God is Dog Backwards

Dogs are outstanding in the way they eat.

A dog will demolish huge hunks of meat with minimal chewing – gulped down the tube, and disappearing faster than you can shovel in their bowel. They do chew, but on the bone later. 

Is food consumed quickly as a biologically driven quest to eat the most meat first?

Coming from a family of 6 kids, maybe my ancient biology kicked in as a kid too. By the time I met my precious teacher Marjorie Barstow (1899~1995) – I had been known to eat like a dog. 

Marj cured me of that.

She conducted a long campaign involving all of Alexander’s Discoveries and Practises. I was a tough case.

It innocently started as I discovered that 86 year old Marj had an unspoken rule that to finish eating while others were still eating was rude. 

It was a new concept for a gulper like me – how do you eat slowly?

Turns out, eating slowly – and chewing a lot – is a healthy lifestyle choice. In his bestselling “Breath”, James Nestor claims chewing is one of those things we lost when we upgraded to cooked foods. Things then got really, really bad once highly processed foods came onto the scene. The commonality of these foods is their softness – no challenge to mastication. As a result - your teeth, mouth and cavities collapse by the weight of inactivity. 

The result? Long, narrow faces with crooked teeth and difficulty to breath. Check out Nestor’s book – it’s full of challenging concepts. Like – breath LESS.

Not that I am advocating chewing on bones, but hey… Nestor cites several anthropological studies that demonstrated great teeth in tribes that chewed!

Anyway – my doggy heart got a lesson in being human by Marj. But before I tell you that story, I want to leave you with something to chew on…

Alexander claimed his work was all about changing behaviour – not finding a correct Posture. Good Posture is genetic; bad Posture is environmental. Your job is to use brainpower to identify and replace behaviours that interfere with the inherent goodness of your system, behaviours that cause damage to your long-term well being.

Alexander lessons apply to your neuro-muscular coordination, and the acquired skills can be used in any of your systems, including how you eat. Eating is, after all, a neuro-muscular activity!

What are the behaviours you want to modify?

1. Eat what you have in your mouth before collecting your next mouthful.
2. Put down your eating implements to emphasise this behavioural modification.
3. Once you finish chewing, pick up your implements and start again.

As experiments go – this is a deceptively simple process.

Try it out, and next time I will enlighten you on the deviously amusing way Marj cured my deranged eating behaviours…

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This experiment is a classic study in all those things Alexander: end-gaining, means-whereby and cueing up your deeper emotional drives for conscious inspection. It’s the kind of experiment that you will be offered in a wide variety of activities once you start exploring Alexander’s Discovery.

In my ThinkingBody courses, there are more than 50 downloads of games, activities and exercises that explore Alexander’s Discovery in creative ways. Read more and gain access at the link below…

https://bodychance.mykajabi.com/store/TGFBWut4/