10 minute floor time reset ✨

As the season shifts to fall, many people are experiencing major life shifts- personally and collectively. I offer you this audio recording as a resource for grounding.

Where, even in small ways, do you experience support- right now?

Feel free to complete this lying down or sitting up - in any position that feels comfortable to you.

Good for calming down, grounding in your body, connecting with innate movement, and for hypermobility.

Let me know if you have any questions!

What's a "resource" in therapeutic somatic work?

In therapeutic somatic work, a resource is anything that connects you to a deeper capacity for nervous system organization and regulation. They are internal and external anchors that help you feel less activated. As we collectively take in the stories of violence and displacement around the world, tuning into our somatic resources allows us to access regulation which means we can feel and think creatively about flexible and help-giving responses.

You'll know you've landed on a therapeutic resource when your breath drops in, your body relaxes, and you feel a sense of possibility or even ☀️ hope.

An external resource could be your pet, your home, or the sky. It could also be a person whose image gives you a sense of being held, loved unconditionally, or supported and known. It could be a place, like the forest or New York City…the possibilities are as endless as the world. An internal resource could be the sensation of your spine, the space between your joints, or the movement of your breath. It could be an image, like a tall tree with deep roots, or a thought/mantra, like “all people are good” or “anything is possible.”

Anything that connects you to a sense of self and inner integrity in the face of disruption is a resource. When we are resourced we can connect and help one another.

If you’ve taken a class with me before, you’ve probably seen this video of Cynthia Erivo singing “I'm here” in The Color Purple. Ms. Erivo’s dynamic postural support, head-neck-back organization and breathing coordination are a virtuosic example of ‘good use’ inside of heightened song and circumstances. But I recently realized that this song is also a somatic lesson about resourcing, too. Give it a watch and see if you know what I mean, and I'll be expanding on that in my next blog post.

What are your internal or external anchors? For now, I invite you to reflect on your own therapeutic resources. What calms you down and connects you to a sense of well-being and self-worth? Why not make a list and put it somewhere easy to see?

Meanwhile, if you could use some external resourcing, I've got some in-person and online offerings coming up this Spring. Schedule a free consultation to discover where to start.

🗣 Let's talk clown and the Alexander Technique

Two practices have stretched the boundaries of what I can do artistically and personally. One is practiced in red nose, with lots of emotion, ruckus and play. The other is practiced with conscious touch and embodied meditation, often quiet and mindful.

So what do Theatrical Clowning and the Alexander Technique have in common?

In the Alexander Technique we're looking to let go of defenses that show up as physical tension. Tension may be protecting us from physical, emotional, or psychological injury, and I would argue, is always working to to keep us 'safe’ and ‘together.’ We may wonder (consciously or subconsciously) “what would hold me together if I didn't have these patterns?”

The clown celebrates who we are when we let them go.

When we enter the world of the clown, we are asked to drop our defenses and “let the little one drive." As my teacher Chris Bayes says, they can't see above the dashboard, but they're following the 🚒 engine of their fun." Weeeee!

Your clown is exactly who you would be if you had never

heard the word “no” or been belittled for your enthusiasm. They live just below the surface of your responsible, “together,” adult and find fun in all sorts messy mistakes.

Letting go of familiar protective patterns with the Alexander Technique supports us in stepping into this wild unknown.

I've also seen many a serious AT student (and been there) working very hard to “free their neck” and failing miserably because they have no connection to their fun.

When we tune into our body's sense of pleasure and fun, our breath drops in, our body relaxes, and our spine eases up. So clowning can help you relieve back pain too!

If something in you ✨ sparkles or flows when you read about this, sign up for a 2 hour online workshop Sunday afternoon through Studio Playground.

This class is for you if you're an AT person who wants to lighten & widen up their practice or a clowny person who wants to re-direct your usual “go to” and head toward the mystery.

It'll be fun.

