What is it?
The Alexander Technique teaches us to create space, freedom and ease of movement as we become aware of the harmful habits that put us wrong. It can be described as a method that works to positively modify the habits in our daily activities. It is not a series of exercise’s, but a re-education of the mind and the body.
It is a method for playing the violin or looking in a microscope without getting a stiff neck – for playing the piano or working at the computer without getting lower back pain – for studying or listening to a lecture without mind wandering.
Practising the Alexander Technique brings about lighter, freer movements of your body as well as an expanded field of awareness.
Who was the founder of the Alexander Technique?
Frederick Matthias Alexander (1869-1955), an actor who began his career as a Shakespearean orator, developed chronic laryngitis while performing. Determined to restore the full use of his voice, he carefully watched himself while speaking, and observed that undue muscular tension accounted for his vocal problem. He sought a way to eliminate that restriction.
Over time, he discovered and articulated a principle that profoundly influences health and well-being: when neck tension is reduced, the head no longer compresses the spine and the spine is free to lengthen. Alexander restored his own natural capacity for ease by changing the way he thought while initiating an action. From this work on himself and others, he evolved a hands-on teaching method that encourages all the body’s processes to work more efficiently – as an integrated, dynamic whole.
*Reference, North American Society of
Teachers of the Alexander Technique Directory, 1996
