Bigger on the Inside Than the Outside

If the title sounds weird, well, there it is. That's the Alexander Technique for you. It's got just enough zaniness in it to keep you sane.
It's fine to speak of releasing and expanding when your outward posture matches the thought. So you're standing beautifully balanced, perhaps arms spread out, and you can allow yourself to breathe deeply and fully. You can let your muscles expand and release into open-ness.
But what if you're sitting at the computer, typing away?
What if you're an actor playing a hunchback?
Or a student who spends long hours reading, writing, typing?
A golfer standing bent over the ball, arms angled inwards, hands gripping the golf club?
Your outward posture is anything but expanded. So then do you let yourself go all crinkly inside, and hope like hell you'll remember to stretch every now and then?
Remembering to stretch every now and then is a good thing anyway. Well, most of the time, at least.
However, the actor playing the hunchback doesn't have the luxury of taking time out every 30 minutes to have a good stretch!
The fact is that you can be released and elastic, whatever your outward posture.
The Alexander Technique teaches you to stretch inwardly, while you're working, acting, reading or typing.
You can have your arms angled inwards, your shoulders and back rounded and hunched, your gaze directed downwards.
Through all of that, you can ask for inner release and expansion so that while your arms are focused inwards, your shoulders are imperceptibly releasing outwards. While you are walking, stooped and hunched, looking crooked and misshapen, inside you are free, so that your muscles have the best chance of protecting you from damage, and helping you do your job.
Outwardly, you appear constricted, tight. Actually you are released, free and open, with all the space in the world inside!