the Alexander Technique is founded on the principle that "the Mind inhabits the Body and the two are interdependent in such a way that one can work on the Body with the Mind, and on the Mind with the Body" (Russell, 71)
"Central to the teaching is the wordless application of touch, which often seems to produce effects by apparently psychic means; and the willed repetition of Directions, which take the form of mantric and often apparently contradictory instructions to your own body--for example, my teacher's regular injunctions that I should stand up from the chair without pushing with my legs, and the exhortation [...] that I should 'think my head to the sky'"