Frequently Asked Questions

What will I learn in a lesson?

In a Delsarte lesson, you will learn how to use your body. That might sound peculiar. Surely you know how to use your body, you use it everyday. But do you use it well? Do you avoid bending down because it strains your back? Do you easily get out of breath when active? Do you sit tall and straight, or slumped down? Could you even choose to sit tall and straight? Would you know where to begin? Could you sit without slumping or leaning for even thirty seconds?

We all have gotten quite good at coping with our poor posture, but most of us are not aware of how much our poor posture is weighing on our back, slowing us down, and hindering our ability to accomplish simple tasks like sitting and standing. Because most people have never attempted to really fix their posture, they don’t know how different things could be.

The lessons I offer are designed to help you gain control over how you use yourself, and that control can be exercised during any activity in your life. The aim is not to give you mindless, repetitive exercises that you hope will one day change how you use your body, instead you will learn practical concepts and procedures that you can implement all day long: when you’re bent over the sink to do the dishes, when you’re sitting at your desk for an hour straight, when you’re speaking in public, when you’re playing the piano, when you’re exercising—when you’re doing anything.

The lessons will improve the way you walk, the way you sit, the way you stand, the way you bend. They will help you correctly make all the little movements that make up everything you do. What you will learn is very basic, even remedial in a way. Most of us have had to get by without understanding the basics of how to use our bodies. We were never taught these things. But you can begin to learn whenever you choose.

Most people’s posture slowly gets worse every day until they become an old person who can barely lift their head, who can barely get out of a chair, who can barely shuffle their feet along the floor. But when you take conscious control over how you use yourself, you can improve your posture every day for the rest of your life. The choice is yours.

 Do these lessons help with pain?

Many people find themselves in pain that has no real clear explanation. The pain may come and go, certain interventions might bring temporary relief, but these pains seem to always come back. Whether it’s back pain, neck pain, or joint pain, many people will have acute experiences with pain as they age, and may even end up needing hip replacement surgery, knee surgery, shoulder surgery, or other major interventions just to regain their mobility. Others are forced to use pharmaceutical treatments or avoid strenuous activities.

The cause of these very common pains is the harmful way that we use our bodies. The reason a person with back pain experiences pain when they bend down is because the way they bend down strains their body. The reason a person with shoulder pain has pain when they use their arm is because they are using their arm in a way that mechanically strains the arm.

To overcome these pains, or to avoid getting them in the future, you can change how you use your body. Instead of bending at your “waist” and straining your back to bend down, you can learn how to bend your legs and torso in the appropriate way to lower yourself in a controlled manner. Then you will be able bend down without discomfort or pain, as long as you use what you’ve learned and don’t fall back into your old habit.

Most people have very strong habits in how they move. If your habits are leading to pain, it’s because your habits are ones that strain your body and lead to pain. These lessons are designed to give you control over your habits, so that you can decide how you use your body. And when you use your body properly, you do not experience inexplicable pain.

What do I need for a lesson?

You can go to this page for the longer answer. But to start with you need a computer with a webcam (and the free Zoom app), a flat chair, and a reasonably well-lit room with enough space for you to be seen from head to toe in front of the camera.

Will I get sweaty during a lesson? Will it hurt?

These lessons do not involve conventional or repetitive exercises. Often you will be simply sitting or standing while you make adjustments to your torso in relation to your limbs. However, because the goal is is bring into action muscles that may have been inactive for years or decades, there are often times in lessons that will feel like a lot of work and cause some discomfort.

It can be a bit shocking how strenuous it feels to just shift your weight in a seemingly small way. When a muscle that has been inactive is brought into play, any force that that muscle is asked to produce will feel like a lot. Lifting one pound with a habitually unused muscle feels like lifting a hundred pounds at first. So while you won’t get sweaty or out of breath, you may feel like you’ve done a lot after a lesson.

To really change your posture, you have to use parts of your body in ways that you never have before. You will have to stretch tissues that are used to being limp. You will have to go against your habits. Our habits are comfortable for us, and going against them feels strange at first. Sometimes it will even feel literally impossible to make certain movements that seem like they should be small and simple. But if you push through the initial discomfort and use what you’ve learned in your lessons, you can find new possibilities in your body that you did not have before.

