the outcome of the conflict, and to use our will, body, and voice to resolve it in a way that means that our character’s needs are met. In this process of pursuing what we need, we want to avoid either under-exerting or overexerting ourselves.

The Alexander Technique is terrific for learning to do what is necessary but not more so that we manifest our emotional truth without clogging ourselves up with unnecessary tension.

There are other advantages to the Technique as well. Through the study of the Technique, you will gain an intimate understanding of the human anatomy and how it functions, allowing you to see more subtle possibilities as you explore a character’s physicality. But in some sense this is icing on the cake; the Technique’s capacity to help us become more emotionally available on the one hand and to assert ourselves without overexerting on the other are gifts any actor can derive enormous benefit from for fuller, richer, more memorable work.

Andrew Wood is the founder of Andrew Wood Acting Studio in L.A., artistic director and founder of Uranium Madhouse, a Los Angeles-based theater company, and Backstage Expert. Check out his full bio here!

Ready to take your performance on stage, on camera, and in the spotlight  to the next level?  Train in the Alexander Technique for professional performers who want to up level your game so you feel unstoppable in auditions, on set, and when all eyes are on you! 

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LIVE Talk Radio Mind, Body, and the Effects of Texting

Is texting hurting you and your relationships? Got text neck? Stephanie Michele, host of Relatable, with me and Matt Formica discussed texting norms and the hidden harms of texting too much. Setting guidelines to mindfully decrease texts exchanges were emphasized with a review of the No Text or Next pledge. Watch the interview HERE.

Doctors are now diagnosing patients with “texting neck.”  Carrying your head forward of your spine to use your smart phone is causing pain, harming your posture, and interfering with your breathing.  My best advice is to prioritize your body over your phone and watch the interview!

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Brazilian Singer uses Alexander to Calm Performance Anxiety

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Carla Hassett, singer. musician, and Alexander Technique client, was just interviewed by Linda Wertheimer on NPR about Carmen Miranda, São Paulo, and the making of a far from traditional Brazilian album +Blue.

Her CD Release Concert is happening July 10, 6pm and a Killer band is locked in (with members of Sergio Mendes and Bebel Gilberto’s band), to play in Los Angeles at Kulak’s Woodshed. But if you’re not in LA, you can catch the concert LIVE ONLINE at ClapMe.com!!

Read how she has used Alexander Technique to calm performance anxiety:

“When I finished recording my album and started thinking about playing shows in support of it’s release, I knew I had to do something to address my performance anxiety.

Thankfully I found Sharon and embarked on a 10-week intensive one on one training with her. It never occurred to me to come at emotional anxiety from a physical perspective, but I know from years of singing that the mind-body connection works both ways, so I was eager to get started. Sharon helped me to change my experience of feeling hopeless and helpless to overcoming very powerful feelings of anxiety that I feel while performing.

I put these skills to the test in a big way this week when I was invited to do an interview with Linda Wertheimer on NPR. Before, this sort of thing would floor me, but I used the breathing techniques and alignment skills that Sharon taught me and they keep me calm, cool, and present. Of course I had moments of panic, but I was able to work quickly through them and get back to a confident, calm state of mind. Success! Next challenge will be the album release concert and live webcast. I’m already practicing and applying the techniques Sharon taught me and I know It’ll be a great show!”

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Want to overcome performance anxiety? Train in the Alexander Technique!

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Is Your Body Screaming “HELP MEEEEEEEE”?

Chronic ongoing pain is of course the most obvious sign.  But there are other not-so-subtle messages your body gives you when it needs more care and attention.  

Anxiety

Dislike of you own body

Sleeplessness
Exhaustion
An Inability to Relax
Fidgetiness
Grouchiness or Short Temper
No Desire to Socialize
No Desire to Get Out of Bed
Can’t Exercise 
And more….

The biggest problem I observe is that most people are not listening to the screams or cries for help from their bodies.  They push through, take pain medications, don’t rest, work harder and scream back a their bodies.   

