Happy birthday Charles Darwin (b 1809) Where are we now? Alexander was concerned about how we humans were to maintain this beautiful upright posture that we had evolved into, faced with the challenges of the industrialised modern world that we’re living in. He recognised that we had developed unhelpful patterns of movement and even in stillness – over and underdoing with different muscle groups – losing our natural, easy poise. In his book ‘Man’s Supreme Inheritance’ he explains how our reactivity is on high alert today. Tension habits happen when the brain sends unhelpful messages to the muscles. We need to stop dystonic muscle signals being sent and encourage new pathways to enable muscle groupings to work as they should to get us back in balance. The Alexander Technique is all about thinking differently, to give us new choices in how we move and how we can increase our overall wellbeing.