
Further Information F.M. Alexander was a Shakespearian actor working in Melbourne, Australia in the late 1890s when he began to lose his voice during recitations of Shakespeares works. He tried all available treatments, which all proved to no avail. Finally, upon the advice of a doctor he rested his voice (not speaking at all) for a number of weeks before a performance. He did this and attempted to perform again. Initially, his voice held, but the longer the performance continued he again began to lose his voice so that by half way through he abandoned the performance. He then took a course of action which was to lead to the AT being developed. He reasoned that because the doctors could find nothing physically wrong with him it must be something he was doing as he performed that was causing the problem. He then began to observe himself performing (with the aid of a mirrored room). He noticed that he was pulling his head back and down, he was overly contracting his neck and he had a pattern of excess tension throughout his trunk and legs. All of this was combining to put undue strain on his vocal apparatus leading to voice loss. He changed the way he was using himself (it took some time before he mastered this) and the AT was born. He began to teach the technique to other actors and to spread the word about his new technique. In the early 1900s he left Australia bound for England where he made his work famous and taught the first generation of AT teachers. This is why the AT is most well known in the UK and England particularly to this day. In the last twenty years AT has again had a resurgence in popularity as people begin to realize the necessity of maintaining health and wellbeing in todays paradoxically hectic though increasingly sedentary world. If you would like to find out more, just visit the links below: http://www.alexandertechnique.org.au/index.html http://www.stat.org.uk/ http://www.ati-net.com/ http://www.alexandertechnique.com/ http://www.alexanderschool.edu.au/ http://www.slcentral.com/directory/index.php/Health/ Alternative/Alexander_Technique/ http://www.balanceasia.com.hk http://www.buteykoasia.com http://home.kimo.com.tw/richardpeng76/index.html