The Alexander Technique: A Complete Course in How to Hold and Use Your Body for Maximum Energy

The Alexander Technique by John Gray is a well articulated book about the technique.Recommended for people interested in learning more, students of the work and for AT teachers, to broaden their skill-set by learning from the wisdom of John Gray.Eve S.

Looking to learn the technique,This is the book for you.Start with yourself before your clients....Learning to inhibiting old patterns, will bring about patterns of ease and comfort.

Far and away the most tedious and tiresome book I have read in a long time. The author writes in a style popular at the turn of the century. Unfortunately, the century was 1800s. Dry, overly complicated, and filled with word selections such as "whilest" and "Effortful"; using those terms and language as the Alexander himself did, in the early 1900's. It is one thing to honor the originator, it is another to make the text convoluted and unreadable in an attempt to be "faithful" to the technique.As a "how to" book, this one fails miserably. The best that can be said for it is that it is a mediocre "how not to" book; the author spends much more time telling you the wrong way things are done rather than the correct way to do them. The photos in the text that show the wrong way, far outnumber the photos showing the correct way to do things. Photos showing proper technique are poor at best.As an example, the author elected to use a photo of a toddler walking as an example of good posture. Since no toddlers are reading this book and they are substantially physiologically different from adults, I doubt that was the best example to give. Showing an adult in a good example of the technique would have been much better and more illiminating. In the few photos where adults are used to demonstrate the correct posture, the effect is somewhat unattractive.While I have no doubt the concept behind "The Alexander Technique" is a good one, and it has many health benefits, the actual technique and the teaching of it can only be described as overly complicated. Designed to confuse the reader into thinking there is more to it than there really is. Some of the things promoted in the text such as: "Experts" in the technique,"Qualified Teachers", "slow step by step process that you could never hope to achieve on your own...". are just there to try and shroud the technique in a false mystery. Marketing plain and simple.If the author elected to use language designed to clearly educate, illuminate and instruct, this book might have been a worthwhile addition. He didn't and therefore, it isn't.Let me save you the cost, and the time required to wade through this gobbledie gook.1. Keep you head balenced on top of your spine2. Relax your neck to help direct and condition the balence of the head.3. Stand up straight without forcing yourself into the position.4. When you can stand and sit straight, comfortably, with your entire body in a relaxed state, you've got it nailed.That's it. Now go look for a book to buy with more to offer.

The book is pretty average. Not anything to write home about and difficult to know if you're doing the positions correctly. It would probably be better to a) find a personal teacher or b) take a class in the technique.

Great book - full of great info and even greater pics. This book complemented the private lessons I was taking.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I am a violinist with the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields and the Technique itself is an **invaluable** element of my life and work---and I would say this book is the best Alexander book not written by FM Alexander himself (it's also much easier to read than FM's brilliant but *very* Victorian prose). This would be my Desert Island Alexander book!

Way too old and outdated

a waste of time

Klasse Buch

great condition