For a person who is attempting to learn Alexander’s work from written or verbal instructions, there are pitfalls at every turn. Alexander himself never learned through words. He learned through a series of experiences. So the pupil, to learn, must be given the experience again and again, so that the experience and the appropriate words will be associated in the pupil’s consciousness. The general semanticists say, very properly, that words are maps of a certain territory, but they are not the territory itself. When one considers the truth of this, one will readily see that there are many things which cannot be learned, much less made a part of one’s mind and body, through words alone.
Lulie Westfeldt (“F. Matthias Alexander, The Man and His Work” – Chapter 13 p144)