THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE The Alexander Technique is a method of re-training or re-educating the body so that we get the most out of it, whatever we do. As children our bodies work as they should and our joints are completely free. As we grow up however, partly through copying our parents and teachers and partly through suffering physical and emotional traumas of our own, we develop tensions which start to impede the free movements of the joints and shorten the muscles which work most efficiently at their natural, longer length. Over the years, these tensions become habitual and start to restrict movement. This pulls the body out of balance and we need to set up compensatory tensions just to stay upright. During the first half of a lesson in the Alexander Technique, we are taught to look at the way in which we move and at what unnecessary tensions are involved in the movement. Initially, the movements examined are from sitting to standing and vice versa (known as chair work). The reason for this is that these are complex movements that we all perform several times each day and consequently are carried out habitually. Firstly the teacher will look at you and the way in which you move to determine your habits. Then you are taught to refuse to respond to any stimulus (in this case to stand or to sit) in your habitual manner and at the same time to replace this response with a more reasoned one. In the second half of the lesson, the pupil lies down on a table whilst the teacher encourages a further release of tension (table work). The Alexander Technique is not curative as such. "It aims at removing a cause, not alleviating the symptoms of illness and disease. Bad use [of the body as a whole-FKS ] is one of the causes or aggravating factors of illness or disability-often the principal one. It has been shown time and again that improvement in use is followed by the reduction or disappearance of symptoms, and that illness or disability is checked to the degree commonly accepted as constituting a cure. However, this is by the way. Teachers of the Alexander Technique teach. They do not profess to treat, or make extravagant claims to cure." - Patrick J. Macdonald. About the teacher. Kevin Shannon was born in Liverpool in 1953. He studied at St. Edward's college and then went on to read pharmacy at the University of Bradford, qualifying as a pharmacist in 1978. Soon after that he developed an interest in complementary therapies and alternative philosophies until his attention was held by the F M Alexander Technique. In 1984 he studied at the Centre for the Alexander Technique under the tutelage of Eleanor and Peter Ribeaux qualifying in 1987 and has taught on a regular basis since.