Carl Trimmer MSTAT

Teacher of The Alexander Technique

The Alexander Technique

F.M. Alexander

Frederick Matthias Alexander was born on the 20th January 1869 in Wynard, on the

north-western coast of Tasmania.

The eldest of eight children, Alexander was a sickly child, and because of this often

missed out on his schooling.

Despite this frailty, and especially as his family were farmers, he spent

much of his time outdoors and developed a liking for nature and country pursuits.

In particular, he developed a life-long love of horses and was known to enjoy

regular contact with the bookmakers throughout his adult life!. It was one such bet that

paid for his trip across the ocean to England at the age of 35 on April 13th 1904.

During his childhood Alexander was an avid reader and received private tuition from his

local schoolmaster, Robert Robertson, who encourage in him a love of literature,

especially poetry and Shakespeare.

At sixteen he began work as a clerk for a tin mining company at Waratah, about fifty

miles inland from Wynard. He studied accountancy and continued to develop his

interest in the arts. For the next three years he learned the violin and took part in amateur

dramatics whilst saving enough money to move to Melbourne for professional tuition.

In Melbourne he lived with his uncle and aunt, and for six months spent his time visiting

the theatre, art galleries and concerts, whilst also taking lessons in elocution, dramatic art

and the violin.

When his savings ran out he took various clerical jobs to support himself, but

recurrences of his childhood illness meant that each was short lived. However, by this

time he had decided to try and make his living as a professional elocutionist and

reciter, although he was already worried by his 'hoarseness and lowered vitality'.

Despite this he was immediately successful and by the age of twenty five returned to

Tasmania to perform there, before continuing to New Zealand for a ten month tour.

Unfortunately, his voice began to increasingly fail him during performances, even though

he followed the advice of several doctors by resting his voice as much as possible before

recitals. Despite the obvious failing, doctors could find nothing physically wrong  with his

vocal mechanisms. After another failure during a performance, Alexander decided to

take the matter into his own hands.

Alexander reasoned that as there was no problem physically with the vocal mechanisms,

it must be something that he was doing during a recital that caused the voice to fail.

He set up a system of mirrors in his room and began to watch himself as he spoke

normally, and then as he recited. Through pain-staking observation over a long period

Alexander noticed that he began to pull his head back as he started his reciting. Further

observation showed that this depressed the larynx and caused his back to shorten and

narrow. Alexander had discovered the importance of the relationship between the

neck, head and back. This initial observation was the starting block for the Technique

that he went on to develop over his lifetime.

Although still in the early  stages of development, the beneficial results of employing this

new method were so apparent to those who saw him perform that when his

engagements in Auckland finished he stayed on and began a successful practice teaching

others what he had discovered.

After three months he returned to Melbourne to start a practice there. He began with

singers and actors, but soon doctors began sending him patients with a variety of

conditions. Very soon this sort of pupil outnumbered those from the performing arts.

Doctors themselves began to have lessons with Alexander and, after five years, he

moved to Sidney where his brother A.R. joined him as a teacher. Once again he soon

had a successful practice and was encouraged by a famous surgeon, Dr. Steward

McKay, to move to London where the work could receive the recognition it deserved.

Alexander sailed for England on April 13th 1904, with letters of introduction to some

prominent members of society. He took rooms at the Army & Navy Mansions, Victoria

Street, and built a thriving practice there until 1910 when he moved a short distance to a

house at 16 Ashley Place, SW1.

Around this time he published his first book, Man's Supreme Inheritance, in order to

ensure his discoveries were not claimed by others. His brother A.R. and one of his

sisters joined him in London as teachers.

In 1914 the First World War caused a dramatic fall in pupil numbers and so, to maintain

a constant practice-which Alexander realised was essential for the skill of his hands and

awareness and sensitivity-he began to spend Autumn and Winter in the United States.

Alexander did this every year until 1924 (except 1921) and was helped in this by two

assistants, Miss Ethel Webb and Miss Irene Tasker.

In 1920 Alexander married a fellow Australian, Edith Page, and in 1924 bought

'Penhill',  a house with twenty acres at Bexley, Kent, which remained their home until

Edith's death in 1937.

In 1923 Alexander published his second book, Constructive Control Of The

Individual, and in 1932 came his third and most successful book The Use Of The

Self.  In this he describes the process of  The Technique's development.

In September 1930, the first three year training course for teachers was formed at

Ashley Place, and this continued alongside Alexander's private practice until the

outbreak of World War Two.

As in 1914 pupil numbers dwindled, and so in 1940 Alexander again set out for the

United States, where he lived and worked until 1943. Whilst there he completed and

published his last book The Universal Constant Of Living.

On his return to London he resumed his private teaching and restarted the training

course, but in late 1947 he had a bad fall and a week later suffered a severe stroke

resulting in paralysis of his left hand, leg and face. The doctors who attended him held

out little hope for Alexander as he was by then seventy nine years old, but through the

use of his own technique he made a full recovery and by March was teaching again.

Alexander continued to work daily until his sudden death on October 10th 1955.