WHO WAS F.M ALEXANDER?
F.M Alexander was born in Australia in 1869. He was born prematurely, so that led him to have a very fragile health. At the age of 20 he decided to build an acting career since he had great admiration for Shakespeare.
While pursuing his acting he faced a big challenge to keep his voice healthy and stable. Every time he performed, he would end up with a hoarseness in his voice that prevented the audience from hearing him properly. After visiting his doctor, he was adviced to let his voice rest until the following performance. He followed his doctor´s orders and happily observed that his voice was fully recovered. Resting was the solution. But as soon as he started acting again, his hoarseness came back.When he understood that he needed to address how to speak properly, without missusing his voice, he started a process that lasted therest of his life. A process of self observation in which he detected what he later called "The habits of use". He experimented with a mirror. He stood in front of it and spoke outloud, he
'It is about how we do what we do. How do we stand up straight without stiffening? How do we pick up something from the floor without hurting the lower back? How can we change the way we move in order to work for us and not against us at all times?
Most of the times we are told:“Stand up straight” “Sing like this” “Move like that” but the real question is: How? It is rare to listen to someone explain an activity, taking into account the system as a whole.'
observed himself while he did it. At that stage he didn’t notice anything that called his atention. Next, he recited as if he was performing and saw it. He saw how his head went backwards, his shoulders went up, his larynx moved quite drastically and his whole body would tense up. He stopped and spoke normally again and could observe that those reactions where there, but in a smaller degree. Doing that excercice of observing himself in the mirror revealed that in everyday acts his body reacted with unnecessary tension and movements that actually were interfering, not only with his voice, but with his entire being. He was not aware of them until he saw them trully exagereted by his will to recite properly. The simple idea of doing it well triggered his whole system to do a whole bunch of unnecessary small actions. Those actions he called them "The Habit" and we all posses them. They are subconscious and we don´t feel they are unnecessary. Quite the opposite, we think and feel we need them to perform any activity properly, eventhough they are the interference itself.
He dedicated his entire life to develop his technique to help people from all sorts of professions and backrounds recognize their habitual pattern of use and recover the proper function of their bodies. He did not limit himself only to actors. He even recovered himself from two strokes at the age of 78 by applying the Alexander Technique principles. He lived his adult life in London and New York and there is where he met numerous incredible people who helped him develop the Technique.