Teaching the Expanded Self

CFA’s Polatin calls the Alexander technique “the actor’s secret” Teaching the Expanded Self Betsy Polatin says the Alexander technique can improve movement and speech and help treat post-traumatic stress disorder. CYDNEY SCOTT (2) SCOTT CYDNEY Betsy Polatin’s But over time, our tury by Frederick Matthias Alexander, subtle craft is not easy bodies have a way of a Shakespearean actor who began to describe, but her sabotaging our well- losing his voice. When doctors could students are happy to being with quirks find no physical pathology to explain expound on the results: in our everyday it, Alexander hypothesized that his after her course, they movements, such breathing and body positioning were say, they are more as the way we hold to blame. focused, more confident, our heads, sit in a “When we let go of some of our and more at ease with chair, speak, sing, habits and patterns that keep us locked their bodies. A longtime or lean forward to in a certain way, we see there are all practitioner of the open a door. We these other choices,” says Polatin, Alexander technique could all benefit who has been teaching the Alexander and a master lecturer from simple adjust- technique for decades. “The work is so at the College of Fine ments, says Polatin, much about changing those patterns.” Arts School of Theatre, who works mainly For example, a person may walk a lit- Polatin refers to the century-old with actors and musicians. tle bit hunched forward, but doesn’t system as “a practical method for self- The long list of performers who realize it, she says. “And so when you improvement.” In the introduction to have used the technique includes point it out, and get them upright, the her book The Actor’s Secret: Techniques Oscar-winning actors Judi Dench, world looks different to them. Their for Transforming Habitual Patterns and Hilary Swank, Ben Kingsley, William vision is different. They feel different.” Improving Performance (North Atlantic Hurt, and the late Paul Like grandma’s chicken WEB EXTRA Books, 2013), Polatin recalls that after Newman and musicians soup, the Alexander technique Watch a her first Alexander lesson many years Paul McCartney, Madonna, can’t hurt; it involves none of video of Betsy ago, she thought, “This is still me, but and Sting. But anyone can Polatin, a the often-vigorous, sometimes- not the me I always knew.” benefit from it, and studies CFA master perilous physical demands With a light, empathetic touch, have found that it’s helpful lecturer, of some yoga styles or yoga- teachers of the Alexander technique not just for movement and teaching Pilates blends. But in the hands students the help people identify and rid themselves speech, but to treat post- Alexander of an experienced practitioner of habits caused by a lifetime of stress. traumatic stress disorder. technique like Polatin, those who prac- As children, most of us moved fluidly, The technique was devel- at bu.edu tice the technique find it alle- without self-consciousness or tension. oped in the early 20th cen- /bostonia . viates repetitive strain injuries, 6 BOSTONIA Fall 2014 04-17_BostoniaFall2014_v2.indd 6 10/3/14 11:18 AM backaches, tightness in the neck and shoulders, and cramping from hours Olympic Gold Medalist Is New anchored in front of a computer screen. For singers, musicians, actors, dancers, Women’s Basketball Coach and athletes, it can mean a dramatic improvement in one’s game, according Katy Steding looks to mesh her style to Polatin. “Before discovering the Alexander and players’ style technique, I was someone who ap- proached life and my art through tension, and as a result it was tougher Katy Steding, BU’s new women’s bas- MOLLIE MCCLURE for my vulnerability to come through,” ketball coach, is looking forward to “a says Jesse Garlick (CFA’14), an acting happy marriage” of her coaching style major. “Now, after working with the and her players’ on-court style, she said technique for three and a half years, in her public debut at BU in June. Steding I find that it is far easier to express comes from the University of California, myself in every walk of life because Berkeley, where as an assistant women’s of the ease and grace I have found in basketball coach she helped lead her the class.” team to two NCAA tournaments. The technique is something that, The women Terriers will “have to once you learn it, you continue to do adjust to what we want to do, but I’ll on your own, says Polatin. “One of actually have to adjust to what they can Alexander’s ideas was that it didn’t do and want to do and how they play,” make sense to exercise for an hour a Steding told reporters at the press con- Steding comes to BU ference. “If you try to morph players into day and for the rest of the time walk from the University of around all slumped over and not really something that they’re not familiar play- California, Berkeley, where caring about what you’re doing with ing like, you’re going to have problems.” as an assistant women’s basketball coach she helped yourself.” Through subtle, deliberate Michael Lynch, then BU athletics lead her team to two NCAA exercises, like head movements or slow, director, introduced Steding, the seventh tournaments. carefully aligned bends and squats, coach to lead BU’s women’s basketball the technique, she says, “encourages team, as a woman whose “experience ty’s rigorous academics, its membership you to think about what you are doing is second to none,” both as player and in the Patriot League, and the appeal of until you catch yourself and say, ‘Oh, coach. Before her Berkeley job, Steding living in Boston. I want to do something a little more was head coach of women’s basketball Steding replaces Kelly Greenberg, who efficiently.’” Breathing is crucial, for seven years at Oregon’s Warner resigned in April amid allegations from too. “Most people tend to breathe Paciﬁ c College, where she oversaw the some players that she bullied them, lead- shallowly—as students do things like program’s transition from club level ing four to quit in the last year. In her chat texting, they hold their breath, or to varsity team. She left in 2008 for a with reporters, Steding said she didn’t actors preparing to go on stage hold season as assistant coach of the WNBA’s know if the controversy would linger with their breath, and the technique helps Atlanta Dream. her players. “I don’t intend for it to linger. them realize that.” Steding was on the 1996 US Olympic What I’ve said to everybody is, I think the Students come to Polatin expecting gold medal–winning women’s basket- most important thing is that this is our to learn ways to improve their perfor- ball team, and has played professional- team, and we’re going to move forward. mance. But the experience is often ly in the WNBA, with the Seattle Storm I think the girls are excited about the fu- life-changing. She calls it “the ex- and Sacramento Monarchs, and with ture, and that’s all I can ask for.…They’re panded self.” And it can be quite the American Basketball League’s good players, so I don’t think it’s that far powerful. “What happens is the stu- Portland Power. off to expect success.” The Terriers start dents will do a monologue and then She said the coach’s position here was the season at crosstown rival Northeast- we work, and we get more space inside, her dream job, because of the Universi- ern on November 14. more opening in the whole body and A student-athlete at Stanford, Steding less constriction, and they begin to was a power forward and helped her speak, and all of a sudden they get team to its ﬁ rst NCAA Women’s Divi- scared because of the resonance, the SCOTT CYDNEY sion I basketball championship in 1990. booming sound of their own voice.” She graduated that year with a psychol- And then, she says, the students ogy degree. A native Oregonian, she was get used to that. “And that’s part of inducted into Stanford’s Sports Hall of the work. Getting used to your own Fame in 2002 and the Oregon Sports expanded self.” SUSAN SELIGSON Hall of Fame in 2004. RICH BARLOW Fall 2014 BOSTONIA 7 04-17_BostoniaFall2014_v2.indd 7 10/3/14 11:19 AM.

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