The Alexander Technique is named after it's Australian discoverer, Frederich Matthias (FM) Alexander.   An actor with voice and breathing problems discovered how supporting his whole body and using it within its design can improve quality of life and use. Through detailed and meticulous observation of how he used his whole body in activity, he learned to interrupt habitual ways adopted through his life.  By stopping the wrong thing, he allowed something new to happen. Change occurred. His voice became clear and his recurring voice problems disappeared, as did breathing problems he had had since childhood. As his peers noticed the changes in him, they sought his advice on their problems and soon he was helping people relieve all sorts of ailments, successfully. Word spread to medical practitioners who also sought him to help their patients. In 1904 he left Australia forever and developed his practice in England, taking to the US during war time. Protective of his life's work, he eventually shared his knowledge and began to train teachers of his technique.

He is regarded as one of Australian's finest men and a pioneer for his time. He fraternised with the great thinkers of the day such as John Dewey, Aldous Huxley, Professsor G E Coghill and George Bernard Shaw. He died in 1955, still working, at the age of eighty-six after successfully defending his name and work through the courts. Before he died, he recovered to almost full functioning after the effects of two strokes he endured.

Many modern day actors and performers have used Alexander's work to benefit their own. John Cleese, Sting, Paul and Linda McCartney, Yehudi Menuhin, Paul Newman, Keanu Reeves and Hilary Swank to name but a few. To see what they and others have had to say about the Alexander Technique follow this link http://alexander.ie/personalexp.html

"Mr Alexander's method lays hold of the individual as a whole, as a self-vitalizing agent. He reconditions and reeducates the reflex mechanisms and brings their habits into normal relation with the functions of organisms as a whole. I regard his methods as thoroughly scientific and educationally sound."  Professor GE Coghill

You may not have heard of Prof Coghill. He was an American Scientist who spent his life studying the human anatomy and came up with the same principles FM Alexander had. Thus he understood  Alexanders teachings and when the Australian actor gave Coghill a 3 day lesson, FM suggested he was his best student ever. The Professor lamented, as he was ailing towards the end of his life, that he had spent his life studying pored over a microscpe and had not embodied what he was learning, as Alexander had.