The Mystery of Alexander Touch

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

F. Mattias Alexander

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Alexander didn’t start by using his hands to communicate his discovery.

Initially, he tried to explain. Apparently - according to a scholarly bit of research by Ed Maisel - those early days had FM shouting at his students when they failed to follow his verbal instructions.

Finally – in total frustration – he took hold of a person’s head with his hands:

“I mean THIS!!!” 

And then he manipulated them to move as was necessary for the new “sensation.”

And from that day until his death, Alexander relied more on using his hands to communicate his unique discovery of postural mechanisms – because it was something you had to feel.

Touch - as I was soon to learn at my training school with Betty and Paul – was everything. At our school, we called them “turns”, and this was your peak experience every day at the School of Alexander Studies in Muswell Hill, London.

“How was your turn with Betty?” we’d gossip in the kitchen.

For most of us, “Electric Lil” aka Margaret - was the favourite. I would carefully hide from other teachers when they were looking for their next “turn” and then miraculously appear when it was Margaret’s turn.

We called Margaret “Electric Lil” because when she touched you with her hands, a pulse of delicious energy caressed your whole Self. Every day I’d long for my 15-minute “hands-on” turn with Electric Lil.

Margaret’s touch was feather-light, and from that day to this, I have always maintained that a light touch more effectively communicates Alexander’s Discovery. However, it is much harder to achieve.

With the trainees at my school in Japan, I have modelled this feather-light touch. It was a hallmark of FM’s touch towards the end of his life, and Walter passed that method on to Margaret. And Margaret passed it on to me. And I pass it on to my trainees in Japan.

Tibetan Buddhist Tantra and Alexander have this “generational” flow in common. 

What we call “touch” - they call “transmission.”

In Tibetan Tantra, you can not study texts or do practices until you have had a “transmission” through a Master practitioner of that Tantra. Without that, burn all your texts because they are useless without a “transmission”. I wonder if we can say the same about Alexander’s books? 

Anyway, this is a precept of Tantra.

And Alexander people fight over a similar precept.

Even today – with COVID-19 raging – there is a spirited debate in Berlin about “Online” verses “Hands On” training. Many teachers are adamant that without the touch of a teacher’s hand, a person can not legitimately understand Alexander’s neuromuscular discovery. It is transmitted non-verbally, from one nervous system directly to another, via the skilful touch of human hands.

It is another of Alexander’s Discoveries – this unique communicating touch of the human hand. There is a neuroscientifically orientated rationale behind Alexander touch – but that is another long blah, blah.

In those early days at Muswell Hill, I trusted Margaret.

Betty’s touch was entirely the opposite of Margaret’s.

Betty used her hands forcibly – more like a physical therapist or masseur. Of course, her strength was guided by Alexander’s remarkable insight into our functional design, so Betty’s hands also, like Margaret, affected you dramatically.

But whenever I had a forceful lesson with Betty - I came away feeling more like Betty.

The way Betty used her hands to restructure my coordination more closely resembled the way Betty did that in herself. And, of course, that is how Alexander’s Discovery works. You can not communicate Alexander’s Discovery to another person until you have fully consumed it yourself. And that takes… well, you never do. When do you finish learning the piano?

But you have a lot of fun along the way, and eventually, you gain the confidence to lead others, so they call you a teacher!

Anyway, this was my routine for the next two years.

Then one day at the National Theatre - coming up the stairs with a Mona Lisa look - I first laid eyes on Diane Niderman. 

I was 23, and from that day, my life started to explode.