Anyone can do what I did, IF they will do what I did:
F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the Alexander Technique

By the end of his life, in 1955, Alexander had come to the conclusion that attempts to put his teaching into practice without the help of a teacher were often not successful. Yet, he did go as far as he possibly could in providing written guidance, in his books as well as in personal correspondence, to those who were really serious about learning his Technique on their own.

And he was always hopeful that his Technique would be improved upon as time went on.*  He hoped that some day, highly-trained Alexander teachers would not be necessary. Near the beginning of his first book, Man’s Supreme Inheritance, which was written in the early 1900s, Alexander wrote:

I wish to do away with such teachers as I am myself. My place in the present economy is due to a misunderstanding of the causes of our present physical disability, and when this disability is finally eliminated the specialized practitioner will have no place, no uses. This may be a dream of the future, but in its beginnings it is now capable of realization.

In a chapter entitled “Evolution of a Technique” in his third book, The Use of the Self (originally published in 1931 – available here), Alexander described in precise detail the process he went through to solve his voice problem**. This chapter and his 1945 “Preface to New Edition” of that book, in which he addressed the many problems encountered by earlier readers in attempting to teach themselves, contain useful information for anyone who wants to try going it alone.

In addition to Use of the Self, there are three much newer books which can greatly assist in learning the Technique – with or without a teacher: How you Stand, How You Move, How You Live: Learning the Alexander Technique to Explore Your Mind-Body Connection and Achieve Self-Mastery by Missy Vineyard (click here to read a review of this book), How to Learn the Alexander Technique – A Manual for Students by Barbara and William Conable, and Mind and Muscle – An Owner’s Manual by Elizabeth Langford. These books are all available here.

Additional self-study resources can be found in Chapter 4 of Thorsons Principles of the Alexander Technique by Jeremy Chance (also available on an audio cassette tape); The Alexander Technique: First Lesson and The Alexander Technique: Solutions for Back Troubles (available in VHS and DVD format), and Not to ‘Do’ by Fiona Robb.  (Most of these books and videos are available at the Alexander Technique Bookstore)

The Alexander Technique Forum Facebook group is a particularly useful resource for working on your own.  Self-help videos (including recordings of online group Alexander Technique lessons) are regularly posted.  It’s an open group so you don’t have to join to see what’s there, but if you want to ask questions related to your self study, you do have to join – a very simple process.

Alexander Technique teacher Imogen Ragone regularly teaches an online course that can be very helpful: BodyIntelligence Self Study Foundation Course

A number of Alexander Technique teachers now include Zoom or Skype sessions as part of their practice, and these may be well worth considering if you’re planning on learning the Technique primarily on your own and there is no teacher nearby. You can find a list of these teachers here.

Here are other helpful – and free – online resources:

Additional On-line material useful for working on your own:

If you have had some experience with learning the Alexander Technique on your own, and would like to share it with others, send it to this Email Contact and it will be posted on this page.

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* For example: “After working for a lifetime in this new field I am conscious that the knowledge gained is but a beginning…my experience may one day be recognized as a signpost directing the explorer to a country hitherto ‘undiscovered,’ and one which offers unlimited opportunity for fruitful research to the patient and observant pioneer.” – F. Matthias Alexander

**There is some controversy about the exact details of Alexander’s journey towards self-discovery.  Certainly the length of time the process took is much shorter than the 9 or 10 years one typically heard years ago.  Today’s consensus is about 3 years, and maybe shorter than that. It also seems likely that Alexander was using ideas he had learned from the work of Francois Delsarte. There is also a good deal of controversy about the accuracy of the discovery sequence he describes in Use of the Self.  A guest of the Alexander Technique Podcast has put forth a fascinating theory about Alexander’s account: Evolution of a Technique: FM’s three-act Play

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