Register Now

xo

Tracy

PS. No experience required

PPS. One scholarship spot is available. People of the global majority are encouraged to apply. Simply shoot me an email with a short note telling me why you'd like to join.

Tune in to your body’s language with this embodiment meditation

I've always loved making new years resolutions. The "fresh slate” feels so inviting. I pull out a blank sheet of paper, write the year, and then list my intentions. They’re always in relation to something in my life that I’d like to see move, shift, or change. Sometimes, the same things show up on my list. Over and over and over….

Do you have those things, too? Those pesky repeat-offenders that you can’t seem to shake?

How do you relate to them? Kindly? Or do you shame, blame, and otherwise bully them?

When we rail against the mind-body habits we’d like to change, they sometimes fight back! Like a human being, they get defensive. This doesn't advance the change we'd like to see.

The body prefers to be whispered to, gently held, and wisely understood. If you're not sure how to do that, you could start with this lie down, or work with a practitioner you trust.

Pain is often our body yelling at us to listen. Once we tune in and follow what it's asking us to do, it often recedes - or even communicates a need.

When you cultivate a sensitivity to your body's signals, you can sense the early signs that require attention. One of the benefits of the Alexander Technique is increased interoception (the sense of what's happening inside us) & proprioception (the sense of where our body is in space) that leads to more self awareness.

I'll be offering more online resources like this soon by popular demand. I was very excited to announce new in-person hours but given the developing COVID-19 situation I'm putting a pause on that, hopefully to resume in February. Stay tuned ❣️.

Thanks in advance for being part of my 2022. Let's make it fun and meaning-filled.

Alexander Technique Lie Down to Relieve Tension

The “lie down” is a tool in the Alexander Technique, used to let go of unnecessary tension and practice mindbody coordination. There are many ways a lie down could go. It can be used to prepare for performing or teaching, or to decompress at any time in the day.

3 ways to begin a lie down:

1. Feel the weight of your body on the floor. Notice the parts of your body that are touching the floor and let them spread out a little bit.

2. Feel the weight of your head on your head platform. The weight of your pelvis on the floor. The souls of your feet on the floor.

3. Notice the subtle, three-dimensional movement of your torso as you allow yourself to be breathed.

Check out a sample recording here.

coming home

My daughter and I were playing roady this weekend for my partner who played a concert out of town. We took her to the ocean for the first time and she was enthralled, her senses taking in all the new sights, sounds, and smells. After a few minutes of sensory free-for-all, she began to stare intently at … my shirt (as she nuzzled in close). There was so much spaciousness and beauty all around her, but the interest was on a very close-by texture of clothing - a familiar anchor to settle on.

After a lot of external stimulus, she naturally came home to what was safe and familiar.

This cycle will repeat over and over again. She loops between what is new and what is old, what is far away and what is close by - too much of either ushering in fussiness and overwhelm.

Somatic Experiencing® describes this phenomenon as pendulation - the natural tendency for resilient nervous systems to cycle between expansion and containment - without getting stuck on either.

Can you relate?

For many of us who have been more isolated during the pandemic, we've craved spaciousness, exploration, and stimulation beyond our home, and now find ourselves re-emerging more in public. This experience can be a sensory overload. There is much more potential for nervous system overwhelm, as our attention is pulled in more directions, and we can balance ourselves with practice.

Where do you stand?

• What's your balance of familiar anchors and unfamiliar exploration in moment to moment daily life?

• What anchors you, bringing a sense of home?

• How do you know when your body-mind self needs to settle in?

• How do you know when your body-mind self is craving exploration?

Like with many things, when we insert conscious attention, we can cooperate with the natural waves of outward and inward - nurturing our own well-being.

I think of my movement practice as supporting both of these experiences; sometimes guiding me to explore new territory and sometimes guiding me home to myself, a familiar anchor.

However you use your movement practice, you can find a few of my offerings below…

• Actor's AT Practice Group continues online, every Tuesday, 11am-Noon EST.

• Private sessions (in-person) on October 23rd & 24th NYC are fully booked, but you can join the waitlist.

