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Alexander Technique in Los Angeles, CA

Sharon Jakubecy

Echo Park/Silver Lake Los Angeles, CA 90026 phone: (310) 383-1796

Get the Streeeeeeetch into your stretching with Alexander Technique

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Monday, March 15, 2010

I was with a friend this weekend who is a personal trainer. He knows his business. He also looks the part: 6'3", 200lbs, 6-pack abdomen, former football and baseball player. We were stretching together and what I noticed, as an Alexander Technique teacher, was that when he was stretching, he was holding his breath, clenching his jaw, and grimacing his face.

You might think, "Well, of course, he is stretching. That is what I do when I stretch." That is what most people do when they stretch. They often try to "feel" like they are stretching by actually tightening up the muscles they want to release. If you hold your breath, clench your jaw, and grimace your face, you are also tightening up your neck muscles. When you tighten your neck muscles, you also tighten the muscles along the length of your spine and probably tighten your chest muscles, lock up the muscles around your ribcage, and stiffen the hip, knee, and ankle joints. The muscles you want to release, eg. your lower back muscles, are working against you instead of letting go. You are also sending your nervous system into a "Fight of Flight" response because your body isn't expelling carbon dioxide and taking in fresh oxygen.

When you stretch, and I mean any stretch, you want to let your body breath. TRY

THIS: On a whisper, let your breath out of your mouth, like you are saying "Ahhhhhhh." This little adjustment prevents you from holding your breath, clenching your jaw, and grimacing your face. The beneficial outcome of a "Whispered Ahhhhhh" when you are stretching allows your neck muscles to release, the muscles along your spine to release into length, and the muscles around your joints to release. Your ribcage can now do its job: move with your breath. Your body can efficiently expel carbon dioxide and receive fresh oxygen. AND, your nervous system is calm. Then, you can get the result you are yearning for: long, strong, released, flexible muscles.

When my friend, the personal trainer, tried the "Whispered Ah," his whole demeanor changed. He even started to smile while he was stretching. His whole body was breathing and his lower back muscles released. We all have something to learn from each other.

For more helpful tips to release unnecessary tension throughout your day, visit www.AlexanderTechniqueLA.com and sign up for emails that guide you to have a calm, tension free day.

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Hunching at computer can raise your blood pressure

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Thursday, March 04, 2010

When you sit at the computer for hours hunched over the keyboard and pushing your head towards the screen, you could be raising your blood pressure. A study just released showed the link between the neck muscles and a part of the brain that regulates heart rate and blood pressure. Sitting with your spine curved, your ribcage compressed, and your eyes glued to your facebook page, requires your neck muscles to tighten unnecessarily. "[T]he finding could explain why blood pressure and heart rate sometimes change when the neck muscles are injured - through whiplash, for example. Similarly, it is possible that hours spent hunched over a computer may raise blood pressure. "The pathway exists for bad posture to really have an effect," says Edwards, one of the team members of the study published in Newscientist.

Read the study by clicking on the link below:

http://tinyurl.com/2rbwyt

Find out how to release your neck muscles and sit at the computer with ease by visiting www.AlexanderTechniqueLA.com

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Enhance Your Running Technique with the Alexander Technique

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Sunday, December 06, 2009

Around the holidays many of us start to think about running off all the extra sweets and delicious goodies we have indulged in. But... with that thought, comes a huge resistance to running as well because it hurts or it's difficult. Running can be a very fun and exhilerating form of exercise. If we do it well.

Below is a great article on running and the Alexander Technique. Malcolm Balk, teacher of the The Art of Running emphasizes awareness and learning.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/4b408d98-dee4-11de-adff-00144feab49a.html

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How Does Your Body Breathe? NPR discusses your breath and the Alexander Technique

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Wednesday, July 15, 2009

You probably take your breath for granted. However, when you are stressed and tense, you are most likely holding your breath and creating even more tension. It's a vicious cycle. When you learn how your body breathes, you are less likely to interfere with your natural breathing coordination. When you don't interfere with your breathing, you can manage stress and tension effectively.

In this article, author Allison Aubrey discusses how better breathing can achieved and how lessons in the Alexander Technique help to ease interfering tension. Check out the article here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105931606

For more information regarding stress management and your breath, contact Sharon Jakubecy at (310) 383 1796 or info@AlexanderTechniqueLA.com

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Does the Financial Crisis have you Stressed and Tense? HelpYourselfNation.com has the solution for you!

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Monday, June 22, 2009

HelpYourselfNation is a website that inspires people just like you to create the life of their dreams. Sharon Jakubecy,

M. AmSAT, certified Alexander Technique Teacher, illuminates the secrets to eliminating interfering tension with the Alexander Technique.

Everyone is dealing with the stress and difficulty of financial insecurity and job instability. In response to these challenges, you are tightening your neck and shoulder muscles, holding your breath, and creating strain and fatigue. In this interview, Sharon describes how lessons in the Alexander Technique can help you to identify patterns of tension and release unnecessary effort so that you can experience lightness, freedom of movement, and a sense of calm.

