The short history of the Alexander technique from Wiki:
“Frederick Matthias Alexander (1869-1955) was a Shakespearean orator who developed voice loss during his performances. After doctors found no physical cause, Alexander reasoned that he was doing something to himself while speaking to cause his problem. His self-observation in multiple mirrors revealed that he was contracting his whole body prior to phonation in preparation for all verbal response. He developed the hypothesis that this habitual pattern of pulling the head backwards and downwards needlessly disrupted the normal working of the total postural, breathing and vocal mechanisms.”