I love dancing of all kinds, and pictures of Fred Astaire, Paulette Goddard and others provide sheer delight. Why is this relevant to Alexander work? Walter Carrington points out that “the objectives of our work are neither health nor posture, but rather lightness and freedom of movement” (quoted from “Thinking aloud“, by Walter Carrington, 1994). In the same collection of lectures he describes how all living things (including trees and shrubs) have to generate energy to go up, to counteract gravity. In his own words, “The primary movement is up. You initiate the movement by undoing the catch, by taking the brake off. You’ve got this ongoing flow of energy that is seeking to take you up against all the downward forces, and going up is what happens when you release the neck.”