How long is a lesson?

Lessons are forty-five minutes. Sometimes lessons will go a little long, so please leave room for up to one hour for your lesson.

How much is a lesson?

Currently the price is $35 for a lesson. It’s important to me that anyone who wants to improve their posture has the opportunity to do so, so I’m willing to work on a sliding scale.

Once you have started taking lessons, you’re invited to ask me any questions concerning your lessons or posture in general by email.

How do I schedule a lesson?

To schedule a lesson, you can email me at delsartelessons@protonmail.com

Because these lessons are all about conscious control, I do not typically schedule multiple lessons in advance. You need to make the conscious decision to have another lesson. However, if you want to take a series of lessons, I can reserve a particular time slot for you.

How often do people take lessons?

Once a week is typical. Once every two weeks also works well. Less frequently than that can work, but only if you are really putting in work during your time between lessons.

How many lessons do I need?

In four lessons I can help you to do things that were demonstrably impossible for you to do on day one. In ten lessons you will have a decent picture of what’s possible and what you’re going for. In my experience, I saw clear improvement every single time I took a lesson. However, we are going against a lifetime of bad habits, and change is hard won. You would see quite significant change in your body and how you use it after a few months of lessons. Mastering control of your posture takes longer, two years of lessons would get you very close.

Realistically, if you wanted to get good at the piano, or a sport, or something like calculus, it would take time. Most people who do these things at a high level will have had multiple teachers and will have trained for years. Gaining control over your posture is also a skill that can be learned, and it too takes time. But unlike learning an instrument or other skill, you do not have the choice to not use your body. You have to use your body every day, during every activity that you engage in. In my opinion, it would best if people learned to use themselves properly as children, but most of us were not given that opportunity. The next best thing is learning to use your body now.

Taking a series of lessons may sound like a large commitment, but as I said, you will see genuine beneficial changes the whole way. You will not be waiting to see improvement. You will also be able to apply the changes in how you use your body in every sphere of your life. Whether it’s bending down to pick something up off the floor, sitting at your desk, or playing the guitar: what you learn in these lessons can be applied to your benefit.

What system do you teach?

The lessons I offer are done in the style of Jeando Masoero’s Initial Alexander Technique. His system is built on the work of F.M. Alexander, a great pioneer in the world of posture, as well as on the work of Francois Delsarte, who was a massively influential French artist from the 19th Century.

The goal of the Initial Alexander Technique is to use objective visual feedback to assist in cultivating the pupil’s ability to consciously control how they use their body. Masoero puts an emphasis on having concrete verbal directions to guide yourself rationally. Postural changes can clearly be seen by the pupil because the lessons are video recorded using Zoom, which is a major advantage over most systems. It’s one thing to be told you’re doing something wrong, it’s another thing to actually see what you’re doing. Masoero’s system takes the blinders off and really shows you how disconnected you are from your own body. You will see that sometimes you think you’re doing one thing, when in reality you are doing the opposite. But by using verbal directions, you can eventually change how your perform a gesture in a matter of minutes, and that change shows up on video. In these lessons, you will see yourself change right in front of your own eyes. And best of all, you will have the directions you need to change how you use yourself in your every day life.

Do I need a teacher to fix my posture?

In my opinion, no. However, if you are not going to have a teacher, you will have to put in a huge amount of work for yourself. I have spent many years studying posture on my own, but it was not until I started learning from my teacher Jeando Masoero that I really began to see definite, sustained progress. Masoero has put together an extremely detailed, comprehensive, and understandable system for improving your posture. He spent many years refining the specifics and developing procedures, and if you want to fix your posture on your own, you would likely have to do the same.

Posture is a very tricky problem, largely because our habits are so strong. We typically develop our habits of use very young, and by the time we’re trying to change them, we’ve been repeating our habits for more than a decade. To go against that, you really need an effective system.

So while I do think it’s possible to fix your posture on your own, practically speaking it’s a very difficult thing to do. Having a teacher will greatly accelerate your learning, and using a specific and comprehensive system like Masoero’s can help you in a way that might very well be impossible to replicate on your own.

If you have any further questions, you are welcome email me at Delsartelessons@protonmail.com

If you would like to schedule a lesson, email me at Delsartelessons@protonmail.com