• Private sessions (online) are available on a limited basis.

happy pendulating,

Tracy

psychophysical lessons I'm collecting watching my daughter learn to roll over

You know how I'm always obsessed with developmental movement and babies? Well, now I have one close up.  It's messier and more intense than I had fantasized, and it is absolutely fascinating to watch her literally baby-step her way to new skills. Like rolling over, which she did this week! Her growth is gradual, and then quantum, spiraling between OOPS and UGH and YES! 

I love watching her stick with it, rest when she needs to, and then keep going. It's a good reminder that change is messy and the only way to it is through… 

Here are some psychophysical lessons I'm collecting from watching my daughter learn to roll over:

~Begin with intention - what are you curious about?

~Lead with your sensory apparatus (head, eyes, nose, mouth).

~Practice first thing when you wake up.

~Persist! When things get too frustrating, eat, sleep, play, or snuggle.  

What a trip. 

Returning to teaching with this new element in my life feels extremely rich with possibility. Thanks for joining me on the ride.  

 
I'm excited to be back offering limited private lessons & group practice. Learn more or sign up for a free consultation.
 

Whatever you're working on, stick to it and remember- baby steps. Sometimes growth isn't linear. 

Can You Learn the Alexander Technique Online?

It’s the middle of teaching an Alexander Technique class at an acting school in NYC, I received an email:

“Out of an abundance of caution, all hands-on work should stop immediately” 

For the next 14 months, I taught all my classes- private and group sessions- on a program I had never used before that seemed to be designed for corporate meetings - Zoom. 

I know this story is familiar to you. I know you probably experienced something like it yourself. As the world dealt with stress, grief, unknowns, and incalculable loss of the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers all over the world labored to translate their lessons into an online format. 

There were initially a lot of questions about whether the Alexander Technique would actually translate. 

Typically, it involves a lot of touch work. The Alexander Technique touch is intended to help get you out of your habitual experience of your body, and into a new psychophysical patterning. In theory, how could this work without touch?  

Alongside my truly brilliant students and colleagues, I discovered how much can translate through the screen, and also some ways that the Alexander Technique online offers unique benefits... 

1. Self Touch
   Yes, the trained hands of a practitioner are priceless, but there’s also a lot you can do for yourself if ya know what I mean. Self-touch has been shown to use the same part of your brain responsible for interoception (sensing what’s going on inside). So starting a warm up with self-touch can heighten that internal tracking, proprioception, awareness available to you. This is especially useful if you’re a person who isn’t sensing much at all in your own body. For students who have a lot of proprioceptive availability, self touch can offer caring attention, relief, and a reference point for accurate body-mapping.

2. Words
   Your mental schema has a huge influence on how you use your body- whether or not you’re aware of what that mental schema is... Zoom has necessitated more discussion, and some of the internal assumptions students are functioning with come to the surface more clearly. Sometimes, simply massaging that with discussion and and guidance can smooth things out into clarity, and it gets to the root of an issue you’re facing psychophysically.

3. Sound
   I found this year how much vibration and making sound helps me connect to my center, and discover dynamic alignment on a very visceral level. Some people aren’t so comfortable with making sound in the studio, but on zoom you can just hit “mute!” 

4. Increased student agency
   Without the hands-on work, a student is challenged to bring their whole self to the table, without leaning so much on the practitioner. (I do believe that is a totally valid way to use a session by the way…AND I noticed some big leaps in understanding in some students who had mostly been engaging on a ‘letting go’ level, and missing the part of the work that involves taking charge of integrating and learning).

5. Access
   This goes without saying. No matter where you live, as long as you have access to the internet & a device, you can get some support. And if you’re a busy parent (or a busy anything), you don’t have to add additional commute time to your self-care.

I’ll continue to see students online and as I return to in person work I’ll take all this with me, as well as a reverence and appreciation for the ability to safely touch you!

