In 1973, Nicholas Tinbergen and two others won the Nobel prize for Physiology-Medicine. He dedicated a good portion of his acceptance speech to F.M. Alexander and the Alexander Technique. He was an Alexander Technique student, as was his wife and daughter. They all took Alexander Technique lessons with different Alexander Technique teachers. What follows is the beginning of the portion of the speech relating to the Alexander Technique:

…My second example of the usefulness of an ethological approach to Medicine has quite a different history. It concerns the work of a very remarkable man, the late F. M. Alexander. His research started some fifty years before the revival of Ethology for which we are now being honoured, yet his procedure was very similar to modern observational methods, and we believe that his achievements and those of his pupils deserve close attention…

Yesterday a student told me that he thought it ‘took energy’ to sit or stand using the principles of the Alexander Technique. If he just sat the way he always sat, he said, it took very little effort and felt comfortable. I can’t disagree that it is comfortable to sit, stand, move and walk in our habitual way. A lot of our habits, though comfortable, aren’t beneficial for us. Slumping is one of those habits, and slumping also takes energy because…

It’s hard to know how fast and crazy everything around a large city can be, until you leave it. I think it’s comparable to people at the beginning of Alexander Technique lessons not realizing how much they’re tensing themselves, until they release that tension… It also made me realize that I want to take some of that calm energy back with me as I teach my Alexander Technique lessons in NYC.

…Alexander Technique is something new to learn, and Alexander Technique lessons help you do your morning routine or any other routine in an un-routine way. Alexander Technique teachers… if you have back pain or you have bad posture, take some Alexander Technique lessons. One day it might help you remember…

‘P‘ words seemp to have have an important and prominent place in the Alexander Technique, precisely why there’ll be a pot-pourri of p’s permeating and peppering this perfunctory post.

It’s plausible to think the Alexander Technique is about particular positions, poses or appearances but more precisely…

The Alexander Technique is great when you miss the F train, here in NYC…just letting go of extra muscular effort in your neck…

In Man’s Supreme Inheritance by F.M.Alexander, (the ‘Alexander’ in the Alexander Technique) writes…”a human being functions as a whole and can only be functionally changed as a whole.” In my Alexander Technique teaching here in NYC this is illuminated countless times. People get the mistaken impression that their back pain has nothing to do with their neck, their neck pain has nothing to do with their jaw, their hand pain has nothing to do with their overall tension, and their shallow breathing has nothing to do with their job…