Frederick Matthias Alexander

From the website: AlexanderTechnique.com

F. M. Alexander (1869 - 1955) was a Shakespearean actor from Australia.  Back then, actors often would travel to people's homes or small venues to recite and perform.  F. M. would perform whole Shakespeare plays as a one man show.  Shakespeare is not known for his brevity, so as you can imagine, F.M. spoke and projected his voice for long periods of time.  Over some time, he began to lose his voice.  He visited doctors and they found no physical reason for his vocal loss so they suggested he rest his voice for a couple of weeks.  After a few weeks of rest, he would perform another play and lose his voice in the middle of the performance.  He visited many doctors who all told him the same thing, "rest your voice and then you'll be fine for your next performance".  Yet, he never experienced long-term healing from resting his voice.

So, he started to think to himself... maybe it's something I'm doing (a habit) that is interfering with my vocal mechanism which is causing me to lose my voice during performances.  That one thought set him on a path of self study.  He tediously watched himself in mirrors, notating what happened to his physicality when he spoke.  He analyzed his thought process - the thoughts he would have just before he spoke - and how they directly related to his physical habits.  

Over time he developed his own technique that helped him retrain his self (mind and body) so that he could move and speak with greater ease.  He didn't just apply this technique to his speaking but to ALL of his everyday activities.  He found such great success with this technique that the doctors that couldn't help him before wanted F.M. to teach them his new technique.  His actor friends want to learn from him what he discovered so they could apply it to their own personal and professional lives.  After 35 years of teaching people what he learned, he then began to teach people how to become teachers of his technique.

My two cents - One of the things I love about the Alexander Technique is that F.M. never said his work was complete.  He wouldn't say, "that's it, I've got it... now everyone do what I did so that you can get it right".  Instead, I feel very encouraged by his writings, and my AT teachers and peers to keep discovering for myself.  F.M. has given us a TREMENDOUS road map with signs posted to help us along our way.  And I am very excited to take a side trip down a road that has been overlooked.  So, I like to ponder the thought... what will I discover along my journey?