What Happens When You Stop Trying to Fix Your Posture and Start Changing Your Attention? | Tommy Thompson Class 73
❝ What does it mean to truly meet another human being—not by fixing them, but by offering the quiet steadiness of your attention? ❞
We often try to help others by rushing in with solutions, explanations, or corrections. But what if transformation doesn’t come from doing more—but from doing less? What if the most powerful support you can offer is simply your attention—not focused like a laser, but open like a field?
On September 10, 2023, in Boston, Massachusetts, Tommy Thompson led a class in the Alexander Technique teacher training course that quietly, and profoundly, redefined how we understand support, movement, and identity.
This class wasn’t about adjusting postures or managing behaviors. It was about uncovering what’s already there—beneath effort, beneath identity, beneath habit.
Tommy doesn’t instruct. He invites. He doesn’t define. He meets. And in that meeting, something shifts—not just in how we move, but in how we are.
This is not performance. It’s wellness at the level of presence.
This is not therapy. It’s relationship.
This is the Alexander Technique, not as a method of correction, but as a way of being in the world—with yourself, and with others.
Key Objectives of the Class:
- To explore how the quality of attention alters neuromuscular coordination.
- To understand support as presence, not intervention.
- To integrate being and doing through embodied direction and non-doing.
- To allow the body’s own design to reorganize itself—not by force, but by relationship.
This blog series is based on Tommy Thompson’s Alexander Technique classes. Each post follows the flow and insights of the class to expand both self-awareness and practical consciousness applicable to everyday life.
New here?
If you’re new to the Alexander Technique, you can start with the resources below.
Alexander Technique Class Flow at a Glance
1. The Opening Question
❝ What if the change you’re searching for isn’t something you do… but something you stop doing? ❞
We spend our lives trying to fix ourselves—stand taller, move better, breathe deeper, be more present. But what if all that doing is the very thing in the way?
In this Alexander Technique class, led by Tommy Thompson in the teacher training course, we weren’t told to improve. We were invited to notice. Not to fix, but to discover.
And that begins with attention—not focused effort, but receptive awareness. Attention that listens rather than directs. That stops trying to define, and begins to feel.
The shift happens not by adding more effort, but by removing interference.
Tommy’s Word
“The first thing I look at is the quality of your attention. I put my hands on your intention—attention—and I feel it registering in your neuromuscular self. But I’m touching your outcome. I’m following your attention slowly. You’re moving slowly. You’re coming back and up. But I’m following your attention as you experience what’s going on.”
Tommy doesn’t teach you to do more. He teaches you to listen deeper—to how you’re being, before you act. In the Alexander Technique, change isn’t performed. It’s uncovered.
He follows your attention, not to lead, but to meet you. So that you might begin to meet yourself.
2. Core Learnings from This Class
Core Concepts
- Support is not intervention
Change doesn’t come from correction—it arises from offering presence. As Tommy says, “Support, support, support.” This isn’t about doing something to the person, but about creating a field in which they can rediscover their own integrity. - Uncover, don’t create
Nothing needs to be invented or fixed. “I’m not creating anything. I’m uncovering something.” This principle shifts the teacher from director to witness, allowing what’s essential to reveal itself. - Attention precedes movement
In the Alexander Technique, movement begins in attention. It is not mechanical, but expressive. As Tommy works with trainees, he follows not their posture, but their quality of attention—the invisible engine of coordination.
Five Key Messages
- The quality of your attention shapes your coordination.
Attention is not focus. It is spacious, directional, and dynamic. Tommy doesn’t fix posture—he tracks the student’s awareness as it moves. - You don’t fix the body—you release what doesn’t belong.
When habitual tension fades, natural organization re-emerges. It’s a gentle undoing, not a doing. - You are always using your whole self.
“You’re not learning to use your hands—you’re learning to use your whole self.” Every gesture, every touch is the expression of the entire being. - ‘Back and up’ is not a position—it’s an orientation.
This isn’t about holding your head a certain way. It’s about letting the spine rise and expand from the ground of being. - Inhibition is the sacred pause that makes presence possible.
To inhibit is to step back from defining and doing—and allow a deeper intelligence to emerge in its own time. As Tommy reminds us: “Withhold definition. Let the mystery do its work.”
