Frederick Matthias Alexander was born inTasmania in 1869. He moves to Sidney where he begans to work as an actor. He becomes specially interested in Shakespeare monologs. Then he begans to have vocal problems and he almost loses his voice. Doctors recommend him to rest and that helps Alexander to recover his voice. But short after performing again he has the same problem again. He finally concludes that something that he is doing himself causes his vocal problems. And that is not limited at the use of his vocal apparatus, but also with the whole use of himself.
Then he started a long process of self observation in which he discovered that the excess of muscular tension was the cause of his problem.
He discovered that when there is no tension in the neck muscles, the head doesn’t press the spine and then can lengthen and widen. The natural relationship between the head, the neck and the spine brings optimum equilibrium and good coordination to the person, and it is a principle that encourages health and benefits the person as a whole.
After Alexandre’s sucessful recovering many people related to the theatre, politics, and others, asked him to teach his technique. Is then when he starts his private practice as a teacher of tThe Alexande Technique in 1909. The first Training school for teachers starts in 1931 in London.
Alexander wrote four books:
- Man’s Supreme Inheritance (1910), Mouritz, London, 1996.
- Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual (1923), STAT Books, 1997.
- The Use of the Self (1932), Victor Gollancz,
London , 1985. - The Universal Constant in Living (1942), Mouritz,
London, 2000.
There are two books from Alexander translated in spanish:
- El uso de sí mismo (Paidós, Barcelona, 1995)
(The Use of the Self) - La Constante Universal de la Vida (La Liebre de Marzo, Barcelona, 2009)
(The Universal Constant in Living)