PRINCIPLES – WHAT IS THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE?

The Alexander Technique is a way to improve physical and mental health and general wellbeing. Based on the fact that all disorders, be they of a physical, emotional, mental or psychological nature, manifest in muscular tension, the Alexander Technique helps us improve the functioning of the whole organism by releasing unwanted muscular tension that has built up over a course of a lifetime. The Alexander Technique is an indirect learning method. It is not about being told what to do. Rather, it's about exploring with the teacher's guidance what not to do, what interferes, what is unnecessary and ultimately how to stop doing what is not needed or wanted. In this way, we learn to identify our own hindering habits and behavior patterns, effect a change of awareness and increase the options and choices available to us. The teacher supports the learning process through verbal instructions and gentle hands-on guidance so that the intellectual learning and understanding of the principles always goes hand in hand with direct physical experience. The Alexander Technique is in the best sense a holistic method of improving the use of the self.

F.M. Alexander:
"When we stop doing the wrong thing, the right thing will do itself"