Episode 66: Finding Ease Through Body Awareness with Jennifer Roig-Francoli

As creatives, and as humans more broadly, we can find ourselves holding habitual tension and pain in our bodies by virtue of our work, whether it be playing a musical instrument, performing physical labor, or simply sitting at a desk all day. Jennifer Roig-Francoli, a violinist and coach specializing in the Primal Alexander Technique, helps people rediscover ease and joy through body awareness. We discuss her personal and spiritual journey from professional concert violinist to coach and teacher, and she leads listeners through a guided body awareness practice using the Primal Alexander Technique developed by her partner, Mio Morales. 

For our Creativity Pro-Tip, we encourage you to practice the body awareness technique introduced in this episode, and to watch some of Jennifer’s YouTube videos to learn more. 

Credits: The Syncreate podcast is created and hosted by Melinda Rothouse, and produced at Record ATX studios with in collaboration Michael Osborne and 14th Street Studios in Austin, Texas. Syncreate logo design by Dreux Carpenter.

If you enjoy this episode and want to learn more about the creative process, you might also like our conversations in Episode 2: Embodiment and Creativity with Thais Bicalho Silva, Episode 4: Stewarding Change with Reem Khashou, and Episode 62: The Neuroscience of Creativity with Dr. Indre Viskontas. 

At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors. If you have an idea for a project or a new venture, and you’re not sure how to get it off the ground, find us at syncreate.org. Our book, also called Syncreate, walks you through the stages of the creative process so you can take action on your creative goals. We also offer resources, creative process tools, and coaching to help you bring your work to the world. You can find more information on our website, where you can also find all of our podcast episodes. Find and connect with us on social media and YouTube under Syncreate, and we’re now on Patreon as well. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review! We’d love to hear your feedback as well, so drop us a line at info@syncreate.org. 

Episode-specific hyperlinks: 

Jennifer’s Website - The Art of Freedom

Jennifer’s YouTube Channel

Book - Make Great Music with Ease, by Jennifer Roig-Francoli

The Alexander Technique

Show / permanent hyperlinks: 

The Syncreate Podcast

Syncreate Website

Syncreate Instagram

Syncreate Facebook

Syncreate LinkedIn

Syncreate YouTube

Melinda Rothouse Website

Transcript

Melinda: Welcome to Syncreate, a show where we explore the intersections between creativity, psychology, and spirituality. We believe everyone has the capacity to create. Our goal is to demystify the creative process and expand the boundaries of what it means to be creative. We talk with visionaries and changemakers and everyday creatives working in a wide range of fields and mediums, from the arts to science, technology and business.

We aim to illuminate the creative process from imagination to innovation and everything in between. I'm Melinda Rothouse and I help individuals and organizations bring their dreams and visions to life. At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors. So if you have an idea for a project or a new venture, and you're not quite sure how to get it off the ground, find us at syncreate.org.

Our book, also called Syncreate, walks you through the stages of the creative process so you can take action on your goals. We also offer resources, creative process tools, and coaching to help you bring your work to the world. And specifically, we'll be starting up a Syncreate monthly creativity coaching group in 2025. So check out the website for more details.

We'd love for you to join us! So my guest for today is Jennifer Roig-Francoli. She is the author of Make Great Music with Ease: The Secret to Smarter Practice, Confident Performance, and Living a Happier Life. She, in her early life, was a performing violinist and soloist who performed at venues all over the world, including Carnegie Hall.

She's also a healer and coach, and she's the creator of the Art of Freedom method for conscious living and masterful artistry. She's a certified Alexander Technique teacher, and I am very excited to have her on the show today. Welcome, Jennifer. So happy to have you on the Syncreate podcast today. 

Jennifer: Thank you Melinda. I'm really excited to be here. Thanks for having me. 

Melinda: Absolutely. Yeah, we've been chatting for a little while now, so it's great that we can actually make this happen. And so, I kind of want to dive in because, you know, you're a long time performer, and then now you do coaching to help musicians. And I think other creatives as well, in their creative process to have more ease and more kind of flow with what they do.

