The Alexander Technique

The Alexander Technique is a means to re-educate how we use ourselves in everyday life. How we move, rest, breathe, talk, think, react. By learning the Alexander Technique we become aware of the habits that tend to affect us. We can then learn to make conscious decisions both about how we organise ourselves and how we react to stimuli that we meet in our every waking moment. This allows us to use the appropriate (minimum) amount of energy for a given task, and to use our bodies in a beneficial rather than harmful manner, enabling us to make clearer and more conscious choices about how we react and behave.

Frederick Mathus Alexander was born in Tasmania, Australia in 1869. His love of prose and poetry led him to pursue a career as an actor. Reciting the works of William Shakespeare was a particular passion. His promising future was jeopardised when he started to experience hoarseness when he was reciting. Doctors could find nothing wrong and prescribed rest and waiting for his voice to recover. Upon returning to the stage Alexander was dismayed to find the same hoarseness reoccurring — it was reciting publicly rather than normal everyday talking that was the cause.

Determined to overcome this problem Alexander began to study and observe himself and noticed that he became stiff and tense when he started to recite. Through long patient observation and methodical experimentation, Alexander came to develop and articulate principles that not only enabled him to solve his voice problems but also to help his general health and well-being. Practitioners nowadays use the same principles to help people with many ailments.