With love and appreciation,

Tracy

Bridging the Gap: Mind. Heart. Gut

❓ When I was in my early twenties, I felt a literal separation between my mind, my heart, and my gut.

My body would want one thing, my heart another, and my mind another. I felt no integration between the three.

Confused and discouraged, I had a LOT of trouble making decisions.

🌊 Practicing the Alexander Technique gave me tools for finding easy alignment that allows for the ‘flow’ of information across ‘border lines.’

In a subtle, slow way I began to find some integration, so my gut, heart, and mind could speak to each other.

I ‘tuned in’ to my body on a deeper level, and slowly started to notice when I added unnecessary tension or strain that created ‘blocks’ in the flow of information.

Sometimes these blocks were created by fear- fear of a somatic ‘knowing’ that my mind might disagree with.

Sometimes these blocks were created by simple anatomical misconceptions.

Sometimes, they were created by protective patterns. They open up as I settle through my nervous system with the help of breath work, touch, and community.

Have you ever felt like your mind, heart, and gut want different things for you?

How do you aid their ‘conversation’?

#alexandertechnique #somatics #somaticpractitioner #smashthepatriarchy #actor #nycactor #nycdancers #selflove #communitycare #radicalselflove #physicaltheater #aada #loveyourself #biggerpicture #getreal #somatics4justice #chakras #chakrasaligned #bodylove

A wholistic look at Jaw Tension

🔺Ever feel like your jaw is trying to hold you up? 

🌀The nervous system’s #1 goal is to keep your head from falling in the ground.

🔺If it doesn’t feel supported from underneath, your muscles will tense to great lengths to keep you upright. 

🌀The trouble is, if your jaw’s tied up holding you upright, then it’s not free for other things- like expressing your mind, emotions, and spirit. 

🔺(It also might create a feedback loop of making you feel angry, like it does for me. Tense your jaw- see what I mean?) 

🌀Instead of relying on the subconscious balancing coping mechanisms of your body, try discovering and learning about the deep support inherent in your structure when you cooperate with it- however it shows up. 

🌬 Try this short exercise as a practice:

• Put your hands gently on your jaw-joint. Invite it to soften. This may or may not be accessible to you right away. Try to let go of needing it to change right away :)

• Now shift your attention to your sits bones. Notice them being supported from underneath- by the chair, the couch, the floor- every place they’re touching is a potential place of support .

• Shift to your feet on the ground. Notice them being supported from underneath.

• Feel the ground reactive force move through your structure, past your jaw, all the way to the top of your spine (between your ears).

• Sense the weight of your head balancing on the top of your spine.

• Check back in with your jaw. Is it a little easier?

🔺Most of us rely on the subconscious balancing coping mechanisms of our bodies. What if we discovered and learned about the deep support accessible in our structures and environment?

🌀What if we cooperate with the support inherent in our unique structure and relationships with the earth?

🗣Why isn’t this taught in schools?

🌀Here’s your body- it’s an 💫amazing miracle💫! Let’s understand it in order to cooperate with it and learn sustainable movement- for creative action 👣🎉.

5 steps for working with an Injury

This week, a student asked me how this work relates to recovering from an injury. 

After the immediate physical trauma, there’s a whole journey of healing that needs to happen.

It won’t always be linear, and it takes time and support. 

I’ve found that having an injury can heighten our sensitivity, and deepen our awareness if we allow it to.

Here’s five steps for working with an injury. It is by no means a replacement for medical care. 

In fact, I think of this as “post-care.” 

If you’ve ever dealt with an injury, you know what I mean. Sometimes it can feel like that injured place never quite recovers, or like our body continues to compensate for years to come. These steps can help re-integrate the injured part (or parts) back into our nervous system. 

I draw on the tools I’ve learned from Ann Rodiger, Amiel Malale, Gwen Ellison, and more.

Five steps for working with an injury.

1. Settle the injured place and yourself. Try: Extending your exhale while lying in semi-supine & some gentle self-touch.

