"The Alexander Technique stresses unification in an era of greater and greater medical specialization. Its educational system teaches people how to best use their bodies in ordinary action to avoid unnecessary stress and pain..." Jack Stern, MD, PhD

Although its over a hundred years old, the Alexander Technique is not well known outside the major cities of Europe and America. It remains an invaluable source of knowledge for understanding the secrets of peak performance and many chronic unresolved health problems.

The Technique is a method of developing self-awareness in movement. By identifying habits, mental and physical, which lead to excess tension. The Alexander Technique can return its students to fluidity and grace in movement and performance. This is our natural state, one of relaxed energy and easy poise.

It's an educational process with health implications. It can relieve a wide range of tension-related problems and disorders, for example, repetitive strain injuries and fibromyalgia. Not only useful for reducing pain, the technique can bring about refined balance and heightened awareness, enhancing performance on all levels. It is for that reason that it is included in many prestigious performing arts programs.

The Alexander Technique may be the ideal starting point for fitness programs. Exercise builds on existing postural habits and patterns of movement. If we are badly coordinated when we do any exercise, we risk injury. With all our good intentions we may end up worse off than before. The Alexander Technique will leave you with a sense of lightness and a sense of effortlessness in movement. This will translate into a workout that leaves you energized.

The greatest success with strength, endurance, skill and the ability to handle stress depends on how fit your sensory awareness is. The Alexander Technique restores and enhances sensory awareness. Sensory awareness is constantly monitoring balance, muscular tension and movement.

We have seen many people that had to give up favorite activities such as running, racquetball, golf or tennis because of pain and stress in their bodies. We have seen many others who aren't able to follow a program of strengthening and conditioning because the exercises just make their problems worse. The most alarming phenomenon we see is the people with the pain and exhaustion of stress that accept this as normal. It has become common place for people to accept a very low level of functioning as their standard.

With the Alexander Technique, they discover the hidden cause of these problems: poor sensory awareness. We call this hidden because it occurs unknowingly. Stressful tension and the poorest of postures start to feel right or necessary. Operating under these circumstance leads to the breakdown in the body that causes pain and robs people of energy and their potential for performance. It is most often why people find exercise painful. As people gain proficiency with Alexander Technique, they most often regain the ability that was lost. They learn to move without pain, as if they were years younger.

The negative symptoms of STRESS are particularly related to poor sensory fitness. Equating muscular tension with speed and accuracy is an illusion of sensory awareness. The results are headaches and pain in the neck and shoulders that can advance into repetitive strain. For over 100 years the Alexander Technique has led people to recovery from these injuries and conditions.

"I had given up running for 1+ years because my knees couldn't take it anymore. After learning Alexander Technique with Bruce and Sherry , I can run forever, free from injury and pain. After a long run I feel as good or better than the day before." Bob Halpenny, PGA Golf Pro.

"Patients who do not respond satisfactorily to traditional treatment often seem to improve markedly with Alexander training." Orthopedic surgeon- Stuart Springer MD

The Alexander Technique is not a system of exercises. It effects change through increasing awareness of poor postural habits, inhibiting them, and replacing them with proper patterns of muscular movement.Anyone who doubts that change can be effected without exercise, it should be pointed out that slumping and other misuse of muscles throughout the body are changes, and do not require exercise. A positive change can occur by applying the principles of the technique.

Making the changes available with Alexander Technique is complimentary to exercise programs and improving skills in special performances like music, dance and sports. In many cases it enables people to exercise and participate where they may not be able to otherwise.

The principles of the technique are the discoveries of F.M. Alexander. For years Alexander investigated the cause of his own vocal problems. He found an underlying pattern of tension and misuse, which affected not only his voice apparatus, but his whole organism, body and mind.

Alexander found that he could change his habitual, ingrained pattern of tension by changing the relationship of his head to his neck, and of his head and neck to his back. When you are in balance and well coordinated, your head will sit poised on the top of your spine. the muscles of the neck are the first to activate when you respond to any stimulus. When these muscles tighten, the musculature in the rest of the body tenses reflexively and unavoidably. Your head is literally pulled down from the top of your spine. The sensitive balance organs in and around the ear detects this and triggers a compensating balance in the rest of the body, which requires more tension. This chain reaction of tension restricts breathing, circulation and digestion. It also limits your ability to respond calmly to problems and challenges in life.

Sessions with the Alexander teachers typically last as long as an hour. They are one-on-one, and the student remains fully clothed. Using his or her hands the teacher guides the student in various movements, and determines where they are holding tension and enables them to move tension free. The process is very gently, subtle and painless. As people progress, the teachers help to employ the skill and principles in practical application which include everything such as work, competition, performance and recreation. The technique is not a relaxation therapy, but people invariably end up more relaxed.

The technique brings many benefits including: good posture without strain, lightness in movement, improved voice and breathing, increased resistance to stress, improved performance in sports.