The Story of the ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE and its “FANS”
From 16 to 18 October we are holding a residential workshop at Herdade da Marmeleira (Evoramonte, Alto Alentejo), in the Alexander Technique!
From 16 to 18 October we are holding a residential workshop at Herdade da Marmeleira (Evoramonte, Alto Alentejo), in the Alexander Technique!
What is the story of this technique, and who practises it?
Frederick Matthias Alexander (1869-1955) was an Australian teacher and actor. The Alexander Technique began as a method of voice training for singers and actors in 1890. While developing his technique he discovered that the basis for success in voice training was an efficient and natural functioning of the breathing mechanism. In this way the Alexander Technique became a technique he called ”Respiratory Re-Education”.
Some of his pupils found that his method of respiratory re-education also helped them with other physical difficulties. And so the Alexander Technique evolved into a method for learning to change consciously all bad habits of coordination (including movement, posture and breathing). Alexander discovered that habits, whether “physical” or “mental”, are psychophysical by nature. He observed how excessive habits of tension and inefficient coordination affect the way we feel and think.
In a short space of time Alexander developed his technique from a method of voice training into a method of respiratory re-education, and then into a technique of psychophysical re-education, which he more specifically called “The Use of the Self”.
Mr Alexander taught this technique in England and the United States until 1955, at the age of 86. Since then he has impressed physicists, scientists and philosophers with his ability to identify, manage and relieve a whole range of conditions lodged in the body that cause human suffering, from chronic pain to depression and anxiety.
The “FANS” of this Technique
- Sir Charles Sherrington and Niko Timbergen (both Nobel Prize winners in Medicine), and George Coghill (the famous American biologist) supported the work of Matthias Alexander
- Madonna, Sting, Paul McCartney
- Kevin Klein, Jeremy Irons, William Hurt, Michael Caine, Paul Newman, Keanu Reaves
- The British Olympic equestrian team
- etc.
**To find out more about this weekend workshop, and about what the Alexander Technique is and what its benefits are, see:
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