Cross your arms. Which one lands on top, left or right? Now switch it. For most people, that tiny change feels immediately wrong, not because it is, but because it isn’t familiar.
When you sit in a chair do you hunch over? Do you lean to one side? Have you ever thought of how these little mannerisms may be affecting your comfort or performance?
Julia Caulder starts there, looking at everyday habits, using the Alexander Technique to help people notice the ways they move and learn how to do less of what gets in their own way.
Caulder came to the Alexander Technique through her own performance training. A former professional opera singer, she said the work helped her refine her own posture and breathing, an experience that eventually led her into teacher training.
“I felt like I was able to stand much more upright, but I wasn’t holding a pose, I just felt free and easy,” she said. “My singing was so much better, my voice opened up and I was like, ‘Oh man, I don’t know what this thing is, but I got to find out more.’”
After completing the required multi-year training, she built a 25-year career in Los Angeles, working closely with performers and productions including on set with Marvel Studios. Her clients included professional athletes, musicians and actors such as Winston Duke and Kenneth Branagh.
Over the years, Caulder has worked with clients facing more complex physical challenges as well. In Los Angeles, she said an orthopedic surgeon regularly referred scoliosis patients to her, tracking improvements in spinal curvature after months of lessons. She has also worked with individuals hoping to avoid back surgery by improving how they move and distribute tension through their bodies.
About seven years ago, Caulder relocated to the Wasatch Back, where she now teaches in Heber City and Park City. Her clients range from athletes and performers to people dealing with chronic tension, injury or the physical strain of everyday work.
“The Alexander Technique is something that can really help you learn to pay attention to how you do what you do,” Caulder said, describing it as a form of mindfulness with a practical, physical focus.
The technique traces back to F. Matthias Alexander, an Australian actor born in 1869 who developed persistent vocal problems. After being advised to rest his voice, Alexander realized the issue returned whenever he performed. Caulder explained that Alexander decided to study himself instead of continuing to chase outside answers. Using a system of mirrors, he observed his own patterns over years and noticed he was tightening his neck, gasping and compressing himself as he prepared to speak. Over time, he learned to interrupt those habits, and his vocal trouble resolved.
That discovery became the foundation of what Alexander later taught to others. He realized that verbal instruction alone wasn’t enough. Many people couldn’t accurately sense or recognize their own habitual patterns, even when they were pointed out. He began using gentle hands-on guidance alongside verbal direction so students could directly experience a more balanced and coordinated way of moving.
That same hands-on approach remains central to Caulder’s practice. Relying on her experience, research and extensive training, she guides students using both verbal direction and gentle touch to help them recognize and shift long-held patterns of tension.
In a typical session, she works with students through simple movements and may also guide them while they lie down on a table, a portion of the lesson she said can help the back relax and calm the nervous system.
She recalled one client who was required to wear a heart monitor due to a medical condition. After several sessions, the client’s doctor reportedly noticed that her heart rate was lower during her Alexander lessons than it was while she slept. While Caulder is careful not to frame the technique as a medical treatment, she said experiences like that underscore how learning to reduce habitual tension can influence the body’s stress response.
She often returns to what Alexander called “primary control,” the relationship between the head, neck and back. Caulder said many people initiate movement by tightening first, compressing through the neck, lifting the shoulders or bracing the back for tasks that don’t require it. Over time, those patterns can become a default way of moving, shaping how a person stands, walks and carries themselves.
When people say they want to “fix” their posture, Caulder said it can be tempting to chase a position. But holding the body in place isn’t the same as moving in a natural way that feels good to the body.
“In Alexander lessons, we learn to pay attention to how we use our head, neck and back as we move,” she said. “It’s not a position. It’s more like a balance between those things.”
Say, reaching for an apple in a grocery store bin: The task only requires moving the arm. But many people unconsciously tighten the neck and shoulder as they reach, adding strain that isn’t needed, Caulder explained. The goal isn’t perfection, but noticing. With practice, she said, students start catching themselves in the moment and choosing a different response.
“’The right thing does itself,’” Caulder said, quoting Alexander. “I really like that one, it just means, if we get out of the way and stop doing all the extra things, then the reflexes can work much better.”
She pointed to children as an example of untrained coordination. Toddlers, she said, typically bend at the hips and knees and stay lengthened through the spine when picking something up. Adults often do the opposite, collapsing through the neck and back and treating the body like a single, stiff unit.
The technique, Caulder said, is sometimes described as “psychophysical re-education” because it looks at the mind, breathing and body together. In her view, that whole-system approach helps explain why symptoms don’t always come from the body part that hurts.
For example, she said she sees many people with hand or wrist pain who are actually creating the problem higher up, tightening the shoulders and compressing through the neck and back while they write or work at a computer. Instead of treating a single isolated area, she focuses on how the whole person is organizing themselves to complete the task.
Caulder said a person’s habits are deeply ingrained, even shifting weight to the opposite leg or changing a subtle pattern of movement can feel awkward at first, she said — again, not because it’s incorrect, but because it isn’t the body’s default. If someone is accustomed to bracing through the neck or shoulders, letting go of that tension can feel unfamiliar before it feels easier.
When asked how long it takes to change longstanding patterns, Caulder compared it to learning an instrument.
“I would say 20 to 30 lessons is a good number to have in your mind,” she said. “You can think of it kind of like piano lessons. If you go once, you might learn ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,’ but if you want to play a concerto, it takes time.”
While some students come for performance-related goals, she said people also seek out lessons for pain management, everyday comfort and stress. In her experience, the work can be especially useful for people who spend long stretches at a desk, drive often or get absorbed in tasks in a way that narrows their awareness of their body.
A major part of the practice, she said, is learning to keep some attention on yourself while you do the thing you’re doing, rather than giving all your focus away to the task.
Those ideas are captured in three principles she emphasizes: awareness, inhibition and direction. Awareness is recognizing the habit. Inhibition, she said, is the pause, stopping when there’s a stimulus so a person doesn’t automatically default to their usual pattern. Direction involves simple internal requests, like allowing the neck to be free or letting the shoulders widen, aimed at supporting ease and balance rather than forcing a pose.
That “pause for thought,” as she described it, can be especially helpful under pressure. Caulder shared an experience from her earlier career as an opera singer, when she traveled to New York for a major audition and encountered a tense interaction with the pianist right before she sang. Instead of rushing forward, she took a moment to notice her breathing and settle her body. She said it allowed her to perform well despite the disruption.
In addition to teaching the Alexander Technique, Caulder also works as a therapist at Synergism Counseling in Heber City and is certified in equine-assisted therapy. She said both roles share a similar foundation — helping people slow down, increase awareness and regulate their nervous systems — though she considers the Alexander Technique her core practice.
“I love it,” she said. “It really feels like my calling.”
For more information about lessons and Caulder’s work, visit alexandertechniqueparkcityhebercity.com. Appointments can be made online or by calling (435) 214-7139 or emailing [email protected].