Introduction

“My life’s work as revealed in my books has been the teaching, on the lines of the educator, of a technique I evolved for changing and improving the manner of use of the self, which in turn so improves the general functioning of the pupil that specific symptoms tend to modify and in time disappear which, in medical terms, is called a ‘cure’.”
F.M. Alexander (Articles and Lectures – Manufacturing Premises Required for Desired Deductions p214)

---

WC: The Alexander Technique is a method of self-help. Its purpose is to help people to avoid doing things that are harmful to their general wellbeing. The method is unique because, unlike most systems that advise people what to do or how to do it, this teaches what not to do and how to prevent it. Thus the Technique requires, first of all, a practical demonstration, conveying the experience of what actions are wrong; and then clear instruction as to how they can be avoided.
(What is the Alexander Technique? – A paper written Jan 2004)

FPJ: Alexander and his brother, A. R. Alexander (1874-1947) , developed a way of using their hands to convey information directly through the kinaesthetic sense. They gave their pupils an immediate “aha” experience of performing a habitual act – walking, talking, breathing, handling objects, and the like – in a non-habitual way. The technique changed the underlying feeling tone of a movement, producing a kinaesthetic effect of lightness that was pleasurable and rewarding and served as the distinguishing hallmark of non-habitual responses. It was then up to the pupil to learn the technique for himself. The learning process was greatly facilitated, however, because in the first lesson the pupil had a foretaste of the experiences he would have, once he had learned it.
(Freedom to Change – chapter 1 p2)

WC: The technique originated as long ago as 1894 from the experiences gained by Mr. F. Matthias Alexander concerning his use of voice, as an actor and performer of dramatic recitations. He had no scientific training in anatomy and physiology, but observation and experiment led him to acquire knowledge so that he was able to overcome the problems of speech and respiration that had beset him.
(What is the Alexander Technique? – A paper written Jan 2004)

WC: When he was confronted by his own vocal problems and difficulties, he set about trying to track down the cause, and he found that it was the way in which he used his voice that upset the functioning of his vocal mechanism. Specifically he found that when he went to speak he interfered with the working of his postural mechanisms so that he “shortened in stature”, stiffening his neck, pulling his head back, and tightening his throat. All the tension generated in this way strained his vocal mechanism and caused hoarseness and eventually, loss of voice. Thus he was doing certain things, or using himself in a certain way, that caused the trouble. It was the observation and recognition of this “wrong-doing” that was the key to the solution. Alexander was not more capable of diagnosis then the doctors who he consulted but they did not make this crucial observation because they were not aware that the way they used themselves did indeed affect their functioning.
(On Categorizing the Alexander Technique – Published in The Alexander Journal No. 10, December 1989)

LW: After nine years of experimentation upon himself and others, he found that a certain dynamic relationship of the head, neck and back can be brought into operation; and that this relationship, or pattern, integrates all bodily movement bringing about the best use of the whole organism as well as of each specific part.
(F. Matthias Alexander, The Man and His Work – Introduction p xiii)

WC: He established empirically that in posture and movement his neck must not be stiffened, but that his head should be allowed to adopt a certain preferred attitude in relation to his neck and body (described by him as “head-forward-and-up”) and that this was consistent with a free, alert attitude or state of poise.
(What is the Alexander Technique? – A paper written Jan 2004)

LW: In a very few human beings this relationship works perfectly; in many more it works imperfectly, and in the greatest number it can hardly be said to work in anything but a vestigial fashion.
The relationship exists potentially in every human body except in cases of extreme pathology or where certain forms of drastic surgery have been used. Even in individuals where it has been damaged by disease, surgery or malformation, it can be re-awakened and put to work when it has fallen into disuse. Because of the intimate association between use and functioning, such restoration is followed by improvement both physical and mental, sometimes to an amazing degree and in realms where it might not be expected to penetrate.
(F. Matthias Alexander, The Man and His Work – Introduction p xiii)

PM: It seems appropriate to say here that it is natural for our bodies to work efficiently. It is not, however, our habit, owing to the fact that consciously or unconsciously we have learnt a lot of bad habits, over many generations.
(The Alexander Technique As I See It – Notebook Jottings p7)

FPJ: A habit cannot be changed, however, without intelligent control of an appropriate means or mechanism.
(Freedom to Change – chapter 11 p100)

Discussion

WC: Why then is the Alexander Technique so difficult to describe in simple words? Why, on reading accounts of it, do literate and scientifically educated people often fail to grasp its significance?
(What is the Alexander Technique? – A paper written Jan 2004)

PM: The Technique is not just another course of exercises and manipulations. If sensory awareness and feeling could be communicated by the written word, people could learn from the written word to use themselves properly. The teaching procedures, involving manipulation and pressures upon the body, are really the means of communication by which the new (natural) sensory awarenesses are made known by the teacher to the pupil. This method is not a normal straightforward one of passing on sensory experience because it is not sensory experience being passed from one person to another, but sensory experience already existing inside the subject which has to be raised from the subconscious mind to the conscious mind from out of a welter of habitual mal-coordinated ways of using the whole body.
(The Alexander Technique As I See It – Notebook Jottings p8)

MB: And we must always keep in mind that what distinguishes the Technique from other disciplines is that it’s a re-educational process. The pupil has to become aware of what it is that he or she is doing, and find out what’s wrong in order not to carry on doing it.
But generally FM was very good at getting the message across. Indeed, he would point out to people how they were misusing themselves for example, how they were making so much tension by pressing down into the floor as they were walking and he would demonstrate and show them the difference between their habitual way of moving and a new way. Really, this is the magical thing about the Technique if it’s properly taught. The teacher doesn’t merely point out to someone what’s wrong, but instead shows them how to prevent it happening. In a way it’s predictive. In effect, a teacher is saying to the pupil: “If you do this, this and this, then this will be the outcome. However, if you approach the matter with a bit of intelligence using inhibition and the relevant directions you can achieve a different outcome which will be of lasting benefit to you.”
(Alexander Technique: the Ground Rules – part 1 p63)