You use the Alexander Technique as part of that. And so, you know, just kind of looking at your journey as a young person. And I was actually just listening to your episode with Whitney Ann Jenkins on The Unconditioning podcast. She's a colleague of mine as well. 

Jennifer: Yeah. That's fun. 

Melinda: Yeah, that was a great episode. So, you know, just knowing that kind of in your early life, you were really, really focused on your violin career and being a soloist.

You performed all over the world, including at Carnegie Hall, and that was really a big dream of yours. And then at age 19, 20, you had a major shift in your perspective. And, you know, on this podcast, we're really looking at creativity, psychology and spirituality. So that really perked my interest, that element of your story that I would say, I don't know if you characterize it as a spiritual awakening or kind of a heart awakening, and I'd love to hear a little bit more about that shift for you and how that changed your perspective on things.

Jennifer: Yes. Well, you're really diving right in, like you said. Yes, I would say that that was a dividing line in my life, so to speak. It was like a before and after. Like you said, my life was completely focused on music and on becoming successful professionally as a musician. And when I was 19, I was in the last year of, college.

I sort of did everything a little quickly, skipped first grade, skipped 12th grade, and then I was like, ready to be done with college. And I met my husband-to-be when I was 19, and at that point, I had done quite a bit with my music, like you detailed, and I still had lots of ambitions.

I was planning on studying with a teacher over in Europe, and then I was going to do big competitions. And so I had big ambitions, and yet when I was exposed for the first time in my life to the possibility that I could see life from a different angle, like a completely different way, namely from a spiritual perspective, then it really was almost instantaneous.

It happened really, really fast, where I suddenly realized that what I had been looking for in music all along, and what had kept me sane and through music was actually not so much the music itself, but music was the medium that I had been given in the family that I grew up in, and I guess my soul. I wanted a violin when I was two, and so that was really just the medium that I was using to access my spirit through my heart.

And as soon as I was exposed to the possibility of thinking that way, it just was a no-brainer for me. And I would have quit the violin just right then and there because I'm like, oh, I don't need this anymore. Which was a little bit throwing the baby out with the bathwater, I realized later. I didn't actually quit the violin, but I did completely drop my solo career ambitions at that time, and I kept playing the violin only because I got really good advice from a couple people that I really trusted, including my husband at the time.

He's now my ex-husband, but I am forever grateful for his advice to me, to keep to the violin. So I kept playing in different capacities and doing a lot with my music, but it was never the central thing anymore and still isn't. Yeah, there's so much more I can say about that. But I hope I answered your question.

Melinda: Yeah. No. And I'm really curious about that because, you know, I'm on a spiritual path myself, and it's something that I love to explore the connections between creativity and spirituality. But, you know, for you, it sounds like the sort of, the creativity in terms of playing the violin came first and then maybe the spirituality came in later.

So I'm curious, were you raised in any kind of religious context? 

Jennifer: Nothing, nothing. My parents, I think, continue to be, atheist/agnostic, like somewhere along that spectrum. And I grew up completely in that mindset. I remember so well, I don't know how old I was, but I was pretty young. I remember being in the car, I think it was coming home from school one day, and I asked my dad about God.

And, I remember his answer being, well, we don't really know. And I thought, oh, well, that makes sense. And that was the end of the conversation. And that was the end of my, I mean, that sort of answered my question and I was satisfied with that answer. So I was not looking for anything that my mind was religious at all.

And I did not put what I was looking for into the category in my head of spirituality or religion. So then when I actually found that it had to be from a deeper perspective, it was not a superficial way at all of thinking of religion or or spirituality. 

Melinda: Yeah. And so this kind of spiritual perspective that your now ex-husband introduced you to, what was the context of that? Was it connected to any particular wisdom tradition or how would you characterize that? 