This aggressive approach to the body does not heal pain.  Your kinesthetic sense, aka your body awareness, is a messenger.  If you are in the habit of not listening to your body, you will only become aware of hurting yourself at the end of the day when you are tight, can’t move, and even breathing feels difficult.  

Sooo… What’s the solution, Sharon? (Click on the photo for a video demonstration

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In every Alexander Technique session, I have my clients spend time in Semi-Supine position (laying on back with knees bent). During this time, my client is learning how to listen to their body, how to quiet and calm the nervous system, anyhow to release muscular tension related to their response to pain.  

Semi-Supine is supportive of a long spine and a balanced body.  This makes learning to listen to your body easier.  Sometimes, just in the act of spending quiet, still, awake time with your own body, pain messages can quiet down and you experience stress relief as well.  Ignoring the “screams” from your body ensures that your body will get “louder” meaning stronger pain sensations and more discomfort.

Alexander Technique offers a kinder and gentler approach to the body.  You learn to move gently and with mindfulness.  You learn to be aware of how you are moving your body and how you are holding painful patterns of tension so that you can release them.  With the gentle hands-on guidance, you learn to soothe yourself and soothe your body.

As you go through your day, take the time to STOP and listen to your body.  Follow your body’s guidance. It is time for a kinder, gentler approach to our bodies.  If this sounds right to you, then sign up for our free video series:

As you go through your day, take the time to STOP and listen to your body.  Follow your body’s guidance. It is time for a kinder, gentler approach to our bodies.  If this sounds right to you, then sign up for our free video series:

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91% of Women Hate Their Bodies

My work in teaching Alexander Technique has given me deep insight into the attitudes that people have towards their bodies.   Throughout sessions, I ask my clients “What are you noticing in your body?”  Inevitably, EVERYONE, men and women, share some sort of negative body image.  

I have worked with people who have scoliosis, vocal issues (like spasmodic disphonia), fibromyalgia, nerve damage, eating disorders, arthritis, anxiety, chronic pain, asthma, depression, and much more. The ONE COMMONALITY is that each f them have a “thing” that evokes shame and embarrassment about their bodies.  This negative body image evoke stress about our bodies which causes tension, impaired breathing and gripping.  

So… when I saw Taryn Brumfitt’s movie trailer titled “EMBRACE,” I nearly flipped and screamed.  I am always guiding my clients to a more loving attitude towards their bodies.  I have also dealt with my own body shame and disgust towards my own body.  In order to shift my own attitude and my clients’, I am sharing this trailer.  

WATCH THE EMBRACE TRAILER NOW 

EMBRACE movie trailer

EMBRACE – Official Trailer: Join Taryn Brumfitt’s global journey to change the way we feel about our bodies.

EMBRACE will premiere at Sydney Film Festival Sunday June 12. Come along and embrace everyBODY

CAST: Ricki Lake, Mia Freedman, Turia Pitt, Stefania Ferrario, Melinda Tankard Reist, The Bearded Dame.

Now is the time to transform how we feel about our bodies!  When you are aware of the negative impact of not cherishing your body just the way it is, you will never want to think a hurtful thought again about your most precious possession.  In Alexander Technique sessions, I encourage a loving, gentle, and kind approach to the body which soothes the nervous system and quiets the stress response.

If you are ready to transform your relationship to your body,  sign up for our free video series below:

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Ergonomic Tools for Your Body

If you are going to spend hours of your day on a computer, then you want the best ergonomic set up possible. Read this very helpful infographic about equipment that takes care of you.

Of course, as an Alexander Technique teacher, no one chair, mouse, or keyboard is going to save you. Ergonomically sound equipment will support your awareness and conscious choices of how you want to live and move in your body. If you are not paying attention to your body, you are going to hurt or at least stress your body.  Your posture and breathing are your first priority, then your equipment can truly help you stay pain-free.

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