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F.M.: The Life of Frederick Matthias Alexander: Founder of the Alexander Technique
 
 
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F.M.: The Life of Frederick Matthias Alexander: Founder of the Alexander Technique [Hardcover]

Michael Bloch (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)


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Book Description

June 1, 2004
The Alexander Technique is a method of muscular re-education, which has become standard training for actors, dancers, and singers, and is practiced for health reasons all over the world. Its founder was an Australian actor who stumbled upon it in the 1890s after studying himself in mirrors to discover why he had lost his voice. He realised that most people suffered from the same postural defects he had noticed in himself, and that this explained much of what went wrong with them.


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For Ribbentrop: 'Bloch's alert and highly readable style is equally at ease in world diplomacy as in the in-fighting between various Nazi government departments' LITERARY REVIEW

From the Publisher

The Alexander Technique is a method of muscular re–education, which has become standard training for actors, dancers and singers, and is practiced for health reasons all over the world. Its founder, Frederick Matthias Alexander (1869–1955), was an Australian actor who stumbled upon it in the 1890s after studying himself in mirrors to discover why he had lost his voice. He realized that most people suffered from the same postural defects he had noticed in himself, and that this explained much of what went wrong with them. F.M. (as he was known) came to London in 1904 and became enormously successful. During the First World War he practiced in America with equal success, converting the American philosopher John Dewey to his cause. He wrote four books (all still in print), and his supporters included Aldous Huxley, George Bernard Shaw and Stafford Cripps. He was, however, a difficult and argumentative man who made enemies. Towards the end of his life he embarked on a libel action against the South African government, which had accused him of charlatanism. He won, and went on practicing and propagating his technique until his death at age 86.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group (June 1, 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0316728640
  • ISBN-13: 978-0316728645
  • Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 1.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,869,184 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

 

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5.0 out of 5 stars Lifts the curtain on the act of a genius., October 31, 2011
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The institution, which in Emerson's words, is the lengthened shadow of one man, and which now embodies the Alexander Technique, owes a debt of gratitude to the author Michael Bloch. This book brings life to the person behind the shadow.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
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First Sentence:
It is notoriously difficult to describe the Alexander Technique: to attempt to do so has been likened to trying to describe a colour to a blind man. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
supreme inheritance, sensory appreciation, training course students, first training course
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Ashley Place, Alexander Technique, Irene Tasker, New York, Walter Carrington, South Africa, The Universal Constant, Ethel Webb, Margaret Goldie, Frank Pierce Jones, Matthias Alexander, United States, Edward Owen, Irene Stewart, Patrick Macdonald, Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual, Robert Young, Lulie Westfeldt, John Dewey, John Skinner, Margaret Naumburg, Mungo Douglas, Aldous Huxley, First World War, George Trevelyan
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