Below are all the pieces of explanations, organised by
The Alexander Technique is for everyone! From almost any perspective, it is hard to imagine someone whose life wouldn't be made better in some aspect through contact with the Alexander technique. From my perspective I would go even broader and suggest that most problems faced by humans can be reduced through the Alexander Technique (obviously for cancer, go to an oncologist, and for dismantling systems of oppression, change at the level of the individual alone won't be enough).
But this very breadth makes the Alexander Technique seem like snake oil. For a narrow description of the Alexander Technique it makes sense to start with a narrow pinning down of who the Alexander Technique helps and why.
FM Alexander devoted much of his books, particularly Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual to hypothesising why humans got themselves in such a state that they needed the Alexander Technique to restore what seemed to be a birthright. He hypothesised that the increase in complexity of civilisation had outpaced human's evolutionary ability to keep up.
Although many would agree with this today, it's not an argument I've ever found persuasive. It also has something of a reactionary feel to it, hearkening back to the "simpler days of yore" (Though FM Alexander's solution is more progressive than conservative). What does ring true for me is that the Alexander Technique solves a deeply human problem that is felt particularly strongly in Western society. So I find it particularly interesting to speculate about what this problem might be.
There is some consensus that the Alexander Technique can be partly defined as the principles and skills that FM Alexander was teaching. There is consequently substantial disagreement as to what those skills and principles are (or at least whether various reframings of them are correct or not).
Both typically and slightly ironically for the Alexander Technique (which is particulary interested in means and ends), some of the skills below are more a desired outcome and others the tools to get there. But these roles can flip. The tool of having greater awareness can become a pleasure to be enjoyed for its own sake. The outcome of having less reactivity can be the skill we bring to the table in a difficult meeting. With this in mind, most teachers probably have a succinct outcome as their primary objective and multiple favourite tools of how to get there.
Overall the skillset brought by the Alexander Technique is peculiar because of its embodied and experiential nature: the knowledge cannot be explained purely with words or read in a book or a website.
How the Alexander Technique should be taught is where the major disagreements amongst teachers lie. Should we teach primarily through "chair work" or through an activity the student would like to improve? Should we teach using hands, presence or instruction? Can the technique be taught online? Can the technique be taught to groups?
As I understand it, most teachers teach with a combination of the methods below, and will consider some of them to be a necessary part of teaching the technique. Others will disagree. I personally rejoice in having many options to adapt to my students, even though I have preferences for my own learning and teaching.
FM Alexander was an immensely practical man. He developed his technique by using what worked, rather than by starting from some theoretical perspective. This only came later as he wrote books to attempt to share what he had discovered.
I would contend that the major advantage of starting in this way is that the Alexander Technique does not appear to be confined to any sub-system of the human experience. When a teacher is working with a student they are consciously or intuitively working simultaneously with the student's musculo-skeletal system, their nervous system (comprising their felt sense of safety, their ability to perceive and orient to their surroundings, their attention and awareness, their emotions, their body schema, their habitual responses, and more), their ability to witness and regulate themselves, their sense of identity and self, and their relationship to the world and others.
It is because no single one of these systems is primary that I suspect that the Alexander Technique is tricky to explain (be it as a story, a rigorous scientific account, or anywhere in between). This is why I don't believe any single one of the explanations below to be sufficient on its own.
My own background as a researcher makes me intensely curious about why the Alexander Technique works. My rigour and desire to offer methods with proven scientific backing to the people seeking my help also push me to seek out evidence-based explanations. However for applying the Alexander Technique to the problems of my own life, I have found the search for explanations to be something between a distraction and a hindrance. At best, plausible stories allow me to suspend disbelief long enough to try something different and see what happens. I also would prefer to be able to explain what I do as something other than magic, or fundamentally challenging to people with a rational mindset.