2. Educate yourself on the injured part and how it relates to your whole, through muscles, fascia, nerves, etc. Mapping the area may be useful. 

3. Look at how you’re doing your physical therapy exercise- not just what you’re doing.

4. Re-integrate the injured part into your embodied sense of yourself. 

5. Reclaim a sense of safety inside of your activity.

Ultimately, pairing up with an practitioner can really help you along your journey toward feeling whole again. 

#healing #injuryrecovery #injury#injuredathlete #injuredathletesclub#injureddancer #injuredactor 

5 reasons you may be taking shallow breaths

This conversation was originally on instagram.

Great question- and a hard one to answer without working with you directly- but here are some potential reasons. Do any of them resonate with you? 

1. Subconscious misconceptions about your breathing anatomy. The rib-basket is much longer, wider, and deeper than most of us imagine it to be. The diaphragm attaches along the bottom of the rib-basket, and if we think that’s too high up, even subconsciously, we may take shallow breaths. 

2. Subconsciously holding our stomachs “in” to meet some idealized shape.

3. Misconceptions about how the body’s support works can lead us to clench our abs- Core support is important, but must be taught and practiced in a wholistic way that INCLUDES organic breath. 

4. Subconscious sense of unease / mild danger. Look for places in your space that make you feel safe and “anchor” there. 

5. Trauma held in your body. A question you might ask: was there a moment when this holding pattern began for you? For example: after my dad died, I transitioned into an intense holding pattern in my ribs that took years to bring into my awareness and then unwind. Some of it was emotional. Some physical misconceptions. Some all of the above. But If a trauma like this enters your awareness, you might consider working with a Somatic Practitioner to support your unwinding. 

Any of that resonate with you? 💚

If you have a question you’d like answered on this blog, please email me or reply on instagram
and I’d be happy to look it over. Or, Feel free to comment below!

Space and Structure

Structure allows the fire to 🔥 burn 

How are you tending to the space in your day, as well as the moments of activity? 

When the structure is too packed, our fire doesn’t light. There’s not enough “breathing room.”

In the AT, we ask, “where can I do a little less,” and that applies in our lives, too.

Often when we do a lot, we are compensating a feeling lack, or a need to protect our soft, gewy, mushy stuff.

These holding patterns take all of this energy that you could be putting toward connecting with people, serving the world up your talents and gifts, connecting in and giving back in your biggest way. 

I notice I tend to do a lot when I can’t tell that I’m enough, and I really want people to like me. 

What about you?

One of the ways I see people (and myself) working “extra” is when we don’t have a sense of our deep structural support.

Some of our accessory muscles (like our jaw, hip, abdomen) try to hold us up, because we don’t feel supported from the inside.

Good on us, we’re not falling down! Our nervous systems yell “Hooray”!

But the holding from the outside muscles means that those are occupied. Finding an embodied sense of deep structural support frees them up for expression, communication, and play.

One really simple way to find structural support, is to allow the curves of your whole spine. From the way tip-top between your ears to the bottom, up your but crack 👀.

Allow that full length along the curves, and notice if anything else in your body can let go just a little.

Now try singing or dancing or acting. Anything more available to you?

In private lessons we get really specific- I specialize in tuning in with you to your unique system, and uncovering where you have unconscious misconceptions about your mind-body system that are leading to tension and unsupportive habits. Through mapping, images, videos, and exercises, I work with you to find and embodied sense of that deep structural support, so that your outer muscles can calm down- and be available to you for expression, communication, service, and play.

Letting your unique fire 🔥 glow ✌🏼✌🏿✌🏽
So it can warm and light others around it
with that special ✨ sparkle ✨ only you have.

Curves

Everything in the body’s organic. There are no straight lines. How are you directing yourself? What’s it like to listen to the organic curves of yourself? To have an awareness of alignment, and yet a respect for your inherent direction? I’m starting to realize how the desire for straight lines is set up within a European construct of how a body is “supposed” to look. Those patterns run deep for me, as a Jewish woman who was raised desperately trying to fit myself into dance forms that weren’t necessarily designed for my body type. Remembering the organic way all my parts move in relation to each other, I find a power seated in my authentic body. 