When you stop tightening your neck and shoulders, stop holding your breath, and stop clenching throughout your whole system, you can respond to challenging situations with calmness and creativity. You can create the life of your dreams!

Click on the link below to find out more!

http://helpyourselfnation.com/interviews/?p=85

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A Different Solution for Your Back Pain

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Tuesday, June 02, 2009

The New York Times reported on the Alexander Technique and Back Pain. Paul Little, professor of primary care research at the U.K.’s University of Southampton and lead author of the BMJ study, answered some questions about Alexander Technique and its effectiveness in dealing with back pain. Read the article:

http://consults.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/relieving-back-pain-without-drugs-or-surgery/?hp

Lessons in the Alexander Technique can help you to experience release of tension, decompression of the spine, more balanced muscle activity and improved flexibility. Pain is often a result of unnecessary muscular tension. Students learn to identify these tension patterns and to release them. After a lesson, many students feel lighter and even have more energy.

To find out about Alexander Technique lessons in the Los Angeles area, please call (310) 383 1796 or visit www.AlexanderTechniqueLA.com

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Gain Poise and Presence with the Alexander Technique

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Saturday, May 02, 2009

Poise and Presence An Introduction to the Alexander Technique

Discover the secret that many successful actors, musicians and athletes use to produce fluid performances. Learn how to release interfering tension in your whole body. Find centeredness and ease by applying AT principles to speaking and performance. Gain poise and presence by managing stress more effectively.

Where & When

Veterans Center for the Performing Arts

Upstairs at the furniture store Mortise and Tenon

446 S La Brea Ave,

Los Angeles, CA 90036

Saturday, May 23,

1:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Cost $20 preregistration; $25 at the door

This workshop is designed to emphasize the balance of your head, neck, and spine so that the body can move more efficiently. You will enjoy sophisticated, gentle hands-on guidance and feedback, a chance to unravel stress, and instruction regarding habitual movement patterns.

With Sharon's expert guidance, you will examine everyday basic movements such as sitting, standing, speaking, walking, bending, reaching, and performing. Through releasing unnecessary effort, you gain POISE and PRESENCE on and off stage.

To register, email info@AlexanderTechniqueLA.com or call (310) 383 1796. Visit www.AlexanderTechniqueLA.com for more information.

Sharon Jakubecy is an AmSAT certified Alexander Technique teacher who has taught doctors, news broadcasters, singers, writers, actors, musicians, and teachers, helping them to achieve their peak performance. The LA Opera, Vox Humana, Unknown Theater, and Children's Hospital have sought her to teach workshops for their organizations.

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A Dramatic Cure for Back Pain in "O" Oprah's Magazine.

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Sunday, April 26, 2009

The Alexander Technique is touted as a "Dramatic Cure for Back Pain" in O, Oprah's Magazine. Tim Jarvis, the author, reports on the recent study published in the British Medical Journal on Back Pain and the effects of Alexander Technique.

Americans pay over 85 billion dollars to treat back pain in the United States. Wow! That is a lot of money. These therapies often do not allow the sufferer to deal with the causes of back pain: poor postural habits. People have back pain because the carry themselves with far too much tension and collapse. Lessons in this self care approach teach people to identify what they are doing that is causing and/or exacerbating their aches and pains. Students of the technique also learn to move with efficiency and far less muscular effort. If people are using less muscular effort to sit, stand, drive, and work on the computer, they will have less back pain.

Read the article here: http://www.oprah.com/article/omagazine/200904-omag-back-pain

To find out more about lessons in the Alexander Technique go to www.AlexanderTechniqueLA.com

I look forward to meeting and sharing this beneficial technique with you!

Sharon Jakubecy, M. AmSAT

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Alexander Technique – Try the Secret of the Stars!

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Wednesday, March 04, 2009

F. M. Alexander was an orator (reciting Shakespeare) when he set out to improve the use of his voice and stumbled upon what is now known as the Alexander Technique. Actors, dancers, singers, and musicians have used AT to produce more fluid performances. AT is a required course at many prestigious schools including the Julliard School in New York, American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, New England Conservatory of Music, Yale School of Drama, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music in London. And, AT remains central to the training of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra to achieve optimal performances.

Many renowned performers including Ben Kingsley, William Hurt, Jeremy Irons, James Earl Jones, Sting, Paul McCartney, Robin Williams,Kevin Kline, Paul Newman, Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Juliette Binoche, Kenneth Branaugh, Michael Caine, and Hillary Swank have used the Alexander Technique as their secret weapon on stage and on screen. Alexander Teachers often work behind the scenes on Hollywood movie sets and at exclusive acting schools (eg. The Actor's Studio, Circle in the Square, Stella Adler, HB Studios, etc.) to help bring out award-winning performances.

"The Technique's many benefits for actors include minimized tension, centeredness, vocal relaxation and responsiveness, mind/body connection and about an inch and a half of additional height!"

Kevin Kline, Theater and Film Actor

The AlexanderTechnique, Judith Leibowitz & Bill Connington

BOOK A LESSON WITH SHARON

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