Jennifer: I think I would characterize that as a very universal, traditional perspective. So and then I got really interested in comparative religions like at that time. So I started reading a lot from multiple old traditions and pretty much discovering that the way I see it and the way I was, you know, shown all these things, was that at the core of all the religions, really the essential for religion is what human beings carry in our hearts, regardless of the outer form.

So I got very interested and, you could say like perennial wisdom or primordial wisdom, essential core heart wisdom that we all have. And I think I was accessing that without knowing what it was through playing my violin when I was very young. 

Melinda: Yeah, that makes sense to me. And an interesting point of intersection in our journeys, because you were studying music at Indiana University.

I was getting a Master's in religious studies at Indiana University. I don't think we were there at quite the same time, but, I too wasn't raised in a particularly religious household. But I came to have an interest in studying religion and wisdom and mysticism because I was curious about these bigger questions, these kind of existential questions of life.

So I think it's really interesting that, you know, in your early life, you kind of tapped into that through music and performance. And then when this kind of shift happened, you know, it really changed your perspective on things quite a bit. Right?

Jennifer: Completely. 

Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. And I heard you speak about, you know, that often when we're pursuing, you know, particularly performing specifically, there can be this egoic component to it, like we're doing it because we want to be known or there's some drive there. And so how did that shift for you at that time? 

Jennifer: That's a great question. And I think this question is related to why I was about to just drop the violin completely at the time, because I was well aware that my ambitions to be a famous international violin soloist, and win all the competition, I just was very conscious that there was ego there.

And I wanted to not do things that way. So for me, at that time, it seemed like the obvious easy solution to just drop it all. And I think it's pretty unusual, you know, having lived quite a, you know, few decades after that. That was a while ago. I think it's pretty unusual for somebody to just completely drop their art that way.

I have come full circle. And I know now that it is completely possible to have a successful performing career or to be very visible in the public eye and not make it about ego, but it's always risky, you know, there's always that risk there. And I think we need to be really careful to just be aware of when that starts to creep in.

And a lot of the times it creeps in and we just don't know it. But then, you know, as soon as we discover and sense that that's creeping in, well, then we have a fresh moment to just, you know. Drop that. Stop doing that. 

Melinda: Right. Well and and though it can be a driving factor, right, I think that this kind of leads into the work that you do now, it can also become, I don't know, a prison of sorts or, you know, that that drive, that ambition.

Especially if it's coming from a more egoic place, you know, can be become a cause for suffering for a lot of musicians and performers, right? 

Jennifer: Yeah, I think so. I mean, just the expression suffering artist. 

Melinda: Yes. The tortured artists.

Jennifer: Suffering starving artist! I think that, you know, suffering is inevitable, but it's because we're human. Not necessarily because we're artists. And I'll also say I think every human is an artist, so they kind of go together. Depends what you're looking at. Suffering is inevitable. But I think a big part of my work is to help myself and others to just be present to whatever is happening. So if there is suffering happening, like and there really always is, because we're human and we're stuck in this body.

Right? And that in itself is a challenge. But whenever you're noticing that to start being aware that the opposite is also present and we are made, I strongly believe and feel and live that we are designed or created to experience joy and to rise above the suffering. But that's a skill and it requires practice. It's natural to us, but we've covered it up, and we don't know that we've covered up that light and that joy. 

And sometimes we know that we've done it to a certain extent. But there's more that we're covering up that we're not aware we're we're doing. So a big part of my work is just helping people to start get curious about these things and to start getting curious about what they're actually doing and thinking and living right now.

And then being able to make it a split-second choice to look at something different, like what is actually working, what's easy? Can we get curious about the light and the joy and, shift our thinking out of suffering mode? And it really is 100% about what we're doing with our thinking and our even more, more than our thinking is really our awareness.

Where do we choose to place our attention? What do we want to be aware of? And we get to choose. I think that's our human divine right. So we we get to practice that. 

Melinda: Yeah. So your book and the coaching work that you do really is around this idea of finding ease and joy, right? As performers, as musicians, as creatives and as human beings.

