What is the Alexander Technique?

The Alexander Technique is a tool for looking at habit, change, and how we “use” ourselves. The way you “use” yourself is the way your whole self reacts to any situation in life. Sometimes you react well, with intelligence and efficiency; we call this using yourself well. Sometimes you react poorly, with mal-coordination and clouded thinking; we call this misusing yourself. The Alexander Technique helps you have a choice over how you react.

 If we misuse ourselves – if we constantly interfere with our natural poise – it will undermine how well we function and lower our general quality of living. The Alexander Technique shows us how to free ourselves from these subconscious habits that disturb our balance, upset our composure and throw off our coordination. It helps people of all ages and all walks of life use themselves better.

“No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it."

While books on the Alexander Technique can be informative, they are a poor subsitute for lessons with a certified teacher, who has spent years developing the requisite skills. The Alexander Technique is not about learning to do something new, but rather learning how to stop habits you may not even know you have. The very nature of this makes learning the Technique without the aid of a teacher very difficult.

Is this bodywork or therapy?

The Alexander Technique is education, not bodywork, treatment, or therapy, though the outcome is often therapeutic. Unlike approaches that seek to effect change through altering the structure (muscles in massage and spine in chiropractic work), the Alexander Technique helps you learn to stop perpetuating habits of mal-coordination that interefere with your natural functioning.