I don’t know much about Alexander himself, or the history of his technique, but I have had various people singing its praises to me over the years. Actors use it to improve their bearing, sportspeople use it to improve their alignment, and it is particularly recommended for sedentary office workers like me, for whom the default sitting position is slumped.

My Alexander teacher is in her fifties but looks at least a decade younger. She moves with a lovely ease and grace, which is perhaps the best advertisement for the service she offers. She starts out by showing you a little model of the human skeleton and then asking you to guess things like where the centre of your body is and where the spine meets the skull. I got both of these wrong, and she explained that it is useful to correct these misunderstandings in order to create a more accurate mental map of our body to help us move it more efficiently. For example, if you envisage the middle of your body being around your belly button, you are more likely to bend forward from your lower back, rather than from your hips where your natural centre is.

After this she began to teach me things I thought I had mastered as a toddler, like how to get into and out of a chair, how to bend down and how to sit straight so that the postural muscles in the centre of the body do the work, rather than the more easily tired shoulder muscles.

Several months down the line and I am still struggling with some of this. Sitting upright without tensing the shoulders is hard for me, as is standing without bracing the backs of my knees (several decades of standing like this have caused all sorts of other misalignments to creep in, which I am slowly and steadily trying to correct).

Sometimes I wonder why I’m doing this. I still have back pain when I sit at the computer for any length of time, and have realised that I have quite limited movement in one arm compared to the other, which makes it feel like I have gone backwards, rather than forwards. But the benefits of studying Alexander technique are myriad. Firstly, it feels empowering to have a better understanding of my body and how it works. Secondly, small changes can make a big difference. For instance, when I have to bend down to pick something up I now squat like a frog rather than bending from the back. Although the result looks decidedly inelegant, the reduction in lower back strain is marked. I can also feel a new fluidity when I stand in one place or get into and out of a chair, which actually gives movement some of the simple pleasure it provided as a child.

Long-term I have no doubt that the work I put in now will reap benefits. I remember meeting a friend of my grandmother’s some years ago – a little old lady at least a foot shorter than me and with a pronounced stoop. She looked at me and said wistfully, ‘I remember when I was as tall as you.’ ‘What happened,’ I asked, horrified. ‘I didn’t take care of myself,’ she replied.