Who was Alexander?

What F.M. Alexander himself said about his technique.

What others said of his technique.

Who was Alexander?

Australian F.M. Alexander (1869-1955) developed the technique as a result of a recurring loss of voice while performing on stage. Being an up-and-coming actor and reciter in the 1880s, this was disastrous!

When doctors failed to help him, he decided to find the cause for himself. The only clue that he had was that he lost his voice only when performing on stage, and not when he was talking in private.

He concluded that it must be something he was doing to himself-but what?

Self-observation showed "self-strangulation" of voice
He decided to observe himself-with the aid of mirrors-as if he were performing on stage. After some time, he saw that the main cause of the problem was that he stiffened his neck muscles and pulled his head back when performing. When he corrected this tendency, his throat problems disappeared. But when he went back on stage, he found himself pulling his head back once more-a habitual response to the stimulus to speak.

Alexander then spent nearly 10 years of patient and scientific study in re-educating his manner of self-use, by inhibiting his old, habitual response patterns, and instead directing himself with conscious guidance and control.

Voice back plus improved health
This not only overcame his initial problem, but also brought about the discovery of the importance of the head/neck/back relationship in human functioning, or what Alexander called "primary control". Alexander found that as well as his voice problem disappearing, he also showed a remarkable improvement in his general health.

He spent the rest of his life in England and America, perfecting his technique and training others to teach.

Today, there are Alexander Technique teachers in practice throughout the world, helping people just like you.

What Alexander himself said about his technique

"The desire that mankind will come into the heritage of full individual freedom within and without the self remains an idealistic theory. Its translation into practice will call for individual freedom in thought and action through the development of conscious guidance and control of the self. Then and then only will the individual be liberated from the domination of instinctive habit and the slavery of the associated automatic manner of reaction."

"You can't do something you don't know if you keep on doing what you do know."

"When an investigation comes to be made, it will be found that every single thing we are doing in the work is exactly what is being done in Nature where the conditions are right, the difference being that we are learning to do it consciously."

What others said of his technique

" The Alexander Technique teaches you how to bring more practical intelligence into what you are already doing; how to eliminate stereotyped responses; how to deal with habit and change. It leaves you free to choose your own goal but gives you a better use of yourself while you work toward it."
- Professor Frank Pierce Jones, Tufts University USA

"I recommend the Alexander Technique as an extremely sophisticated form of rehabilitation. Many types of underperformance and even ailments, both mental and physical, can be alleviated by teaching the body musculature to function differently."
-Professor N. Tinbergen, Nobel Prize for Medicine, 1973

"Instead of feeling one's body to be an aggregation of ill-fitting parts full of friction and dead weights pulling this way and that, so as to render mere existence in itself exhausing, the body becomes a coordinated and living whole, composed of well-fitting and truly articulated parts."
-Sir Stafford Cripps, Former Chancellor of the Exchequer

What these people have said is impressive, but there's nothing like finding things out for yourself. Contact us now.