Sunday Telegraph
13 July 1997
Alexander the great
Musicians, actors and even horse-riders swear by it and
it has changed the life of fashion designed Caroline Charles.
She tells Isobel Wolff about the Technique that has rid
her of chronic backache forever.
The fashion designer Caroline Charles greets me in the
boardroom of her headquarters in New Bond Street, London.
Slender, neat and pixie-pretty, she is dressed as always,
in black. Charles is rather small but she walks tall, something
that she attributes to the Alexander Technique. “It’s
all about elongation and stretching,” she says, sitting
down, ramrod straight, at the mahogany conference table,
while I cast covetous eyes over the Autumn ’97 collection,
arranged on the walls behind her.
“Alexander Technique is all about drawing yourself
out and up, and walking and sitting as well as you possibly
can,” she continues. Charles, who is 55, and who trained
with Mary Quant, discovered the Technique 15 years ago,
when she realised her backache was chronic. “I began
to get lower backache in my early twenties, after doing
some strenuous floor exercises in one of my keep-fit phases,”
she says. “It got progressively worse. By the time
I was in my late thirties, it was agonizing. Sometimes it
really caught me out and I would find myself stuck in an
unbearable position and unable to get into a taxi, let alone
sit in the theatre or play tennis. With backache you get
a simultaneous loss of morale; I was brought low by the
pain. It was starting to turn into sciatica and traveling
down into my legs.”
It would frequently strike when she was abroad at fashion
shows. “Then somebody would have to come to may hotel
and manipulate or massage me – which was always very
inconvenient as I was there to work.” Like many backache
sufferers, she tried a variety of therapies: massage, deep-heat
treatment and physiotherapy. “All these were helpful
in a temporary way. It was lovely having my back warmed
and stroked but, within a few hours, I could feel all the
pain coming back.” Next, she turned to acupuncture,
which led her, indirectly to discover the Alexander Technique.
“Somebody recommended that I go to Felix Mann in
Harley Street. He fixed me in two goes, using just one needle.
He managed to move the vertebrae sufficiently to release
everything and free me from pain. But he said that to keep
my back in good condition I ought to learn the Alexander
Technique to improve my posture.”
Charles saw Alan Philps, at The Constructive Teacher Centre,
in Notting Hill Gate, west London. “He was an opera-singer,
and so, in between sorting me out, he would give me a few
arias,” she says. “I loved it.” Many actors
and opera-singers are trained in the Technique, which was
developed in 1869 by Frederick Alexander, a Tasmanian actor,
who realized that his loss of voice during performances
was connected to the poor way in which he moved. He cured
himself and then spent the rest of his life teaching others
the principles of correct movement and posture that had
benefited him.
“Alexander Technique is all about re-educating yourself
to move in the right way,” says Charles, “to
make the head and neck work in harmony, because good breathing
and good health result. But you have to eliminate bad posture
and bad habits. You have to learn how to sit and stand well,
by imagining that you have a thread running up your spine
and coming out through the top of your head. And you are
being pulled upwards by this thread, and stretching your
spine out to its maximum length”.
“You have to learn never to answer the phone across
your body. And you have to learn not to sit with your legs
twisted across each other, like yours are.” I immediately
uncross my legs and unslouch my shoulders.
“It’s a physical philosophy,” she says.
“It’s a total re-education in how to keep your
bones and muscles the way they should be, the way they are
when we’re born.” So what exactly does the Alexander
Technique teach you?
“We learn how to keep our elbows and hands turned
slightly out, our feet straight, and slightly apart, not
jammed together. We’re taught how to get out of chairs
properly, using gravity and balance, like this” –
she suddenly swings her arms forward and rises to her feet
in a single, sinuous movement.
“Even if I were sitting in a chair with arms, I would
never use the arms to lever myself out. It really isn’t
necessary. And Alexander teachers are often tall because,
apparently, you grow by at least an inch if you practise
it properly. Your spine becomes relaxed and stretches out.”
But doesn’t it take an age to master? “I went
to Alan Philips for two years,” says Charles, lowering
herself elegantly back on to her chair. “It didn’t
take long to learn, but I kept going back because it’s
nice to have someone putting you in place, as it were. The
teachers don’t talk that much. They tell you with
their hands, like this.” I sit while she straightens
my back, adjusts my shoulders and head, and repositions
my feet and elbows with light but firm movements.
“I also like the fact that you don’t have to
take your clothes off,” she says. “You just
remove your shoes and coat. It’s so simple and you
don’t have to do it in silence – you can chat
away. There are no hard-and-fast rules about how often you
should go. I go about once every eight weeks now. I enjoy
it and continue to get the benefits. It makes you feel serene
and it reduces stress. But the best thing is that it cured
by backache – I’ve never had a recurrence. I
play tennis two or three times a week. And I walk better,
springier, taller.”
And did it help her to grow that extra inch? “Gosh,
I don’t know,” she says with a grin. “I
totally forgot to check.” Back to top
of page
End.
|