Alexander Technique in the community
‘Teaching Alexander Technique in the community’ by Astrid Holm reports on teaching mainly women in Whitehawk, outside Brighton, an area with more poverty and crime than neighbouring areas.[1]
References
[1] ‘Teaching Alexander Technique in the community’ by Astrid Holm in STATNews vol. 6, no. 12 edited by Ann James (STAT, January 2004), pp. 20–21.
This entry covers driving vehicles (cars, trucks, etc.).
‘Taking inhibition onto the roads’ by Barry Collins; on applying the Technique while training to be an Instructor/Observer with the Institute of Advanced Motorists.[1]
References
[1] ‘Taking inhibition onto the roads’ by Barry Collins in STATNews vol. 8, no. 3 edited by Jamie McDowell (STAT, May 2013), p. 19.
Ergonomics is here used in the restricted sense of the adaptation of humans for the workplace and the adaptation of work equipment for humans, primarily for the purpose of comfort, productivity and safety.
F. M. Alexander
F. M. Alexander criticised the concept of a ‘correct type of chair’ in MSI:
And I may note in this connection that I am continually being asked, both by friends and unknown correspondents, for my opinion concerning the correct type of chair, stool, desk or table to be used in order to prevent the bad habits which these pieces of furniture are supposed...
F. M. Alexander
There is a picture of Alexander holding a pen in the slideshow on this Companion homepage. He was a keen letter writer.
In CCC Alexander describes a case with a pupil whom he recommended to take frequent breaks while writing:
A pupil of mine, an author, had been in a serious state of health for some time, and had at last reached the point where he was unable to carry on his literary work. After finishing his latest book he passed through a crisis which was described as a ‘breakdown,’ with the result that even a few hours of work caused him great fatigue...
F. M. Alexander
F. M. Alexander taught several doctors, especially in the 1920s and 1930s. In UoS Alexander dedicates a chapter to ‘Diagnosis and medical training’. Here he writes that
No diagnosis of a case can be said to be complete, unless the medical adviser gives consideration to the influence exerted upon the patient, not only by the immediate cause of the trouble (say, a germ invader), but also by the interference with functioning which is always associated with habitual wrong use of the mechanisms and helps to lower the patient’s resistance to the point where...
Prison here also refers to jail, dentention centre, correctional facility and similar institutions for incarceration.
‘Changing the Pattern of Behaviour – Outline of a Therapy for Criminal Reform’ by Kenneth J. Maconochie argues that the Mark system and the Alexander Technique ‘in combination, approach nearer than any single system known to being a therapy of criminal reform’.[1] [2]
Kenneth Maconochie was the great-grandson of Captain Alexander Maconochie (1787–1860), pioneer in Penology, who was the inventor of the Mark System of penal...
The Scythe Book – Mowing hay, cutting weeds, and harvesting small grains with hand tools by David Tresemer contains a six-page introduction to the Alexander Technique and how it helps with scything.[1] The relevant section begins with:
Awareness of the dynamics of one’s own body can be employed to improve one’s ability at mowing, and, indeed, vice versa. Most helpful for this understanding is the knowledge provided in the teachings of F. Matthias Alexander.[2]
And it ends with:
The scythe draws my primary control out beyond my own body to relate to the earth.[...
This article covers the application of the Technique to the workplace and the teaching of the Technique at the workplace, on site. (This entry excludes music, dance and acting colleges, hospitals and schools, see below).
F. M. Alexander
Although there are references to the application of the Technique to work in Alexander’s writings, there is no record of Alexander teaching people on site (except in the early days when he would to go London theatres to work with actors, and in 1940 when he visited Coghill at his home.)
History
The first reference to the explicit use of the...
