If it's a biography of F.M Alexander you're looking for, you'll be disappointed.
This book is more oriented around the author herself, and her experiences with the Man and his Work.
[Edit: This book's title has been extended since my original gripe four years ago, with the addition of 'Memoirs of Training in the Alexander Technique 1931-34']
The book starts with an account of Westfeldt's own childhood, she suffered from polio and had several operations which offered no improvement to her condition and only seemed to exasperate her problems.
It was on a visit to England as an adult that she took lessons with Alexander, spanning a period of two months, during which she had underwent a great improvement in her general health.
Two years later she decided to return to London, to begin training in the first teacher training course run by FM Alexander.
Westfeldt gives a brief telling of Alexander's own story before carrying on in to the experiences she had in the teacher training course. Here she gives her personal view of Alexander the man, and there is some criticism of certain areas in his teaching method.
Westfeldt offers her own insights in to some of the seemingly more complex principals of the technique, specifically the Primary Control, which she prefers to call the Head Neck & Back Relationship.
I finished this book feeling that much of the confusion I had about the 'Primary Control' had been cleared up.
Because of the Author's frank account of her experiences, her dislike for jargon and the historical 'heads-up' the book provides, I'd recommend it to any interested student of the technique.
