How The Alexander Technique Began
by
Joan Arnold, Certified Teacher of the Alexander Technique.
Frederick Matthias Alexander (1869-1955) was a Shakespearean actor
plagued by chronic hoarseness. While on stage before an audience,
he sometimes lost his voice completely. Doctors' treatments failed
to correct the problem, and he began to look at what he was doing
to provoke his own vocal troubles. He set up a three-way mirror
to observe himself, and noticed that every time he began to speak,
he tightened the muscles of his neck, lifted his chin and tilted
his head back and down. The resulting pressure on the spine restricted
his breathing and shortened his stature. Changing this habit proved
surprisingly difficult. Many hours of experiment revealed that if
he simply stopped tightening his neck, that was far more useful
than trying to do what he thought was correct. His whole concept
of rightness was unreliable, based as it was on years of faulty
habits. Alexander discovered that deliberate muscular work was not
as effective as envisioning an activity, what he called "directing."
Alexander also found that if he was too concerned with his goal,
his over-anxiety to perform well interfered with his ability to
do so. He was trying too hard. When he focused on the process rather
than the goal, his over-activity lessened. His voice and body worked
much more easily, becoming the expressive tool he yearned for. He
found that he could do more by doing less. Through a nine-year odyssey
of self-observation and experimentation, Alexander discovered how
to restore his voice and enrich his stage presence. He became known
for his mellifluous voice. As he taught his method to those who
sought him out, he found it also resolved a wide range of physical
symptoms, such as back problems, breathing disorders, chronic pain
and stage fright.
As Alexander's students learned to use his Technique, their overall
health improved. He continued to teach in England and the United
States until his death in l955 at the age of 86.
Among those who have studied the Alexander Technique are Jacqueline
Kennedy Onassis, Paul McCartney, Robin Williams, Kevin Kline, James
Earl Jones, Sting, Mary Steenburgen, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.
Today there are about 2500 Alexander Technique teachers throughout
the world, with about 700 in the United States.
Alexander's great discovery was this: An easy relationship between
the head and the spine gives us access to a kind of elegant power
steering in the body. Rather than thinking of individual muscles
or joints, we can capitalize on the body's capacity to work as a
whole. Managing the head/neck relationship helps us to streamline
movement and simplify coordination, bringing a new freedom and richness
to everything we do.
copyright: Joan Arnold
