Mature Consideration of the Work of F. M. Alexander

Rugg-Gunn, eye surgeon and eye doctor, was an early pupil and friend of F. M. Alexander. He had written articles on the Technique before his 1959 manuscript for a book, “Posture and Allied Processes in Man”. This book was never published (but is now available from the Mouritz PDF library). Alexander Murray published edited extracts from four chapters (7-10) as a booklet under the title of “Mature Consideration of the Work of F. M. Alexander” (undated), and it is this booklet that is here reproduced.

In the section ‘The Technique of Re-Integration’ Rugg-Gunn discusses the learning process of the Technique. In ‘The Integrated Organism’ he argues that integration consists primarily of a dynamic upwards axial direction and discusses its effects on movement, using the example of sitting-to-standing and leaning against a book on the back of a chair. In ‘Background to Disease’ he argues that dysfunction of posture and dysfunction of movement are the same condition and that changes in the pattern of muscle tonus distribution upset nervous and vascular balances, affect metabolism, and influence adversely general behaviour. In ‘The Philosophy of a Technique’ he discusses the moral implications of the Technique, writing that because the working of the mind and of the body is a ‘total-working’ process, the right ‘means whereby’ is a ‘good’ in the universal sense, surpassing that of the end.