And so I'm curious a little bit about what that journey was like for you and what led you after this kind of awakening moment from a desire to perform to a desire to help others find this joy and ease in their lives? 

Jennifer: Yeah, well, a long story. I'll try to make it short. 

Melinda: I know there's a lot there. 

Jennifer: So like I said before single single-minded focus, as a child a musician. And I at the time thought I have a happy childhood. I felt very privileged, very grateful always. But then as an adult, looking back, I realized that I actually was the suffering artist as a child. I was very, very shy. It was easy for me to perform through music. Just easy. I didn't have performance anxiety, but I had a pretty extreme social anxiety.

I had a hard time speaking. The fact that I'm doing this now is the proof that I have changed, like, completely from. Yeah, I was terrified to speak on stage. I was even terrified to get on the phone with anybody. So then I got married and I started opening up to exploring spirituality and meditation, contemplation, spending time in nature in different ways.

So there was that period. But it was also a kind of isolated period where I got married. I wasn't intending to get married at all at that time, like my plans, changed completely, but it was a mixture of finding spirituality and personal human love at the same time. So they kind of went together. And then after eight years, I started having my kids.

I have two sons now. They're 25 and 23, and I progressively got less happy, even though I had the spiritual perspective and I was still making music, I just, I could not understand. And I had a lot of guilt about not being happy because I had it all from looking from the outside. But inside I just was not happy no matter what I did.

And then I started having some physical pain down the road, and it was partly because of carrying babies around on my hips, you know, totally misaligned. That was part of it. But really it was something deeper. And so when I finally found the Alexander Technique, that came really out of a desperate, heart-felt, heart-wrenching plea for help, because I didn't know how to help myself.

Nothing out there was help. And I think I read all the self-help books in the bookstore.

Melinda: Right. But I think it's these moments of crisis or where we kind of hit this low point that, you know, we're really ready to do something different. And then that inspires a change. So you found the Alexander Technique, which I know there's so much out there in the world about it.

And you talked about it a bit in The Unconditioning podcast episode, but maybe just a brief kind of intro for people who haven't experienced it before. 

Jennifer: Yes, absolutely. The Alexander Technique has been around since the early, I guess, late 1800s. Alexander was born in 1869. He was an actor. He had performance issues. He got hoarse on stage and nobody could help him.

So he figured out how to help himself and solved his performance issues, started teaching other people, and then realized that how he was interfering with his self-expression as an artist was what all humans do in our everyday lives. And so fast forward to the modern era. Most people know about, well people who have heard of the Alexander Technique and most artists have, it's required at Juilliard, for example, for actors, and it's found in some of the top music schools around the world.

So people in the arts world have generally heard of it, but it really is for anybody. It helps with pain relief, stress relief, tension relief, skills improvement. Basically, you learn how to do whatever you want to do in life with more ease and in a healthier way that is more in alignment with your natural design. The way I teach it is different from what you might find if you look it up online.

So the way I teach the Alexander Technique, it's actually an evolution of the technique called Primal Alexander, which was created by my boyfriend, Mio Morales, who's a master Alexander Technique teacher.

And I put this into the context of my own work called the Art of Freedom method for conscious living and masterful artistry. And what makes it really different to practice Primal Alexander is that traditionally Alexander Technique uses touch. I actually would have and this is how I was trained, three years of training to use my hands to gently guide a student into what we call better use of the self.

And I've learned now how to do that without my hands, which is just the best thing. I really, I love the hands on work and it is very therapeutic and wonderful. Changed my life. But I feel like this is at least for me, and for many people, you know, a step beyond because when there's a hands-on communication, it can sometimes get confusing as to what the teacher is doing, what the student is doing.

When I'm teaching without touch, there's no confusion. And it's clear that I'm helping my students to think differently, to get different results in their own bodies and minds, emotions and lives. So I love Primal Alexander.

