Alexander Technique Institute

Suite 4 / 188 Pacific Highway, North Sydney, Australia 2060

Teacher Training

What is the Alexander Technique?

Natural Poise

"I recommend the Alexander Technique as an extremely sophisticated form of re-habilitation...many types of under-performance and even ailments, both mental and physical, can be alleviated, sometimes to a surprising degree, by teaching the body musculature to function differently."

Professor N. Tinbergen
Nobel Prize for Medicine, 1973

F. M. Alexander

The Conscious Mind Must be Quickened

F.M. Alexander

Use Affects Functioning

The Alexander Technique is not a 'technique' per se nor is it 'just posture.'  It is a unique re-education process that involves change and freedom from harmful habits of use that interfere with natural poise and balance.  After a course of individual lessons you will be able self-work and bring creative, intelligent choice into how you use yourself and react in all daily activities and interacts.

Alexander observed that use affects functioning.  In other words, our general manner of use affects for the better or worse the way we function and react in all daily activities.  Therefore, in order to function at our optimum physically, mentally and emotionally we need to become more aware of our use in order to be free from harmful, conditioned habits.

The ability to stop harmful habits of use and direct ourselves into balance is what F.M. Alexander called, creative, constructive conscious control of the individual (1).  This unique and valuable method of self-work is available to both young and old.  It empowers the individual and enhances creativity, health and well-being.  It allows true freedom, 'freedom in thought and action'...moment by moment.

Alexander discovered that a certain dynamic balance of the head, neck and back is the main factor in determining the most efficient use and functioning of the whole body/mind complex.  This relationship constitutes our 'core structure' and can be seen working beautifully in most infants and young children.  Their necks are free, the head balances upright on the neck which allows the spine to lengthen and strengthen.  The torso is free of unnecessary tension which allows natural, full-capacity breathing without strain, effort or exercise.

With a course of individual lessons you can regain this childlike freedom, it will be in the way you move and react to daily life situations.  In time it will become, a way of Being.  As Alexander said, you will be "ready to meet the stimulus that always put you wrong and know what to do."

"Alexander recognised that the body is not simply a system of mechanical levers to be adjusted into different positions like a mechanical crane. It is a subtle organ of expression in which emotional states modify and are modified by muscular tension states...Alexander learned by observation and experiment upon himself, in the strictest scientific method, that the mechanism that determines the character of all reflex action lies in the reflexes governing the relation of the head to the neck, and the neck to the spinal column. When this 'primary control' or our core structure is functioning as it should, it is sensed as an integrating force that allows freedom throughout the organism." (2)

Professor John Dewey

(1) Alexander F.M. Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual first published in 1923 U.K. Reissued by STAT books, U.K. in 1997>
(2) John Dewey & F.M. Alexander; www.alexandertechnique.com/articles/dewey first published in 1933. Reissued in 2001 by Orion Publishing House, U.K.