Actors: Paul Newman, Alex McCowen, Jeremy Irons, Joel Gray, Mary Steenbergen, Julie Andrews, Patrick Stewart, Kevin Kline, Joanne Woodward, John Cleese, John Houseman, Robin Williams, James Earl Jones, Christopher Reeve, Judi Dench, Ben Kingsley, William Hurt, Keanu Reeves, Hillary Swank, Heath Leger, Pierce Brosnan, Hugh Jackman
The Alexander Technique has helped me to deal with almost paralysing stage fright.
William Hurt, actor
The Technique’s many benefits for actors include minimized tension, centeredness, vocal relaxation, and responsiveness, mind/body connection and about an inch and a half of additional height.
Kevin Kline, actor
Actors I love the Alexander Technique. It has corrected my posture, improved my health and changed my life.
Alec McCowen CBE, actor
The Alexander Technique has played an important and beneficial part in my life.
John Houseman, actor, producer and director
Musicians: Paul McCartney, Sting, Julian Bream, Yehudi Menuhin, James Galway, Sir Colin Davis
The Alexander Technique can be sustaining; it is something that if learned well, can be carried along with you for the rest of your life. It gives you confidence to be who you are when you are up in front of an audience.
Patrick Maddams, managing director, Royal Academy of Music
Authors: George Bernard Shaw, Aldous Huxley, Robertson Davies, Roald Dahl, Jane Brody (Personal Health Columnist for the New York Times – Read an article on the Alexander Technique by Jane Brody)
It gives us all the things we have been looking for in a system of physical education: relief from strain due to maladjustment, and consequent improvement in physical and mental health, increased consciousness of the physical means employed to gain the ends proposed by the will and, along with this, a general heightening of consciousness on all levels… We cannot ask more from any system of physical education; nor, if we seriously desire to alter human beings in a desirable direction, can we ask any less.
Aldous Huxley, writer
Others: Professor Niko Tinbergen (Winner of Nobel Prize in Medicine), Frederick Perls (Originator of Gestalt Therapy), Moshe Feldenkrais (Originator of the Feldenkrais Method), Terry Gross (host of the NPR radio program “Fresh Air”), John Dewey (the American Philosopher – John Dewey and F. Matthias Alexander Homepage), Dr. Andrew Weil, Karl Popper (philosopher), Benjamin Libet (investigator of human consciousness), Sir George Trevelyan
The Alexander Technique makes a real difference to my often tense and busy life. Its thoughtful approach has made me calmer, improved my concentration and given me a clearer sense of my own well being. I am grateful for it.
Joan Bakewell, TV presenter and journalist
Mr. Alexander has done a service to the subject [of the study of reflex and voluntary movement] by insistently treating each act as involving the whole integrated individual, the whole psychophysical man. To take a step is an affair, not of this or that limb solely, but of the total neuromuscular activity of the moment, not least of the head and neck.
Sir Charles Sherrington, neurophysiologist
We already notice, with growing amazement, very striking improvements in such diverse things as high blood pressure, breathing, depth of sleep, overall cheerfulness and mental alertness, resilience against outside pressures, and in such a refined skill as playing a musical instrument.
Professor Nicholas Tinbergen, Nobel Prize winner for medicine and physiology
The Alexander Technique changed my life. It enabled me to devote more time to creating beauty. This inner strength is essential for all.
Andrew Logan, sculptor
Athletes and sports:
Balance is a vital aspect of good hammer throwing and getting the head, neck, spine and pelvis in the correct relationship enables the balance of the throw to come so much more easily. Once the balance is settled there is an enormous improvement in turning speed.
Howard Payne, Commonwealth record hammer thrower
The Alexander Technique will benefit anyone whether they are an elite athlete or whether they just wish to live life without the aches and pains that many people suffer and accept as part of life. It is a pity that these techniques are not shown to us all at an early age for I have no doubt that this would alleviate many of the causes of ill health in our communities
Greg Chappell Australian test cricketer (1970 – 1984)