Running with a 6 year old

It says Alexander Technique, but actually I want to talk about my little girl Angelica. She is 6 and passionately interested in running. So she asks me for Alexander lessons "Daddy, can you show me how to run faster?" "Sure darling, let's go". The problem is, no matter what the instruction, her passion is so great she "does" the instruction, resulting in more tension that she had to begin with. I then work on us runing together, my hand on her head/shoulders and guiding her to speeds she had not acheived on her own, and in the process experiencing the loss of effort that her previous wish to go "faster" generated in her system. We just had our second lesson the other day. More to come I hope.

Her rival at Kindergaten, Mizuko (we live in Japan), discovered that Angelica was coaching her team for the relay race this week. That's right - Angelica takes the information I give her and "trains" her team to run faster. So Mizuko demands that Angelica show her how to run faster. "Sure I will," says Angelica "once the race is over."

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