Melinda: And I think it's it feels to me quite empowering. I mean, number one, you can work with a broader range of people because you don't have to be in person.

But then this sort of skill and awareness that you're helping people develop is something that then they have within them, and they know they have it within them, and they can call upon that without external assistance. 

Jennifer: That's right. Yeah. 

Melinda: You know, I'm a I'm a musician as well. I'm a singer-songwriter and bass player. And so, you know, as musicians, as actors and performers, but particularly musicians with instruments for, you know, we get into habitual patterns of, like, holding tension in our bodies or the way we hold our instrument, but it's certainly not unique to musicians, like I had a realization recently. I've been having an issue with my hip for a while, and it's related to a specific injury, but I also realized that I was carrying a crossbody bag that was causing my body to not be completely symmetrical, and I thought, wow. And it was a little, it was kind of heavy. And I realized like, oh, this might actually be contributing to the problem.

So there's all these habitual things we do, like if we sit at a desk every day for work, you know, we get into certain, patterns of holding tension in our bodies or things like that. And so this technique is really helpful in bringing awareness to that. Right? 

Jennifer: Very much. It's definitely a system that helps to change habits.

Melinda: Yeah. 

Jennifer: And yes. And it is done through awareness. It really is. Sometimes I say it's a subtraction technique. We're actually learning how to do less. And do less of the things that interfere with our natural design. I believe that we are beautifully designed, you know, in the absence of major injury or terrible disease that, you know, maybe disconnects the nervous system somehow.

But that's very rare. And I think that people, human beings, are naturally designed to function optimally. And yet very early on, maybe even in the womb sometimes, you know, even for babies, we are picking up on everything around us. We're picking up on the energy of the mother when we're in the womb, we're energy.

We're picking up on the energy. And also it's not just energy. Energy is a big part of it, but it's also the physicalness of the mother and the people, the caretakers. Once we're born as toddlers, we are created to imitate and learn from the big people around us. But, you know, even before we're verbal, we are seeing and absorbing everything around us.

And we have a system that allows us to take things in and balance ourselves. But it gets trained, it gets educated out of us very early on. And a lot of parents, for example, our caretakers, want us to do things before we're ready, like sit up or hold the head up even that early. Right. So we're picking up a pressure from outside to be different from how we are designed to be. 

And well, for survival, we learn how to be different and do things before we're ready. But it goes against our natural design. So that may not cause a problem in the moment. And it certainly keeps us safe. And that's, you know, what our brain is doing.

It's readjusting things, you know, taking us into a fight, flight, freeze response and causing us to behave in certain ways that will just keep us safe. That's really good. We're not trying to override that at all in any way. But as we grow up, that can cause a lot of problems physically, emotionally and just, you know, in our whole selves.

And as soon as we start to become aware of these things, we have the option. We have the freedom to choose to think differently and respond differently, more consciously choosing, you know, what's good for us. So we have to learn actually to get back in touch with our true, authentic selves, our true nature, spiritually. Also know, you know, not everybody is in an environment, and in the West very often we're not in an environment that is conducive to calm, peace, contemplation, meditation. 

We are in a society and a culture that prizes doing things fast. If you're busy, you're better. You know, if you make a lot of money, you know, that's prized. I mean, it's such a driven, ambitious, goal oriented culture, which really goes against our nature, which is to be present.

Melinda: Yes. And it keeps getting faster and faster and faster. And now we have sort of ever-present technology in our lives. We're looking at screens. We're like hunching down, all these different things. So I think it’s vitally important in this day and age that we have tools like this to help us, you know, come back right to that freer, more natural state.

So then the question is, how do you help people do that? 

Jennifer: That is the million-dollar question, right? 

Melinda: Yeah. Maybe, could you give us a little taste for those who are watching [and listening]? 

Jennifer: Oh, yeah. It's actually really easy. And I teach people how to do this on the first day of any program. And it's not hard because it is natural.