Essential Terms
- Support
More than physical, support is the space of presence we offer another. It’s the commitment to hold, not to mold. - Uncovering
A central principle of Tommy’s work. Not about changing someone—but allowing what is already there to be seen, felt, and lived. - Inhibition
The quiet moment before reaction. In Alexander work, this is where freedom lives—where we refrain from old patterns and let the body reorient. - Back and Up
A signature direction in the Alexander Technique. It speaks not only to posture, but to a whole orientation of being: uplifted, connected, open. - Whole Self
No part acts in isolation. Whether standing, sitting, or touching, the whole person is always involved. This idea is foundational to every moment of training.
3. Tommy’s Insights
In Tommy’s words during class, there are not only the core principles of the Alexander Technique, but also practical wisdom that can be applied directly to daily life. His words go beyond simple advice about movement and prompt us to deeply consider how we choose to exist.1. “The first thing I look at is the quality of your attention. I put my hands on your intention—attention—and I feel it registering in your neuromuscular self. But I’m touching your outcome. I’m following your attention slowly. You’re moving slowly. You’re coming back and up. But I’m following your attention as you experience what’s going on.”
➤ Attention is the gateway. The teacher listens through touch to how intention is organized in the neuromuscular system.
2. “If someone would lie on the table, you would be sitting there. You would have their hands under the head and neck. Or you would have your hands here. Or you could have your hands here. You could have your hands any way. And as you do that, what you want to carry with you is: ‘I’m not creating anything. I’m uncovering something.’”
➤ This work is about revealing innate coordination, not manufacturing it.
3. “If you diffuse the localization of muscular contraction in a given muscle group, brought on by their commitment to habituation that has nothing to do with the way they’re designed to function, the pattern of behavior that they’re accustomed to begins to diffuse. It’s just like a slow letting go, and you can aid and abet the letting go by doing what we’re doing right now.”
➤ Through subtle touch and presence, you invite tension patterns to dissolve and reveal freer movement.
4. “Alexander felt as though—if Frank Jones didn’t feel that, the group in London did—that you had to be in what he called the position of mechanical advantage in order to effectively change the pattern of neuromuscular movement. Of course, that’s where you go. It helps you—as the teacher.”
➤ Using mechanical advantage allows both teacher and student to access new coordination with less effort and greater clarity.
5. “If you were standing, you’d have equal pressure with your feet. And you can’t have equal pressure—you have approximate equal pressure with your feet and your hands, and you are balanced between coming and going. It is the still point of support—the still point of support that you’re hunting for. And the still point is right at the base of the brain—the Atlas.”
➤ Poise emerges when the body is neither holding back nor rushing forward, but suspended in responsive support centered at the Atlas.
6. “It’s letting the neuromuscular aspect of the neck do what it’s designed to do to keep you in support. You’re honoring the system that supports your life. You’re honoring the system that supports the person’s life that you got your hands on. You have their life in your hands.“
➤ The neck coordinates the whole; when you touch it, you’re in relationship with the person’s vitality and identity.
7. “Now try withholding definition. Withhold defining how you think you should do what you’re doing. You know what you’re going to do, so that’s in your desire.”
➤ Letting go of pre-definition lets the work emerge freshly from your intention rather than from habit.
8. “You’re not learning to use your hands—you’re learning to use your whole self. You express through—express through—touch. Express through touch.“
➤ Touch is not technique—it’s how the integrity of your whole self is communicated in contact.
9. “I will keep you in support while you go through whatever you’re trying to go through—giving you a sense of who you truly are, not just in your trauma but beyond it—by simply being present without defining you, offering support, support, support, which may be as simple as holding, or holding your hand.”
➤ True support doesn’t fix or guide—it witnesses, contains, and allows the person to meet themselves beyond their trauma.
4. Practical Tips for Everyday Life
What’s the Goal?
You’re not fixing your body. You’re creating conditions for the whole of you to come into support. That means letting attention, breath, and contact reshape how you stand, sit, speak, and move—moment by moment. You’re not training for performance—you’re letting life move through you with support, as Tommy often said.
How to Practice
- Pause Before You Speak
Let your words arise from stillness, not tension. Before answering, pause and feel the weight of your feet, the openness of your palms. Just a breath-long space. It changes everything. - Touch the Table (or Your Lap)
While seated, gently press your hands into the surface. Let the pressure travel from your palms to your back—feel your spine rise back and up. You’re not doing it. You’re listening to what’s already there. - Stand as Support
At the kitchen counter, in line, or at your desk—stand with equal weight on both feet. Don’t fix your posture. Instead, notice how your body meets the ground. Let the still point at the base of your skull gently balance your whole form.
