F.Mathais Alexander 1865-1955 discovered the Alexander Technique over 100 years ago. F.M.Alexander was born in  Tasmania. He was raised in Australia, as a young man he suffered from a poor constitution and a bad temper which led to his removal from school.

He was tutored at home by a Scottish teacher who introduced him to Shakespeare. This became a life long passion which led him into Theatre in his early teens. He soon decided he wanted to train and saved enough money to move to Melbourne. Very soon he had established a reputation as competent actor, he was getting more and more work, this was the start of his problems which had far reaching implications.

He started to suffer hoarseness and the audibly  gasping in of air which is associated with poor singing. He sought professorial medical help with no success. With typical determination, Alexander initiated a long series of observations and experiments of himself, and so over a 10 year period the Alexander Technique was born. When Alexander set out on his  task he had very little to go on.

His one observation had been that his voice worsened when he was reciting, it improved during the periods when he was not performing, on the strength of this he decided to observe himself - first when speaking, then while reciting - to see if he could detect any difference between the two. He soon noticed that, in response to the idea of using his voice, he brought in to play a whole series of muscular contractions around the neck and head which were more pronounced during reciting than during speaking.

He experimented by changing these patterns but found this more difficult than he had anticipated. Through careful observation he concluded that while he could change these patterns by doing more - that is, increasing the tension - it did not help him. The real problem he slowly realised was that he felt impelled to make all these movements with his head and neck when all the evidence suggested they were harmful. The more Alexander tried to correct the movements the more tense he became, this is the conflict were all faced when trying to change a harmful habit: we need to recognise that often what we think were doing, when looked at more closely or objectively were seen to be doing something else. This is what Alexander called faulty sensory perception of ourselves, that what we feel is right may only be what is habitual to us and not necessarily good for us. This concept is central to the Alexander Technique.

"When anything is pointed out, our only idea is to go from wrong to right in spite of the fact that it has taken years to get wrong; we try to get right in a moment"

The Alexander Technique gives us a choice in how we use ourselves; its a process of re-education, whereby wrong use of the body - unconscious wrong use is brought to our awareness. We can then consciously learn to do what ever we do in an easier and freer way.

We learn to use ourselves with intelligence and in accordance with our natural design.

Gravity the root of all grace