Personal Harmony Now
I
A Burning Question at the recent 13th. Annual Alexander Congress in Dublin (August 3-9th. 2025): What is the future of the Alexander Technique?
There seems to be a declining interest in AT for aspiring Alexander teachers, with less young people overall and less interest in training programmes. There are now c. 2,500 qualified teachers compared to 3,500 ten years ago.
AT may be in a liminal zone, an in-between stage of its larger process. Primary characteristics of liminality are ambiguity, hazard and opportunity. One possible opportunity is to refine or re-define the name.
II
https://mouritz.org/companion/article/origin-name-%E2%80%98alexander-technique%E2%80%99
FM’s original naming / descriptors: The Breathing Method – The Art of Breathing (1895), The Alexander Breathing Method (1905), Mr F. Matthias Alexander’s New Method of Respiratory and Vocal Re-Education (1906), Re-Education of the Kinæsthetic Systems (1908), Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual, “acquiring an improved use of the the self while learning and learning to do” (1935).
Alternatives names have been suggested over the years…
Erika Whittaker: The Alexander work.
Dr Wilfred Barlow: Postural Re-education.
Ted Dimon: Neurodynamics.
Michael Frederick prefers Psycho-physical Rebalancing to AT.
To succeed, in any field of endeavour, we must get our name right. Where there is a quality, it is recognisable and may be named. If we mis-name ourselves, it may be because we don’t know who we are.
Examples of naming from the rock world…
The Pendletons.
Tony Flow and the Miraculously Majestic Masters of Mayhem.
Annie and the Tourists.
The Hype.
Who became…
The Beach Boys.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers.
The Eurythmics.
U2.
Those with birthnames…
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta.
David Jones.
Reg Dwight.
… are better known professionally as Lady Gaga, David Bowie and Elton John.
A change of professional name re-directs how we are seen, reflects a sense of how we know ourselves and who we are in this moment.
III
On Friday evening, prior to the final Saturday morning Burning Question panel, I set myself an exercise (as if a task presented to me by Michael Frederick) to re-name the Alexander Technique for today.
A few notes on word choice:
Anglo-Saxon is stronger than Latinate forms.
Verbs are stronger than nouns – they express action, doing.
Use as few syllables as possible – no more than three.
Now – a great word, one syllable, but it’s been taken…
Be Here Now (Ram Dass 1971).
The Power Of Now (Eckhart Tolle 1997).
Presence, two.
Harmony, three.
Transformation has four syllables.
The musical language is a superb analogical vocabulary. So…
The Music Of Living
Personal Harmony Now.
Be who you are: in tune, in tone and time with your whole self.
Working with breathing, posture, balance, trauma and anxiety in the whole person for today’s world.
Moving from 100 years of experience in the Alexander Technique.
IV
As a comment, and suggestion…
Many times during this Congress, I have heard the word “start”. I suggest adopting the word “begin” instead.
Start is a startle.
Begin – to open, to undertake.
Far more in tune with the spirit of the Alexander work IMO.
Robert Fripp
Thursday 13th. November, 2025,
Middle England.