The Alexander Technique began with a problem and a question. Frederick Matthias Alexander was an Australian actor in the late 1800s with a successful career in Shakespearian recital. He began to lose his voice on stage – every actor’s worst nightmare. When doctors couldn’t help, he sought a solution himself.

After nearly a decade of careful self-observation, he’d gone way beyond healing his voice. He had discovered the impact of unconscious patterns of tension, and developed a process by which anyone can learn to access the innate co-ordination of human design. In so doing he realised the mind-body connection – a radical concept for the times – and was one of the first to work with the body’s nervous system when that science was in its infancy. He continued teaching up until the week before his death in 1955, at the age of 86.