Alter links mind and body for wellness

Her university studies allowed her to explore the connection that many miss or take for granted.
By L. CROW
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
SHARON, Pa. -- When Abbey Alter began her studies at Penn State University in 1976, she knew exactly what she wanted but had no idea how to get it. Now, as the owner of Walnut Lodge Yoga and Movement Center she has created a unique program which utilizes her many gifts and interests, and is able to reach out and serve the community.
"I was a chemistry major when I started at Penn State," Alter said. "My dad was a military man, and wanted me to be a doctor. I wanted to be a dancer. The sciences were really easy to me, but I was more interested in the body. I didn't really fit any program at Penn State, and by taking chemistry, it automatically excluded me from studying the arts. My interest in the human body ranged from chemical to bio-kinetic to artistic, from molecular to expressive. I just couldn't figure out where I fit in."
To get where she needed to be, Alter was allowed to design her own program, which was called a bachelor of philosophy, (The Art and Science of the Human Body), but she had to go to great lengths to justify her decision.
"At the time, there was no body therapy, no massotherapists," she said. "It was before the mind/body movement had taken hold, and these were cutting edge ideas, though now they are mainstream. I had to do a thesis and a performance. I took all the pre-med courses, bio-mechanics, kinesiology, but I wanted to study movement."
Dance studies
She went to New York to study dance with both Martha Graham and Eric Hawkins, whose dance style was completely opposite. Hawkins pieces were stark and spare.
"They came from an Oriental viewpoint, as Zen is to meditation," said Alter. "His pieces were soft, floaty, serene, while Graham's were tragic, dynamic. I wanted to see how their approach to life and training styles would affect the development of the body. Their floor exercises were exactly the same, but the focus and attack differed. And the difference it created in the bodies of their students could be like comparing a ballet dancer to a tennis player."
Alter became interested in other mind/body techniques as they related to the arts.
The Alexander Technique was developed in the 1890s by an Australian actor, Frederick Matthias Alexander, to solve his own problem with becoming hoarse onstage. It works to restore balance, posture and freedom of movement, and is taught at many music schools. Other similar practices included the Feldenkrais Method, and the discoveries of Rudolf Steiner who founded the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart, which came out of the German Human Potential Movement.
"All of these people played with the body/mind idea," Alter said. "Actors, dancers, and singers want their bodies to be neutral, with no mental stress, and not overdeveloped in any one area."
Alter said it took a lot of effort to get Penn State to buy into what she was doing. But, she said, she had a lot of right brain/left brain influence from her home life.
"My father was the overbearing military type," she said. "And my maternal grandmother lived with us. She talked to plants and removed curses. Before we went outside we had to imagine ourselves surrounded with white light and we would be protected, so if anything happened to us, it was because we wanted it to. My father said she practiced voodoo. He didn't understand. Yet, if someone was sick and they came to the house, my grandmother would touch them and they would heal. I wish I had been a little older so I could have understood her better."
Alter said that her eclectic upbringing has made her skeptical, and she has to see things work twice before she will believe.
By 1989, Alter was working with a ballet company in the Virgin Islands. She happened to be home in August when Hurricane Hugo hit and watched on TV as all her professional belongings got washed away. She came back to the area and worked for Ballet Theater Ohio in Warren, and realized the people needed to be trained in holistic practices.
She and her sister opened the first Walnut Lodge in Sharpsville, Pa., in 1995.
"We had a vegetarian restaurant and health food store, and offered massage and all kinds of holistic stuff," said Alter. She is now located in Sharon, but does not have a restaurant or health food store at her current building. She offers a variety of dance and yoga classes, and her students present dance performances for the public on a regular basis.
XLaughing Crow is a practitioner of holistic healing. She may be reached at laughingcrow@neo.rr.com.