We’re living at a time when the need for the Alexander Technique is greater than ever, with many people experiencing overwhelming levels of chronic pain, stress and/or a general feeling of being powerless in the face of a rapidly changing, dysfunctional world. Learning the Alexander Technique can enable us to reduce or overcome pain, and find a greater degree of calm and sense of agency (we can’t always change the world around us but we can have more choice over how we respond to it).
Yet rather than flourishing to meet this expanding need, the numbers of Alexander teachers and teacher training courses has been dwindling over the past couple of decades. This general trend was compounded by the Covid pandemic which enticed many teachers into early retirement. The Alexander Technique is less well known than it was and nowadays many people have not even heard of it. There are several reasons for this, including our failure as the Alexander profession to invest sufficient time and energy in spreading awareness – this perhaps stems from a degree of complacency after a long period of immense popularity in the 1980s and 1990s. The Alexander Technique has also been overtaken by a wide range of other self-development and health and wellbeing activities, such as yoga and Pilates, which also have the advantage of being easily accessible through group teaching being the norm (Alexander has traditionally been taught one-to-one, with group classes historically being less common).
I think there are probably additional reasons why the Alexander Technique fell in popularity over the last 20 or so years. Perhaps there is even something that is inherent to the technique itself, or at least to the way it has been perceived and taken up?
The Alexander Technique is centred on the individual, building self-awareness and an interest in what we are doing with ourselves as we go about our everyday lives, rather than simply focusing all our attention on the tasks we are carrying out. I see the Alexander Technique as, fundamentally, a self-care method – it’s the best way I know of looking after myself in the everyday. When we (‘mentally’) make time and space to keep gently bringing ourselves back into a more balanced, better coordinated and less reactive state, we feel calmer and more ‘grounded’ and use less unnecessary effort and tension. What’s more we find that we are generally more effective in whatever it is we want to be doing.
However, it can be easy to misunderstand this interest in oneself as akin to selfishness. The idea that it is important to take time to consider ourselves is alien to many people. Gender plays a role here too. I find that often women find it much harder than men to invest their available time and money in taking the number of lessons that they would actually like to. As a generalisation, women are more likely to put others before themselves, it’s one of the reasons that the majority of carers of both children and adults are still women. Yet, if we are able to better look after ourselves, we are also in a much better position to help others. Indeed, some of the many and varied benefits to carers of learning the Alexander Technique have been highlighted in two small research projects led by my colleagues Charlotte Woods and Lesley Glover.
I do find it interesting that the era when the Alexander Technique really flourished in the UK coincided with a time of individualism. It was the 1980s and 1990s when Margaret Thatcher and her followers actively encouraged a cultural shift towards self-centredness and, for an example, individual accumulation of wealth being seen as a desirable goal. Perhaps it’s as simple as, if you’re living in a culture where it’s normal to put yourself first, then it’s more socially acceptable in general to invest time and energy in pursuing your own self-development?
Another aspect to consider is that there is always the possibility for the technique to be ‘misused’. Through learning the Alexander Technique we become more skilled in performance, whether that is how we perform at work, or during our everyday activities – we can use it to ‘better do’ whatever it is that we choose to do. FM Alexander was once asked whether a burglar who learnt his method would become a better person? FM’s responded by saying “No but they would become a better burglar!” It’s hard to know how much he meant this and how much was said in jest, because he made the contrary point in his books. His writings include some rather grandiose claims along the lines of, if everyone were to learn and practice the Alexander Technique, wars would become less likely. I’m not sure about any of that but I would say that practising the Alexander Technique, does at least open up a possibility of becoming a better person, through the increased self-awareness and self-reflection that it entails. Nonetheless, perhaps if someone who is already rather selfish and egotistical, goes on to learn the Alexander Technique, they may be more likely to misconstrue what the self-awareness is ‘for’ and simply become even more self-obsessed?
History also plays a part in the rise and fall of popularity of the Alexander Technique as it has tended to be confined to areas of privilege. The first training courses set up by FM Alexander and then later on by those he trained, were full of people who were independently wealthy. One of the first-generation trainers even explicitly said that running the training over five days a week had the advantage that anyone wishing to train as a teacher would not have time to work alongside. This idea that people had to totally dedicate themselves to their training had the unfortunate and, no doubt, unintended consequence that only those who were rich could afford to train. Thankfully our profession is now making efforts to make teacher training more accessible for people who need, or wish, to work alongside, through part-time and weekend options (for example, our training course in Scotland).
I believe that the inherent focus on the self has also been misunderstood or taken too far in some of the more traditional Alexander teacher training models, with unfortunate consequences for how the technique is sometimes taught. In such models, almost the entire training time is dedicated to refining work on the self, albeit including training in hands-on skills. While such work always forms the foundation of any Alexander teacher training, other essential skills also need to be developed such as how to teach and professional skills – and the training time is extensive enough to allow for this (1600 class hours plus similar amount of self-study). However, in the outdated traditional model, no meaningful attempt is made to train people how they might actually teach or indeed, be able to tailor their teaching appropriately to suit different individuals. Instead, the graduate is supposed to develop their teaching skills after they have qualified but sadly, many don’t find the confidence to do this and eventually give up. Just as importantly, the public is left short-changed if they go to a teacher who over relies on hands-on work alone. If the aim of teaching is to empower an individual to understand and be able to apply the necessary Alexander thinking skills in their daily lives, then we’re going to need a wide range of ‘teaching tools’. We need to find out what works best for the particular individual by exploring different options (explanations, anecdotes, ideas and images), all congruent with the accompanying hands-on work. If we fail to enable people to think for themselves, applying and exploring the technique in their daily life, then they are either likely to not see the relevance of the technique and not continue past the first lesson; or, if they do continue, they have effectively been forced into a dependency situation where they need to keep going back for more hands-on work to ‘put them right again’ – that is not teaching them the Alexander Technique.
So, historically the Alexander Technique has come from a position of privilege and I would also suggest that, in certain areas, a mistaken culture of individualism and a general inwards-looking focus developed along the way. I do think that this is all changing.
Gradually, we are shifting the culture in our profession towards one of collectivism and community. As just one example, in Scotland a group of Alexander teachers are currently working together (as Alexander Technique Collaboration Scotland) to spread awareness of the Alexander Technique and to help make it more accessible to more people. As the celebrated anthropologist Margaret Mead said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has”.
Looking more widely than the technique, our current era is more complex than that of the 1980s and 1990s. It’s often said that we are living with a perplexing mix of pronounced individualism, materialism and social isolation, leading to a strong desire for more community and purpose in life. Perhaps a small contribution to community and purpose can be made through the teaching and practice of the Alexander Technique?
Given that the Alexander Technique is fundamentally a method for self-care, we might want to reflect on where self-care is most needed today. The feminist scholar, Sara Ahmed writes: “In queer, feminist and anti-racist work, self-care is about the creation of community, fragile communities, assembled out of the experiences of being shattered. We reassemble ourselves through the ordinary, everyday and often painstaking work of looking after ourselves; looking after each other.” In this, Sara is inspired by celebrated black feminist activist Audre Lourde’s proclamation: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” There are many fragile communities in our society today.
It’s up to us, as Alexander teachers or students, how we use this amazing method. We can use it purely for our own self-interest, or to enable us to do worthwhile things in our lives that others can benefit from. Through it, we can take better care of ourselves in order that we can take better care of others and our planet.