What is challenging, I'll just say upfront, is to remember to do it and to learn how to apply this skill that we're going to do right now in an infinite variety of situations and in particular triggering situations where it's really easy to slip back into old habits and it seems hard to do the thing that actually helps us when it's actually really easy. So I can give you a little taste. 

Melinda: Love that. Yes, please. 

Jennifer: And again, it's going to seem really simple because it is. But let's just do it. So for you, Melinda, and everybody listening, if you want to try this out right now, let's just pause. And let's get curious. Turn on your curiosity switch. And just get curious about what's happening inside you right now.

And we can make that a little more specific and easier yet. What is happening to me right now in my body? What am I noticing in my body right now? What's showing up? And it can be anything, right? It can be general or specific, what we might call positive or negative. It can be anything. So, Melinda, what's showing up for you right now if you want to share?

Melinda: Yes, I'm very happy to be the kind of guinea pig. So, I notice that I have a little bit of tension in my jaw. I sometimes at night, particularly if I know I have like a big day coming up or something. I think I'll clench my jaw at night so I can kind of feel that happening.

And then kind of in my mid back, I'm conscious of like sort of trying to sit up straight, right? But I'm feeling a little bit of tension and I do have an injury in my mid spine. So I'm just noticing that.

Jennifer: Okay. Good. 

Melinda: Yeah. And I'm also feeling like, you know, I've got both feet on the floor and I'm feeling grounded. Like, I feel connected to the earth. But maybe not fully at ease. 

Jennifer: Okay, great. I love how easy it is for you to connect to what you're experiencing. I think you've probably done this before. 

Melinda: I have done some Alexander work and various other somatic techniques. So.

Jennifer: Yeah, for anybody listening, even if you've never, ever done this before, go easy on yourself and just take the time to be curious.

Sometimes things don't show up right away, but if you sit with it just for a few moments more, it probably will. Something will show up, right. So let's just take one of the things that showed up for you. Melinda. I don't know if you're still experiencing because things change constantly. But you mentioned a little discomfort in your back.

And in your throat or your neck area. So if you just pick one of those right now. Can you, is it still there?

Melinda: Yeah I think I'll go with kind of the neck-jaw area.

Jennifer: Okay good. So just notice that for a moment. And everybody listening. Just pick an area. If there's an area of discomfort you can just stay with that for a moment.

If there's nothing that's great and just stay with nothing for a moment. So yeah, once you've been with the place that is maybe a little less comfortable, or maybe for some people it could be very painful. Don't stay there too long. And let's get curious now about what else is showing up. Okay? So if there's another place, just shift your curiosity to finding another place that's talking to you, right.

There's so many different ways that your body can show up. So I don't want to give anybody any ideas or anything. And again, it can be positive or negative or anything neutral. Just what is your body, what's showing up in your body right now? So Melinda, right now, what else is showing up for you? 

Melinda: I'm noticing that as I'm breathing, I'm able to breathe kind of fully and deeply, like, that's a place I don't feel constricted right now.

Jennifer: Okay, great. So you're actually taking us into the next phase of this process where you're starting to notice something that's relatively comfortable or easy or neutral. Okay. So if you want to just notice that relative ease in your breathing for a moment. And anybody listening, if there is a place in your body that feels okay. If you're a type of person that has a lot of pain, you can also get curious about a place that has a little less pain or a little less tension.

You can start there and that's fine. We're just, we're learning how different parts of the body, no two parts feel exactly the same, even if you're a person with chronic pain everywhere. And I've worked with many people like that. When you get curious about it, I've never encountered anyone who felt exactly the same in every part of their bodies.

Okay, so you just want to get curious about the differences and then get curious about the places that are a little easier than the other ones, or a little less painful than the other ones. Sometimes a person needs a go-to place and that's something that I do with my students. And that could be your hair.

That's like, there's no pain in hair! And if there is, you're, I don't know, right? I don't want to say you're making it up, but, anyway, most people don't have pain in their hair. Also fingernails, eyebrows, tip of your nose sometimes or ear lobes. There are places generally that could be a go-to place.

