My first Alexander Technique* teacher taught group classes in his studio. Once in awhile, he would venture out into the anteroom where students left their coats and shoes and would return holding aloft a pair of high-heeled shoes, demanding in a booming voice: “Who belongs to THESE!” There would follow a moment of embraced silence until some poor woman would meekly confess.
In retrospect, I don’t think this was a particularly good strategy. Public humiliation is unlikely to enhance any learning process, certainly not one so subtle as learning the Alexander Technique. And in my years of experience since then, Alexander teachers usually go out of their way to provide a friendly, supportive atmosphere for their students.
But like many Alexander Technique teachers, I do try my best to coax wearers of high-heeled shoes to lessen their dependence on them and, if at all possible, to gradually give them up entirely. Fortunately our notions of acceptable work wear have changed and it’s a lot easier to do this today than twenty-five years ago when I was having my first lessons.
There are two main reasons: First, high-heeled shoes throw the entire weight of the wearer forward, making it far more difficult to sustain upright balance. They force the women wearing them to use a lot of extra muscular effort to keep themselves from falling forward. Much of this extra effort is concentrated in the lower back, producing an exaggerated arch which can easily lead to back pain.
But the distorting effects go far beyond the lower back. Human bodies function as a whole and so it’s not possible to create undue tension in one region without also producing a series of related restrictions extending from the head down to the feet.