Discoveries

The Discoveries of FM Alexander

Frederic Matthias Alexander (1869-1955) was an Australian actor. Early in his career he developed breathing problems and was also losing his voice during performances. Doctors and voice teachers recommended resting his voice but this did not prevent him losing his voice during the performance. He concluded that it must be something he did during the performance that was causing the loss of voice.

During an investigation that lasted several years he realised that it was not just a problem of his vocal apparatus but of all of him, physical and mental. His psycho-physical condition influenced everything he did.

He managed to change those habits which were causing the problem and after  realising that his basic problem was common to the majority of people, he developed a method of teaching his technique. Towards the end of his life he trained other teachers and his technique is still taught today.

The use of oneself

It is fairly obvious that the way we use ourselves will have an effect on the quality of our lives. We would all agree that the results of using an instrument or tool will depend on the way we use it and this use  effects  both the product and the instrument  itself.

What does it mean to “use ourselves well”?

We will improve our chances of living healthily and happily if we respect to the best of our abilities the natural functioning of our psycho-physical selves. This implies being conscious of what we are doing.

What follows is a greatly simplified description of what is our instrument – ourselves in both our physical and mental aspects.

To start the muscles should not be seen as separate things that just pull on bones, but rather as a mesh that clothes the whole skeleton. This elastic mesh has two functions: it permits us to move and interact with our surroundings and maintains the parts of the body in the correct relation so that we do not lose our balance.

Throughout the millions of years of evolution of  the human race, we have developed anti-gravity mechanisms to counter the downward pull of gravity. Alexander dicovered through observation that this  inbuilt mechanism  can be helped or hindered by our thoughts and wishes.  He succeeded in inhibiting the patterns of tension that interfered with and encouraging consciously the better functioning of the anti-gravity mechanisms.

Our wishes are translated by the nervous system into signals that go to the muscles. When we succeed in inhibiting our old habits and encourage through our wishes the anti-gravity response, the body responds with a lengthening of the muscles and they achieve a better tone. This in turn affects our breathing, digestion and circulation.

Finally we should ask: who gives the orders to the brain?

The answer is obvious:  I do.

The ideas and concepts that we hold determine the the way we are organised, both physically and mentally.  With help, we can change these fundamental concepts thus giving ourselves much more freedom.

The Primary Control

Unfortunately, this free natural functioning is far from being universal. The great majority of us interfere with its functioning in one way or another. Alexander discovered that his habit of stiffening the neck and pulling the head back when initiating a movement was also present in the great majority of people. This habit leads to an incorrect distribution of tension in the body affecting both the orientation of the skeleton and the internal organs.

Alexander based his work on teaching the correct relation of head, neck and back ( the Primary Control) during movement and this ensured a proper co-ordination of all the different parts of the body.

Inhibition and Direction

Up till now we have spoken of “good use” but not on how to achieve it.  At this point it is important to be clear that the Alexander Technique is not a therapy or a manipulation of the body. It is education or better still a re-education. It deals with learning to choose and control our reactions.

We need to break the force of habit in our reactions. These habits have been learnt over our lifetime  and we have a predisposition to react in a particular way to a given situation. Therefore our first task is to stop this habitual reaction by refusing to respond in the customary/automatic way. This refusal creates the conditions necessary for change.

Alexander used the word inhibition in its neuro-physiological sense. To stop the automatic unthinking response to a stimulus – a response that usually causes an incorrect distribution of tension in the body – giving ourselves the time and opportunity to choose the response that  lengthens and expands the body.

Once we have inhibited the automatic response then we can direct the neuro muscular system so that it lengthens, widens and espands and the postural mechanisms act to give the body the natural upwards direction in response to the force of gravity. Direction is a process of directed thinking or projecting orders to the whole of our system as a single unit to create the conditions for good use.