What’s it like to embrace all your beautiful curves? Where can you catch yourself trying to “correct” yourself? What would it be like to allow the curves...and I don’t just mean in your hips- every bone is curved and spirally. Play with it...share what you notice in the comments 👇🏼

#bodylove #organic #oftheearth#poisedtoplay

Physical Pain is just the Tip of the Iceberg

I was talking with some powerful women in my life about the many ways our patterns get shaped, and it inspired me to create this graphic. Underneath physical pain is often a deep web of factors. I’ve experienced these in my own life, and witnessed them in the lives of my students:

Under pain, is often a deep web of factors. For example:

• Learned Habits

• Social “Posturing”

• Long forgotten injury

• Social Pressures to look a certain shape

• Conforming your body to an aesthetic against its organic design

• Internalized misconceptions of body-mechanics

• Emotional Holding Patterns

• Continual physical, mental, and emotional stressors

Traditional physical therapy focuses on the pain, without acknowledging or considering the underlying mind-body causes.

In reality, they are inseparable- and if the underlying perceptions aren’t unlearned or refined, it can be difficult to get out of pain.

In fact, the practice of embodiment often reveals what was previously subconscious.

As a practitioner, I consider that important to hold in my awareness at all times.

Our patterns are not individual. They’re informed and affected by the water we swim in, an oppressive society that prophets off of:

• our disconnection from ourselves, our desires, and our sense of safety and belonging.

• ageism, capitalism, classism, cisgenderism, heterosexism, individualism, patriarchy, racism, anti-Semitism, and sexism. To name a few.

Think about your own experience with embodiment. Is there anything you’d add to this chart?

Email me, or let me know in the comments👇🏼

#alexandertechnique #somatics#somaticpractitioner#somaticabitionist#smashthepatriarchy #actor#nycactor #nycdancers #selflove#communitycare #radicalselflove#physicaltheater #aada#loveyourself #biggerpicture#getreal #somatics4justice

Tilling your Somatic Soil

We unearthed my grandfather’s old vegetable garden from beneath 15 years of overgrowth.

Aside from feeling a tangible sense of union with my grandfather’s spirit, I was fascinated by this earth as we prepped it for planting our first vegetables. Even after we raked the first layer of leaves to find earth underneath, it took hours of tilling to clear and aerate the earth. Sneaky, deep, inch-wide weeds invaded the garden beds, and would have sabotaged the outward expression of vegetables planted there.

It made me think about the weeds we carry in the sinews of our flesh- in our mental, physical, emotional bodies- that inhibit the fullest expressions of ourselves, and sometimes even ‘run the show’ deep beneath our conscious awareness.

How do you till our own soil, unearth your weeds, and nurture the ground from which all of your deeds and services spring- yourself?

We are the constant in all our actions and interactions. And the more clear we become, the more our good works can blossom.

I asked some of my instagram followers, “What’s your favorite tool for tilling your mental / emotional soil.”

They replied:

• Friends

• Movement

• Meditation

• Peeling a pomegranate

How do you till the soil of your body mind?

I’d love to see your thoughts in the comments! Let’s build a list !

The Alexander Technique has been the most effective tool for me to till my soil. I never knew an inkling of all the memories, emotions and protective mechanisms that were being held in my body. I just knew I wanted more for myself. Through working with an incredible practitioner, I was able to slowly let go of deep somatic holding, and open myself for more connection, creativity, and flow.

A lot of energy was freed up for me to serve my community, and discover more power in my personal & professional life.

We need to unlearn. re-learn. uncover. and connect.

The 1600 hour Teacher Training unravelled some deep holding patterns, and trained me in the skill of passing on this work.

If you’re interested in this process, feel free to schedule a free consult, and let’s discuss your goals and questions.