People Usually Find This Work Because Something Isn’t Working

Most people don’t come here looking for somatic work.

They come because something won’t relax. A shoulder that stays tight no matter how much they stretch. A jaw that clenches without asking.

A body that feels like it’s always doing a little (or a lot) too much.

Sometimes it’s an injury. Sometimes it’s tension that never quite lets go. Sometimes it’s the frustration of doing everything right and still feeling stuck or tight.

Often, someone says, “Have you ever heard of the Alexander Technique?”

And that’s how they find their way here.

That was true for me, too.

I found the Alexander Technique at a time when I was working very hard and getting nowhere. In the practice room, things were polished. I knew my music. I was prepared. But in lessons and performances, everything dropped. Sixty percent. Sometimes seventy on a good day. It felt like hitting a brick wall. I didn’t have language for what was happening. I just knew that the harder I tried to close the gap, the more elusive things became.

At the time, The Inner Game of Music was popular as was A Soprano on Her Head. Like many musicians, I read them. I tried to apply it. But it never really landed for me. It felt abstract, like I was supposed to think my way out of something that didn’t feel mental at all. I couldn’t see myself in the work, even though it was widely respected.

When I first encountered the Alexander Technique, it wasn’t an immediate success. At first, it became another thing to get right. I worked hard at it. I paid attention. I tried to apply it correctly. I was rewarded for that effort by my early teachers. My playing changed. My body changed. And still, I was working.

What shifted things for me wasn’t more effort or better understanding. It was being met differently.

When I began working with Marsha Paludan, the pace changed. There was less correction and less pressure to arrive somewhere. There was more space to notice what was actually happening, without needing to fix it.

Over time, I began to see how much my body had already changed in those early years. Not because I had forced it, but because something else had been allowed to happen. That’s when things started to open up. The last twenty or thirty percent I had been chasing for years became available. Not all at once. Not dramatically. But consistently. What surprised me most was realizing that what had been keeping me from that space wasn’t a lack of discipline or commitment. It was how hard I was trying to manage myself.

Most people who come to this work don’t start with insight. They start with discomfort. They start with tension, pain, or effort that no longer works.

That’s why we begin the way we do.

In a Somatic Mapping Session, we don’t start by correcting posture or asking you to understand anything. We start with where you are and what you’re experiencing. What feels tight. What hurts. What feels exhausting. What feels confusing.

We work with what is present. From there, we slow down enough to notice what’s been happening. Not to change it. Not to make something better. Just to see it clearly. Very often, that alone begins to bring relief.

If you found your way here because something isn’t working the way it used to, you’re in the right place.

You don’t need to know what the Alexander Technique is. You don’t need the right language. You don’t need to understand what’s happening yet.

If you’re curious, or if you’d simply like to experience some relief, you can begin with a Somatic Mapping Session.

Sometimes that’s all that’s needed to start.