My teacher trainer and mentor Peter Ribeaux has been teaching the Alexander Technique for around 50 years. Around fifteen years ago he gave a definition of the Alexander Technique which I still return to for its no-nonsense clarity. The definition includes Alexander’s own terminology and so it is only suitable for intermediate students and not beginners.
If, however, you are au fait with the basic Alexander terms, it’s a great definition. It lays out the basic problem we’re all faced with as human beings, and explains Alexander’s solution. It doesn’t go into the specific issues the Alexander Technique addresses, or the Technique’s benefits, but you can read about those on my Alexander Technique science page.
Here’s Peter’s definition:
i) Most of us distort the manner in which we respond to the stimuli which we face in life. For example, we may pull our heads back and down on our necks in response to the stimulus to speak, etc….. When repeated sufficiently often these tendencies bring about distortions throughout ourselves, creating wrong habits in the use of ourselves. What is more, we become unaware of these habits as a result of our unreliable sensory appreciation. In order to reverse these distortions we must start to:
ii) inhibit our distorted reaction to the stimuli of life, and
iii) give ourselves orders or directions for an improved use of ourselves and only then, whilst maintaining these, respond to the stimulus in question.
iv) The benefits of such a procedure will be not only an improved manner of responding to the stimulus but also a progressive removal of the overall distortion in the primary control of the use of the self which arises from a history of such individual distorted responses.
Peter Ribeaux, ‘Alexander’s terminological maze’ in Conscious Control, Vol.2 no.1 (2008) 43-53 pp 44-5.
And about those terms: there’s only about half a dozen of them in the Alexander Technique, so you shouldn’t be put off!