Alexander’s Magic Trick

Did Alexander really find a magic movement key?

By the 1890s - as FM Alexander started giving his first lessons in Melbourne, Australia – he was feeling very frustrated. After nearly a decade of observing himself in a mirror, FM had a clear idea of how he wanted his student to coordinate their movement.

But his students didn’t. 

As FM said: 

“You can't tell a person what to do because the thing you have to do is a sensation.”

This ‘sensation’ of the Postural Support System doing its ancient, evolutionary job – without being suppressed by the busy-body, new-kid-on-block Voluntary Movement System – is the magic people have when they experience the touch of a skilful teacher.

But it wasn’t always this way.

Ed Maisel - in his scholarly Introduction to the “Essential Writings of FM Alexander” – describes how Alexander and his brother were teaching in London in the 1900s:

“Visitors to his first headquarters in London could observe the two brothers, ‘F.M.’ and  ‘A.R.’, each with a single pupil and at opposite ends of the studio, shouting their disparate and desperate verbal instructions at the two victims. All patience with language had been exhausted.”

From this frustration, Alexander started to use his hands, saying…

“I mean this!” 

… then proceeding to use his hands to guide a person in motion. The result was amazing – this is the magic of Alexander lessons. And you can still experience this today.

It's one of the reasons it takes from between 3 to 7 years to complete an Alexander teacher training. This is no easy thing to accomplish!

Not a lot is written about how FM developed his hallmark “Alexander touch” over the next 6 decades, but it certainly qualifies as one of FM’s most significant and enduring discoveries. To burrow again from Ed Maisel – here he describes why Alexander decided to use touch to communicate his work…

“Beyond this normal resistance to verbal instructions, however, Alexander had to contend with another, more basic problem, which was inherent in what he was attempting. His task was like sending a kiss by messenger. The experience he sought to impart was one which by its very nature eludes utterance. As is usually pointed out, you cannot describe ‘blue’ to a man who has never seen the colour blue. How then do you convey a new feeling, a new pattern of physical sensation, to a man [or woman] who has never known it?”

Caveat: not everyone initially experiences the power of Alexander touch. 

A dancer friend from Sweden whom I met during my time in London, once confided in me that the only reason he trained to be a teacher was because he could feel nothing when the teacher touched him.

“What is all the fuss about?” - he wondered while his dancer friends raved about their amazing experiences - “I don’t feel anything.” To remedy that he decided to train and yes, he did eventually come to understand what the ‘Alexander experience’ was all about.

And yet, there is still an unsolved part of this puzzle: when a teacher touches you – what are they doing? And why is it so effective?

For my answer to that, do join me tomorrow for the last of this week’s stories…