And these are helpful to have also for times of extreme stress or panic or performance anxiety. If somebody has tremendous performance anxiety, this is the most useful tool I've ever come across to help. And cause I do this a lot with my students who are musicians. To start with what you're experiencing in your body right now, to be with it, to wait to see what shows up, to be with whatever shows up, just for a few moments.

Sometimes it's very unpleasant, but if you can just hang out there for a few moments, that could be seconds. Doesn't have to be very long. It's a matter of accepting it, and a big part of it is not judging it. And that is a practice, that is not easy all the time for most people. Right? So just to notice what's showing up, even if it's uncomfortable, could it just, could your response be, oh that's interesting. Hmm. Instead of, oh I have such a bad back! 

Melinda: Right. It's those judgments. 

Jennifer: By the way, there is no such thing!

Melinda: Yeah. Those judgments about our experience actually perpetuate the suffering. 

Jennifer: That's exactly right. So we want to actually take, you know, easily, slowly, take our time through these stages of getting curious. And it doesn't have to take a long time, right.

Once a person knows how to do this process, which by the way, has a name, it's called IMA, I-M-A, which means now in Japanese. This is a pre-awareness etude that Mio Morales has developed. It's part of Primal Alexander and I teach this to all my students. So the next thing, once you get to this point, Melinda, can you share a place of relative ease with us that you're experiencing right now?

Melinda: Yeah. What's coming to me is just, kind of my upper legs, my my thighs. My hands are kind of resting there, and that feels easeful. I don't notice any pain or tension there right now. 

Jennifer: Good. So just be with that relative ease in that place that you've found. Just be with it for a moment. And then ask yourself this powerful question, which I always have my students write down.

And you don't have to do this right now. But if you're listening and you have a pen and paper, I would write it down. 99% of the time, people change the words without realizing them, which is why I always have people write it down. The question is, where else do I seem to be easing right now? And I'll just say it's not about where else do I feel easy?

That's what people mostly change it to. It's where else do I seem to be easing a bit?

There's a lot behind that question. We call it constructive thinking and you just kind of get curious. And if you don't notice another place, that's fine. Can you just get curious and kind of toss that question up and out and wonder, where else do I seem to be easing right now? That's right. You just did it Melinda. Yeah.

There's something that just shifts. Did you notice that?

Melinda: Yeah and I noticed, you know, that that kind of pinching I was feeling in my mid back. It's still there. But it seems to be shifting a little bit. And also my throat feels more, like less constricted. 

Jennifer: That's lovely. So you can just ask the question again.

Where else do I seem to be easing a bit? That's right. Yeah. You just did it. In that moment when you're doing constructive thinking, it's not what we read about in terms of psychology. That's a different kind of constructive thinking. In the Alexander world, especially Primal Alexander, we talk about constructive thinking in a specific way as making that little shift in our awareness, where we get curious. 

And we are opening in this way, and we're adding on to it. Being curious about easing. And in that moment that you do that, everything opens up just a little bit in your body and your mind and your emotions, whether you feel it or not. It's subtle, but with practice it becomes more and more obvious and it happens really quickly.

So I actually have, we don't have time for it now. But I said this was a pre-awareness etude, IMA.  The first awareness etude, it's actually on my YouTube channel. Anybody can go there and find it. And if they look me up, it's actually called the cycle. It's another Primal Alexander Etude created by Mio Morales. But you know, you can learn it in 15 minutes or less and it takes 2 or 3 minutes.

I have my students do it twice a day, and it's amazing how things change and how fast when they do this. In this specific way of shifting the awareness. It's not so much about the words, but the words are important. It's tapping into this curious awareness that opens things up with ease. It's really, really, really fun. I hope you enjoy it.

Melinda: I love that, yeah, thank you so much. And it provokes a couple of things. One of which is, you know, so much of your work these days is virtual, right? And, and you were able to observe that moment in me, and I don't know if it was like a shift in my physical body or something in the eyes, but you can recognize it even through a screen.

