Alexander's Story
"This story of perceptiveness, of intelligence and of persistence, shown by a man without medical training, is one of the true epics of medical research and practice." Nikolaas Tinbergen, 1973 Nobel Prize speech for Medicine/Physiology
F. M. Alexander was born in Wynyard, on the northwest coast of Tasmania, Australia, in 1869. As a young man, he developed a passionate interest in acting and reciting, but he was plagued by a tendency to become hoarse and lose his voice. Resting it, as his doctor advised, helped his voice recover, but as soon as he performed he would lose it again. After losing his voice halfway through an important performance, Alexander went back to his doctor, and asked a simple but important question: if his voice recovered when he stopped speaking, and got worse when he recited, must he not be DOING something that caused him to lose his voice? The doctor said he supposed so, but had no further advice.
Alexander then determined to discover the cause on his own. By assuming responsibility for his problem, Alexander had taken the first step on the long path that eventually led to his discoveries. He spent several years observing himself with mirrors while reciting, watching what he did as he recited or performed other movements, and experimenting with different ways of reciting. Eventually he observed his tendency to contract his body while reciting, beginning by retracting his head back into his spine. After further observations, he discovered that this tendency existed, at a more subtle level, when he decided to perform any activity. However, through time and more experiments, he found that he could elicit a lengthening, expanding pattern of response in himself. This expanding pattern represented the recovery of the natural, biological engagement of the postural muscles of the body.
He gradually discovered that reciting with the "lengthening" pattern was not sufficient. The problem was that the idea of speaking, or of "doing" anything, automatically stimulated a pattern of excessive neuromuscular tension involving his whole psycho-physical self, not merely his voice or any other particular part. The only way to change his pattern of response was to learn not to respond automatically to the idea of doing an activity. He had to consciously maintain the more open pattern of response that he had discovered, in his whole psycho-physical self, in the face of a stimulus that ordinarily caused an automatic response of tension and strain. Because the idea of “doing” stimulated the wrong response, he could not focus on how to “do” an activity “correctly:” instead, he had to focus on preventing the wrong response. He discovered that the only place we have a potential for freedom from our habits is the space between a stimulus and a response.
The result of these experiments and observations became what is now called the Alexander Technique. The ability to work at this deep level of ourselves, a level at which "mind" and "body" are not separate, is what sets the Alexander Technique apart from other approaches to our "mental" or "physical" problems.
Eventually, he corrected the problem that was causing him to lose his voice, raised his general level of health and functioning, and learned how to free himself from the slavery of subconscious reactions. As Nikolaas Tinbergen observed in his 1973 Nobel Prize speech for Medicine/Physiology: "This story of perceptiveness, of intelligence and of persistence, shown by a man without medical training, is one of the true epics of medical research and practice."
Alexander continued to develop his discoveries and began teaching them to others. He moved to London, where his reputation grew among doctors, actors, thinkers, and writers of his day. Dr. Peter MacDonald, who later became chairman of the British Medical Association, endorsed his work. A group of physicians wrote to the British Medical Journal, suggesting that his principles be included in medical training. Such thinkers as Aldous Huxley, John Dewey, and George Bernard Shaw took lessons. A number of famous scientists, including Sir Charles Sherrington, winner of the 1932 Nobel Prize for medicine, also endorsed his work as consistent with scientific discoveries in neurology and physiology. The Alexander Technique today is taught in a wide variety of academic and institutional settings around the world. Many doctors recommend the Alexander Technique as the best approach to chronic musculoskeletal problems.
"This story of perceptiveness, of intelligence and of persistence, shown by a man without medical training, is one of the true epics of medical research and practice." Nikolaas Tinbergen, 1973 Nobel Prize speech for Medicine/Physiology
F. M. Alexander was born in Wynyard, on the northwest coast of Tasmania, Australia, in 1869. As a young man, he developed a passionate interest in acting and reciting, but he was plagued by a tendency to become hoarse and lose his voice. Resting it, as his doctor advised, helped his voice recover, but as soon as he performed he would lose it again. After losing his voice halfway through an important performance, Alexander went back to his doctor, and asked a simple but important question: if his voice recovered when he stopped speaking, and got worse when he recited, must he not be DOING something that caused him to lose his voice? The doctor said he supposed so, but had no further advice.
Alexander then determined to discover the cause on his own. By assuming responsibility for his problem, Alexander had taken the first step on the long path that eventually led to his discoveries. He spent several years observing himself with mirrors while reciting, watching what he did as he recited or performed other movements, and experimenting with different ways of reciting. Eventually he observed his tendency to contract his body while reciting, beginning by retracting his head back into his spine. After further observations, he discovered that this tendency existed, at a more subtle level, when he decided to perform any activity. However, through time and more experiments, he found that he could elicit a lengthening, expanding pattern of response in himself. This expanding pattern represented the recovery of the natural, biological engagement of the postural muscles of the body.
He gradually discovered that reciting with the "lengthening" pattern was not sufficient. The problem was that the idea of speaking, or of "doing" anything, automatically stimulated a pattern of excessive neuromuscular tension involving his whole psycho-physical self, not merely his voice or any other particular part. The only way to change his pattern of response was to learn not to respond automatically to the idea of doing an activity. He had to consciously maintain the more open pattern of response that he had discovered, in his whole psycho-physical self, in the face of a stimulus that ordinarily caused an automatic response of tension and strain. Because the idea of “doing” stimulated the wrong response, he could not focus on how to “do” an activity “correctly:” instead, he had to focus on preventing the wrong response. He discovered that the only place we have a potential for freedom from our habits is the space between a stimulus and a response.
The result of these experiments and observations became what is now called the Alexander Technique. The ability to work at this deep level of ourselves, a level at which "mind" and "body" are not separate, is what sets the Alexander Technique apart from other approaches to our "mental" or "physical" problems.
Eventually, he corrected the problem that was causing him to lose his voice, raised his general level of health and functioning, and learned how to free himself from the slavery of subconscious reactions. As Nikolaas Tinbergen observed in his 1973 Nobel Prize speech for Medicine/Physiology: "This story of perceptiveness, of intelligence and of persistence, shown by a man without medical training, is one of the true epics of medical research and practice."
Alexander continued to develop his discoveries and began teaching them to others. He moved to London, where his reputation grew among doctors, actors, thinkers, and writers of his day. Dr. Peter MacDonald, who later became chairman of the British Medical Association, endorsed his work. A group of physicians wrote to the British Medical Journal, suggesting that his principles be included in medical training. Such thinkers as Aldous Huxley, John Dewey, and George Bernard Shaw took lessons. A number of famous scientists, including Sir Charles Sherrington, winner of the 1932 Nobel Prize for medicine, also endorsed his work as consistent with scientific discoveries in neurology and physiology. The Alexander Technique today is taught in a wide variety of academic and institutional settings around the world. Many doctors recommend the Alexander Technique as the best approach to chronic musculoskeletal problems.
