This was just a resource dump.
Founder of The Alexander Technique.
Over a hundred years ago, F.M. Alexander developed theories about improving breathing to help vocalists and to help people improve their health. He noticed that poor breathing habits (such as rigidity or overuse in the ribs, abdomen or neck) could make breathing more difficult, impede vocal quality and also contribute to disease by causing areas of the lungs to harbor stagnant air. Focusing on the exhale, Alexander taught people to allow the ribs and abdomen to be soft so that the diaphragm could be allowed to rise, clearing the lungs of the old breath and leaving it ready to properly contract for the next inhale.
Frederick Matthias Alexander developed his Technique as a young actor in late 19th-century Australia. Alexander, who specialized in Shakespearean recitations, was plagued by voice problems. Medical advice and treatment had no effect on the extreme hoarseness that marred his performances; so Alexander began a careful self-examination of his speaking habits and techniques. Using mirrors, he soon noticed that he was pulling his head backward and downward as he spoke, not only in his performances but (more subtly) even in his everyday speech.
This observation led Alexander to experiment with changing his postural habits. He continued working with mirrors, discovering that many of his ideas about “good posture” only increased his body tension, limited his range of movement, and further strained his voice. It was only as he learned to stop those restrictive patterns that he was able to release his neck from his habitual downward pull. His hoarseness vanished, and he experienced a new sensation of lightness and ease in all of his movements.
Alexander not only preserved his acting career, but became known among fellow actors for his insight into the relationship between posture and performance. He was encouraged to teach his discoveries to others. Eventually he moved to England, where his work was championed by Aldous Huxley, and later by John Dewey in America, spreading his reputation far beyond the realm of the performing arts.
In the 1930’s Alexander began a teacher training program to enable others to teach his Technique. Today there are many such training programs and several thousand practicing teachers of the Alexander Technique around the world. Most teachers offer private lessons; some teach group lessons in classroom settings or seminars. In either case, the Technique is applied both to common everyday movements (such as walking or rising from a chair) and to movements that are more directly related to the student’s profession and/or lifestyle (such as serving a tennis ball or sitting at a computer keyboard).
From the very first lesson, changes begin to occur in awareness and movement patterns. It may, however, take several weeks or months before students are able to consistently apply the Technique in their lives.
As Alexander himself discovered, healthy alignment of the body can have profound consequences. Energy that was formerly devoted to counterproductive muscle tension is available for more useful purposes. Jane Kosminsky, in her introductory video to the Alexander Technique, The Balance of Well-Being, tells the story of a man whose high-pitched voice deepened into a resonant bass as the Technique enabled him to speak with full, relaxed breath support for the first time in his life. Freeing the neck encourages the entire spine to decompress, creating more space for the internal structures, for unrestricted circulation of blood and other fluids, and for more efficient functioning of all the body’s systems.
Quotes ∞
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“Stop the wrong and the right will follow.”
ported, though this was just a bunch of copy-pasted stuff.
date estimated