Jennifer: Yes. And I could just say a few words about that if you like.

Melinda: Sure. 

Jennifer: So like I said earlier, traditional Alexander Technique is taught through touch, and it does take 1600 hours of training, which I did to become, to train that subtle skill, to pick up the information through the hands. It's kinesthetic information. It's a visual, it's auditory.

It's also energetic. But it's two nervous systems connecting, right. And I don't care if we're using pixels on a screen or whatever these sound waves are. I know that, well, I believe you are real, Melinda. [laughter].

Melinda: I feel real! [laughter].

Jennifer: And I can see you and communicate with you through this crazy technological medium, which I will never even remotely begin to understand how this works.

But you're there somewhere, and I'm here somewhere, and we're able to connect in real time. But it doesn't even have to be real time. People can learn this through my videos, which blew my mind when they started sending me emails and things telling me about these miraculous changes. Just from watching videos. But to do it without my hands, it also takes, highly skilled training. 

And I've been training in Primal Alexander for more than eight years now. And so we're doing the same thing. The principles of the Alexander Technique are the same, whether you use your hands or not. And we're doing the same thing. We're just not using the kinesthetic sense. That's the only difference, as far as I'm concerned.

I'm using the other senses. It's energetic, it's auditory, it's visual, and whatever else is out there. But there is a real connection. And yeah, I can sense and I can see and experience and see things that are happening in my students way more easily now today than I could even one year ago. Because it's a constant evolution of mind skills and being able to sense these things.

But it's human. We can all do this, and we all do this with everybody we're in contact with in person or on video. We, our brains are made to pick up information from other people and everything around us. Most of it we're not aware of. And the training helps us become aware of it and then use it for our benefits.

Melinda: Yeah. Beautiful. Well, I think that's actually a great place to conclude. And I actually like to end each episode with what I call a Creativity Pro Tip. You know, which is something people can actually try out. And I think we've just walked people through that. And then, of course, they can go to your YouTube channel and learn more and try some of the other etudes, as you call them.

Jennifer: Yeah, I would love if anybody tries that out, if they would get in touch with me and let me know about their experience or comment on the video itself. 

Melinda: Absolutely. Yeah. So speaking of which, how can people find your book, your YouTube, your website? What's the best way for people to find you? 

Jennifer: Yes. Thank you. Well, my book is called Make Great Music With Ease: The Secret to Smarter Practice, Confident Performance, and Living a Happier Life.

And I've been told by many people that it's not just useful for musicians. Although the language is geared towards musicians, it's really for anybody and everybody. So that's on Amazon and easily found. And my website is www.artoffreedom.me. That's dot m-e. And YouTube channel under my name. I'm on Facebook more often than I care to admit. That is my main way of communicating with people and finding the people I work with. 

Melinda: Great. Yeah, we'll put all these links in the show notes. So Facebook's a good way. Okay. 

Jennifer: Yeah it’s just my name and my personal profile is public. And I do a lot of almost daily teaching on there and just lots of stuff. So and my email list people can get on to that for regular, you know, advice and lots of information on there too, through my website. 

Melinda: Perfect. All right. Well, I'll share all of that information. And thank you so much for taking the time today, Jennifer. This has been great. 

Jennifer: Thank you so much, Melinda, and thank you for going along and just experimenting with me.

Melinda: Absolutely. I love it. And I love to give, you know, listeners and viewers just a taste of the work. I think it's that experiential component is so helpful. 

Jennifer: Yes. Well, thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure. And thanks to everybody for listening. 

Melinda: Find and connect with us on YouTube and social media under Syncreate, and we're now on Patreon as well. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review. We're recording today at Record ATX Studios in Austin, with Jennifer joining us from Cincinnati. The podcast is produced in collaboration with Mike Osborne at 14th Street Studios. Thanks so much for being with us, and see you next time.