Explaining the Alexander Technique

– The Writings of F. Matthias Alexander

Walter Carrington in conversation with Sean Carey

An intelligent and succinct guide to Alexander’s writings: Not only are the main themes of each book discussed but also specific points which help to elucidate Alexander’s thinking and teaching. £12.95

Introduction by Peggy Williams. Paperback, index, 207 pages.

More details: Explaining the Alexander Technique

Walter Carrington is renowned for his insight into the teaching and training of the Alexander Technique. He trained with F. M. Alexander in the 1930s and has been training teachers in the Technique continuously since 1946. Since 1955 Walter Carrington has been reading from Alexander’s books to his students and commenting upon the texts.

In these conversations with Sean Carey Alexander’s four books are investigated. Not only are the main themes of each book discussed but also specific points which help to elucidate Alexander’s thinking and teaching.

Many diverse subjects are explored: diet, psychoanalysis, Zen, politics, democracy, individualism and also many practical teaching considerations, such as breathing, the use of the hands and the rôle of language in teaching.

Various criticisms levelled at Alexander and his technique are also addressed. Interesting and pertinent passages from Alexander’s books are examined – always from the practical perspective of teaching and learning the Technique. In this way many issues which may appear outdated in Alexander’s books are given a modern setting and shown to be as relevant as ever.

This intelligent and succinct guide to Alexander’s writings is essential reading for anyone wishing to better understand and appreciate the Technique.

“In my opinion, this is the most important book to be written on the Technique since Alexander’s own works.”
Peggy Williams in the Foreword

Sample pages from books available in pdf.

Contents

• List of illustrations
  Foreword by Peggy Williams
  Preface and acknowledgements to first edition
  
  
• 1: Introduction
  How it all began
  Comparable disciplines and techniques
  Breathing and treatment
  The books and self-help procedures
  Huxley, Shaw and Dewey
  Dart, Coghill and Sherrington
  A piece of autobiography
  
  
• 2: Man’s Supreme Inheritance
  Alexander’s vision
  Race, eugenics and romantic primitivism
  Exercise and physical culture
  Relaxation, deep breathing and rest cures
  Hypnotism and faith-healing
  Counselling, misuse and visual cues
  Children and the "little school"
  Furniture and left-handedness
  Posture, standing, walking and running
  The use of the chair
  Self-generated movements
  Sensation and feeling
  Antagonistic actions
  Positions of mechanical advantage and stereotyped teaching
  Arms, hands and thumbs
  
  
• 3: Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual
  On earthly inheritance
  Mental, physical and a lowly evolved principle
  Bradman and Alexander
  Poetry in motion and the tottering biped
  Pavlov, Montessori and educational "hot-housing"
  Politics
  Psychoanalysis and trauma
  Food, alcohol, tobacco and sex
  A dark side?
  Happiness and its absence
  Fear of falling
  Feeling and the senses
  Working with injuries
  Alexander’s stroke
  Principles and procedures
  A flat back
  Hands on the back of a chair
  The whispered "ah"
  
  
• 4: The Use of the Self
  Time lapse and some history
  Defining the problem
  The primary control
  Spirals
  Directions and language
  Stimulus and response
  A blueprint and its many versions
  Misuse, diagnosis and vegetarianism
  Golf, groups and application work
  
  
• 5: The Universal Constant in Living
  A loose structure and self-help
  Misuse, health and disease
  Assisting Alexander
  Anatomy, physiology and osteopathy
  Pregnancy, childbirth and infant development
  Fitness and specific exercise
  Words, anti-gravity and modernity
  Change
  Mind and body
  Alexander’s individualism
  Authoritarianism and human destructiveness
  Operational verification
  
  
• About the Authors
  Bibliography
  Index
  
  

Publication notes

First published 1992 (Sheildrake Press). Second edition published 15 December 2004 by Mouritz.

Paperback, xiv + 193 pages, 196 x 126 mm. 16 b/w illustrations. Index. Printed on 80 gsm acid-free paper. ISBN 0–9543522–2–X.

Errata

Page 130, line 2: for "body" read "bony".

Page 148, line 17: for "in out" read "in our".

Page 178, line 1, for "out" read "our".