What You’ll Notice
These aren’t exercises. They’re ways of returning to presence. Over time, you’ll sense a quiet clarity—less doing, more noticing. You’ll walk into the next moment already supported.
As Tommy said:
“You’re not learning to use your hands—you’re learning to use your whole self. You express through touch.”
5. Closing the Class
Key Takeaways
Tommy didn’t teach by telling you what to do. He guided you to notice—to become aware of what was already present.
This class was not about changing the body, but about changing how we relate to ourselves within it.
“You’re not learning to use your hands. You’re learning to use your whole self. You express through touch.”
In this class, the work wasn’t mechanical. It was relational. Every moment was an invitation to return to the place where you are supported, not directed.
Core Insights
As the class came to a close, Tommy reminded us—presence is not a technique.
It’s a way of being that asks nothing of us except honesty. When we let go of the need to fix, correct, or define, what remains is a body that remembers how to coordinate itself.
“Let presence do the naming.”
The Alexander Technique, as practiced here, is not about posture.
It’s about how we meet the moment, and whether we do so from habit or from awareness.
A Final Invitation
Tommy left us with one simple question, the kind that echoes long after the class ends:
“Don’t ask, ‘What should I do?’ Ask, ‘Where is my attention resting?’”
That question holds open the doorway.
The technique doesn’t end when the class does.
It walks with you—in the way you sit, stand, listen, touch, and breathe.
It’s not about fixing yourself.
It’s about meeting yourself. Again and again, with support.
6. One Key Practice
Pause before movement
Not to think, not to fix—just to notice.
This tiny act creates space. In that space, you meet the moment. You meet yourself.
“Let your awareness arrive before your body does.”
The pause isn’t about hesitation.
It’s a return to presence before doing.
Try it the next time you reach, speak, or rise.
The Alexander Technique begins here.
In the pause.
In the noticing.
In the willingness not to rush.
7. Three Questions to Ask Yourself
Ask these not to fix—but to feel.
They’re for this breath, this movement, this choice.
- Where is my attention resting?
Not where should it be—but where is it now? - Am I doing more than necessary?
What softens if I let go? - What if nothing needs to be corrected?
What opens when I allow instead of adjust?
“Don’t move from habit. Move instead from awareness.”
Don’t rush to answer.
Stay with the question. That’s the work.
8. For Those Who Wish to Learn More
Recommended Book
Body Learning: An Introduction to the Alexander Technique – Michael Gelb
Among the many introductions to the Alexander Technique, this book remains one of the most accessible and enduring. What makes it especially relevant to Class 73 is its deep dive into the role of attention in psychophysical re-education.
Gelb doesn’t just explain the Technique—he illuminates how awareness precedes change, how attention isn’t effort but orientation, and how subtle shifts in perception affect the whole self. For those touched by Tommy’s language of stillness, contact, and discovery, this book feels like a natural companion.
“The Alexander Technique is not a method to accumulate information nor the art of learning something new. It is, instead, the art of unlearning.”
– Body Learning
Official Website of Tommy Thompson
www.easeofbeing.com
This is the official website personally managed by Tommy Thompson, offering a wide range of resources and programs to deepen your understanding and practice of the Alexander Technique:
- Private session reservations and inquiries
- Workshop and seminar schedules
- Overview of international teacher training programs
- Essays and articles on the Alexander Technique
9. Next Class Sneak Peek
What happens when touch stops being about correction… and becomes a moment of real human recognition?
In the next class, Tommy will challenge everything we think we know about contact. You’ll discover why most people have never truly been touched—not because no one laid hands on them, but because no one was truly present.
We’ll explore how the Alexander Technique can shift from mechanics to meaning—how your touch, your presence, and your use of self all become one inseparable gesture of awareness.
Get ready for a class that goes beyond alignment or form. This is about the relational essence of touch, and what it means to meet another as a person, not a project.
In Class 74, we’ll explore:
Touch as Relationship – how intentional contact opens a space for mutual presence and transformation.
10. Join the Alexander Technique Journey
Did this class leave a small resonance within you? Feel free to quietly hold it in your heart or share it in just a sentence or two. The comments are always open. Your one simple word may leave a gentle ripple in this ongoing journey.The journey of Resonance Flow continues across social media as well. Let’s continue this journey together.
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