Frederick Matthias Alexander (20 January 1869 – 10 October 1955) was an Australian actor who developed the educational process that is today called the Alexander Technique: a form of education that is applied to recognize and overcome reactive, habitual limitations in movement and thinking.
I found interesting his autodidactic search for and discovery of the means to recover from his health problem that hindered his orations. He shows us a method of independent study that may be useful. His training of others after he integrated his discoveries shows us the value of a tutor or gifted and sensitive mentor.
Lots of it is in a very old fashioned tone and mannerism, but as a long time Alexander Technique student I still got huge amounts out of this book by really exploring the foundations of it from the man himself. Revelations for me as a musician and my use of self, and that's after having lessons for a few years already!
I’m not gonna lie; I love this man, but his book is pretty repetitive. Note to self: give up doing what feels right but brings about negative results in favour of what feels initially wrong but brings about positive results. Houdini your way out of the restraints of habit.
was lead here from a footnote in peter levine’s in an unspoken voice. not much to see here, but i do miss the way oldies write, how books and thought processes are structured. favourite part was probably the rebuttal in the preface to the 2nd edition LOL. wish he were still alive so we could’ve gotten some clips of him
es kommt immer ne person zum autor, dann sagt er, dass die person unglaublich schlecht mit ihrem körper umgeht (z.b. sehr angespannt rumsteht), daraufhin macht er ne wunderheilung und erzählt wie viel besser es der person danach geht. f.m. alexander verrät aber nie, wie genau er den leuten geholfen hat, weil dann könnte er ja kein geld mehr verdienen.
Didn't finisht it. It was interesting at first but kind of dry, excessively personal and detailed. Didn't help me with my problems, it seems like my problems stemmed much more from paying excessive attention to all these things actually. It seems like Dr. Sarno's approach is much more effective, at least it was for me and hundreds of thousands of people.
I found this quite outdated and self-absorbed. It wasn't a very enjoyable read. I had to sift through a lot of pointlessness to get the point. Although, I am still interested in his technique.
i thought the chapter on stuttering was amazing. the book has some long sentences that are hard to get through, but there are some great ideas living in this book.