FPJ: In his earlier books Alexander speaks of the use of the psycho-physical organism, the use of the respiratory mechanisms, etc. In The Use of the Self he makes an abstract noun of the term, commensurate with “heredity” and “environment”. Behavioural scientists usually feel that when they have accounted for genetic factors and environmental influences (including learning) they have said all there is to be said about the individual and that if all genetic and environmental factors were known it would be possible to predict behaviour. There is a third factor, however: the characteristic way the person uses himself in everything he does. Until this factor is known, no prediction can be made. It would be like predicting the life of a new piece of machinery without knowing how efficiently it is going to be operated. The term “use” covers the total pattern that characterizes a person’s responses to stimuli. Use is subject to a variety of influences from without and within the organism. Unlike heredity and previous experience, use can be brought under conscious control and redirected to enlarge the individual’s potential for creative development.
(Freedom to Change – chapter 6 p46)

WC: This technique is, as Alexander liked to say in The Universal Constant in Living, about reaction in living. What he means by reaction is that there are all sorts of situations that require that we respond in some way, that we do something, and what is at issue is the way we respond. That is what he is referring to when he talks about reaction in living.
(Thinking Aloud – The Demand of the Constant p92)

PM: The Alexander Technique has been described (by an American) as a formula for posture. It has, of course, nothing to do with formulas and little to do with posture, though it is sometimes helpful to use the word “posture” to convey at least some idea of what is meant to newcomers to the Technique. I prefer the words “postural activity”, which gets away from the idea of fixed position, which is often implied by the word “posture”.
(The Alexander Technique As I See It – Notebook Jottings p21)

MB: But FM explained from the outset that the Technique wasn’t about posture or fixed positions but rather the relationship of parts to parts.
(Alexander Technque: the Ground Rules – part 1 p62)

FPJ: As I understand it, the Alexander Technique is not concerned with three-dimensional but with four-dimensional posture, in other words with movement.
(Freedom to Change – Appendix D p190)

WC: The first fundamental concern is that our bodies must be mobile if they are going to function properly. So, in simple terms, we have to deal with securing mobility of the body. Secondly, on the psychological and mental side, we have to deal with some control of reaction – the exercise of some choice as to what you do and do not want to do.
(Thinking Aloud – The Importance of a Teacher’s Use p98)

FPJ: The Alexander Technique might be defined as a method for knowing simultaneously what you are not doing as well as what you are doing – knowing, for example, that you are not interfering with the “primary control” while you are talking, listening or thinking…
(Freedom to Change – chapter 14 p158)

WC: As I’ve indicated, the process of learning the Technique involves three stages: first, people have to be introduced to the experience; secondly, after they’ve had the experience, the teacher should help them understand what’s going on and thus provide an intellectual evaluation or assessment of the situation; thirdly, when the first two stages have been established, the pupil must try to find their own way of applying it and helping themselves.
(Personally Speaking – part 3 p120)

FPJ: The Technique is not a treatment; it is a discipline that, to be effective, has to be applied in the activities of daily life. The reward is an increase in competence and self-esteem and in the sensory satisfaction that accompanies self-knowledge and self-control.
(Freedom to Change – chapter 14 p164)

Conclusion

WC: The Technique deals with only a relatively small part of the process of living, albeit an important part, as FM made clear in his first book, Man’s Supreme Inheritance, when he stated that the Technique doesn’t prophesy “unlimited sunshine for everyone, without regard to conditions” and it isn’t a “royal road” or “panacea”. As I’ve said before, there are many other things in life besides the Alexander Technique and people with problems need all the help they can get. Yet the Technique has a contribution to make to most things, because the practical concepts of “end-gaining” and “means whereby”, are universally applicable. Most things can be tackled consciously and rationally.
(Personally Speaking – part 3 p132)

MB: F.M. used to say, “This is an exercise in finding out what thinking is.”
(Direction Magazine Vol 2 No 2 “The Barlows” p18)

FPJ: When you understand the concept of “use,” you will stop saying you have a “bad back” or a “tennis elbow” or an “Oedipus complex” or a “phobia for cats” and find out what you are doing that keeps you from getting over it. When Alexander realized that “his doing was his undoing,” he was on the road to recovery.
(Freedom to Change – chapter 7 p58)

PM: In trying to sum up what I have said this evening, I would like to say that I consider “non-doing” and “direction sending” the lifeblood of the Alexander Technique, though they are not, of course, the whole of it. I think it might be useful, before I stop, to list the items that, taken together I believe make the Alexander Technique into one unlike any other:
– recognition of the force of habit.
– inhibition and non-doing.
– recognition of faulty sensory awareness.
– sending directions.
– the primary control.
If one meets a technique that has some similarity to the Alexander Technique, run these five simple rules over it and see what is missing.
(On Giving Directions, Doing and Non-Doing – STAT Memorial Lecture 1963)

LW: This ends the story of Alexander’s nine long years of research. He started with one fact: that he used himself wrongly when he recited. His equipment was one mirror. He had no help, and his education was not extensive. Yet so extraordinary were his qualities of mind and character that, as Aldous Huxley says in the Saturday Review of Literature, October 25th, 1941, the man “has come, by the oldest of indirect roads, to be a quite uniquely important, because uniquely practical, philosopher, educator, and physiologist”.
(F. Matthias Alexander, The Man and His Work – chapter 15 p156)