The Alexander Technique
The way we react to a stimulus
The technique is about improving how we use ourselves. How we breathe, move, learn, focus our attention and most how we respond to various stimuli, especially stressful situations. Too often we focus on 'getting the job done', without thinking of its effect upon our mental and physical health. We react by tensing our neck, tightening our shoulders, holding our breath, collapsing our chest and putting pressure on our joints and organs. Initially the effects of this go unnoticed, but as we get older this reaction becomes habitual, leading to back/neck pain, lack of mobility, difficulty breathing, problems with digestion and circulation, headaches and stress.
Learning to change
The Alexander Technique is a system of re-education for the body and mind. It is about returning to the natural poise many of us enjoyed as children, free from the negative postural habits we developed as adults. Through a qualified teacher you learn how to stop these habitual responses and move with greater ease and efficiency in your daily life. This improved physical coordination also promotes greater confidence and emotional centredness. Such that, once you learn how to use your body according to its natural functioning, many problems associated with its misuse, both physical and mental, may be significantly improved or disappear altogether.
History of the Alexander Technique
Frederick Matthias Alexander (1869-1955) developed this technique over a hundred years ago. He was an Australian actor who suffered from chronic vocal difficulties, which could not be solved by conventional medicine at the time. He took his condition into his own hands and through his own observations and research was able to not only cure himself but also make fundamental discoveries regarding human movement, activity and coordination. He developed this into a technique and through his own practise he observed many conditions to which the technique could be applied.
The technique today
Today the Alexander Technique is recognised all over the world. It is taught in private practices and incorporated in the curriculum at distinguished institutions of acting and music (ie. the Royal Academy of Music, UK ). The technique is proven to be helpful with back pain and Parkinson's (see study by J.P Woodman and N.R Moore) among other conditions, and research of its effectiveness in regard to other illnesses is ongoing.
Famous people who have studied the Alexander Technique include writers Aldous Huxley, Robertson Davies and Roald Dahl, playwright George Bernard Shaw, actors Judi Dench, Hilary Swank, Sir Ben Kingsley, Michael Caine, Jeremy Irons, Suzanna Hamilton, John Cleese, Kevin Kline, William Hurt, Jamie Lee Curtis, Paul Newman, Mary Steenburgen, Robin Williams and Patti Lupone, musicians Paul McCartney, Madonna, Yehudi Menuhin and Sting, and Nobel Prize winner for medicine and physiology Nikolaas Tinbergen.
'You translate everything, whether it's physical, muscular or spiritual, into muscular tension.'
FM Alexander
'I find the Alexander Technique very helpful in my life. Things happen without you trying. They get to be light and relaxed. You must get an Alexander teacher to show it to you.'
John Cleese (actor/comedian)
'Understanding Alexander’s discoveries without experiencing a lesson is similar to a life-long blind person’s understanding of red. You invent a meaning but it is only an approximation of the experience.'
Aldous Huxley, writer and life-long student of FM Alexander.