In 1904 Alexander moved to London and was soon passing his discoveries on to theatrical luminaries like Henry Irving, as well as making significant inroads into the more conservative worlds of medicine, education, and even the military.
He continued to refine and develop his work throughout his long life and taught right up until his death at the age of eighty-seven. A century later, the principles he discovered and the procedures he developed are known as the Alexander Technique.
The use of Alexander's technique by actors and musicians began even before he left Australia. It is now a fundamental part of actor training in the UK at all the major drama schools and music academies: RADA, LAMDA, The Guildhall, the Royal Academy of Music,the Royal College of Music, and the Trinity College of Music. It is also central to the training of actors at Juilliard in New York.
The technique is used by Paul Newman, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Brannagh, Christopher Reeve, Yehudi Menuhin, Carl Davis, Chris Bonnington, Paul McCartney, Julian Bream, Sting, and the British Olympic Equestrian Team - a short selection. George Bernard Shaw, Aldous Huxley, Robertson Davies, and the American philosopher and educator John Dewey were all champions of Alexander’s work.
The common perception of the technique as 'posture training' is so incomplete - the implications of the work are so much deeper - that it needs to be corrected.
Of course, one of the most obvious effects of using the Alexander Technique is usually an improvement in posture, sometimes amounting to structural change (Juilliard acting graduates are claimed to grow one to two inches taller during their training). But Alexander himself asked writers not to use the words ‘posture’ or ‘position’ when defining his work.
Instead, he conceived it as “a way of controlling human reaction”. He had discovered through detached self-observation that his own behavior was frighteningly automatic, and profoundly resistant to change. Under stress it was worse. It was from his constant automatic reactions to stimuli large and small that his problems had arisen.
Many performers have discovered through Alexander’s technique that they (like him) have been limiting their own development. Physically, vocally, mentally and emotionally (as if these aspects could be separated) they have unconsciously hemmed themselves in.
Most of us are aware of our performing colleagues’ unconscious habits in rehearsal and performance, and some of us are aware of some of our own, but the freedom to leave ourselves behind in the service of the play or the musical composition remains elusive.
This is at least partly because our patterns of reaction are ‘whole-organism’ phenomena. Muscles, joints, nerves, viscera, thoughts, emotions, and memory are inextricably interwoven. Alexander discovered that trying to change one element in isolation from the others is futile.
For an actor to take on a character truly and fully requires a deep neutrality and lack of prejudice. Likewise the musician, who requires a technique unencumbered by unconscious habit. This neutrality must be established intellectually, of course, but also physically, in the actor's or musician’s larynx, joints and muscles.
Such conscious, constructive, expansive change is rare, but it can happen.
Alexander found a way to consciously nurture it.
The Alexander Technique consists of practical procedures founded on fundamental principles of human balance, co-ordination, and behavior.
In addition to restoring balance and improving co-ordination, the technique can enhance and refine sensory awareness, improve respiration, muscle tone and posture, transform the voice, and have a profoundly beneficial effect on quality of thought and emotional stability.
It is clinically proven to be as effective as beta-blockers for the management of stage fright, while having none of their harmful side effects.
The Alexander Technique offers the possibility of change - away from compulsive and unconscious reactivity toward expansive, vital, conscious responsiveness.