In the Covid 19 crisis, many AT teachers discovered that the technique can be taught online. But for many teachers, their entire training has been on learning to put hands, and they are short of tools and techniques to use. I have been developing hands-off ways of communicating the core principles of the technique for many years, and my methods are described in detail in my
book, the Alexander technique, Twelve Fundamentals of Integrated Movement, which was published March 2021. The courses offered here teach the core of these methods, that all derive directly or indirectly from Miss Goldie’s work (see below). They teach simple methods to expand your online teaching repertoire, as well as functional anatomy to enable pupils to understand what is asked.
Miss Goldie (1905-1997) worked alongside Alexander for thirty years and was probably closest to him, hearing many of his last thoughts on his work. I was fortunate to work with her between 1990 and 1995, just after finishing my training. She was kind, (mostly, her temper was legendary!) but uncompromising. She taught what she had understood from Alexander, much of which she considered lost to the mainstream Alexander profession. I felt she broke down everything I had learned so far, and rebuilt it her way, a scary process! Later, I worked with others who had studied with Miss Goldie, and also Erika Whittaker, to understand the essence of her teaching, and why it was different from that now mostly taught.
More recently, I have worked with Jeando Masoero and his understanding of Alexander’s initial technique. He has reconstructed the psychophysical methods of Francois Delsarte, which FM probably learnt early on, using integrated directions for himself as antagonistic pulls. This is based on a very different model of ‘body geometry’ – our ideal alignment, than that currently understood. I consider this was what Miss Goldie was using as she worked on me, and it has enabled me to understand the functional anatomy underpinning her work. While Miss Goldie always worked with me with hands-on, she taught me to work on myself, thinking in activity, in relationship to the task
in hand. From this starting point, my work has evolved so that I now work mostly hands-off, whether with individual pupils or groups, in person or online, guiding the pupil to discover the work for themselves and make it their own. My workshops and video courses introduce teachers to the essence of her understanding, (as I understood it), both to work on yourself, and teach it to pupils or groups. All workshops are place limited. If you would like a workshop for teachers in your area, please contact me. For those who really want to understand this work, I also recommend reading my book and joining the Book Study Club (see the calendar box below), taking private lessons online with me, or coming to Ireland for a personal intensive or retreat.
This experiential workshop aims to convey Miss Goldie’s key teaching aspects, as I understood it: How to “come to quiet”, a deeper level of inhibition, from which life can flow, and the brain sorts out the task itself.
Explore natural breathing: the breathing the body wants to do for itself. Natural breathing is profoundly relaxing, centring, integrating and strengthening; and can bring deep, fast changes for yourself and your pupils.
Trees in a forest protect and nurture each other, yet always maintain their space. We will explore this mystery of being fully connected, yet fully separate and unattached, and find the subtle power this can bring to our work.
A workshop based on the teachings of Miss Goldie. Coming to quiet is crucial for us in the modern world, so we can come into the present, relating to ourselves and our surroundings simultaneously.
Better boundaries make us more assertive and more professional. Learn to recognise when boundaries are blurred, and how maintaining them can make you stronger, more present with your pupils, more empathic, and allow you to transmit the work more effectively.
Embodied emotional clearing techniques for Alexander Technique teachers and all physical therapists. Ten simple techniques that cover three main areas: grounding and personal space; nurturing yourself; and clearing emotional states. Use them yourself and with pupils / clients.
The weekend was wonderful, I feel there is so much to learn! I am looking forward to the process. I used ball games and the table-work you showed us yesterday and my pupil loved it. She felt she learned a huge amount about reaction and connection. When I asked her to think of her mind in her brain, she said she felt so light and tall, almost as though she was floating away (so I got her to connect with her feet too!).
She had always loved table work, but was bowled over by the new stuff. It was a challenge for me to stay with myself all lesson – as you can imagine I did not achieve it, but every little helps. And at least I was trying. Even being present to myself a few feet from the table helped her to calm down. At the end of the table work, she commented that she felt it was the first time in her life that she had ever been really still.
Thank you very much for the excellent notes for each week’s training and videos. When I first met you online in the initial introduction, I knew that you are a great teacher and very generous in sharing your knowledge and experience.
Having started the 10-week course, my expectations have been surpassed already. I appreciate the way you communicate and take care of us. Thank you
Finding the red meditation in the morning gives me a good foundation throughout my day. If I miss it for a few days...something clearly is missing, and I tend to rush more through conversations, activities, becoming a bit fiery. Practising 'pumping up' my boundaries helped me pretty much right away not losing myself completely in a couple of challenging moments with my daughter (15). The occasional blow-up seemed much less of a blow up, more a flare up and if I could keep my boundaries up and stay grounded, my daughter transformed during these moments into a sweet young girl smooth like honey.
This material is mostly my own, though some techniques are classic methods but with the body added in. They were developed over many years through working on my own stuff, then exploring its potential with my Alexander pupils. I now use one or another of these techniques with most pupils at some time, when classic Alexander technique is not quite getting there or is happening too
slowly & I sense an emotional block, or they are just too emotional to do anything else! The body-centred nature of the work means that at the end of a session they usually look and feel as if they’d had hands on all lesson. This is playful material, there is no “getting it right”. The techniques are fluid and mostly very forgiving, so there is plenty of scope for developing them further in your own ways.
Take private lessons with me from anywhere in the world. I work by observation and verbal guidance, and by working on myself while attuning to you, so that there is a sense of working together – no different to being in a room together. You will be working with anatomy play to wake up the physical body, then by conscious guidance, and also by deeper ‘tonic’ inhibition, which facilitates deeper pathways in which the body self-organises into integrated patterns of movement.
Come on a personalised retreat to further your development as an Alexander teacher, advance your understanding of Miss Goldie`s and FM’s work, or address emotional issues holding you back in your work. These intensives are tailor-made for you. In between sessions, walk in our beautiful countryside, on the hills or by the lake, or relax in beautiful surroundings. Good food (we can accommodate all diets) and peaceful atmosphere. I suggest intensives of two days, each with a morning session, and another in the afternoon, although I’m open to other formats to suit you. Lessons are charged by the hour, on a sliding scale of €75 – £60 an hour as suits your budget. We are 50 minutes from Shannon airport, (we can collect), or an easy bus-ride from Dublin airport. There are lovely B&B`s locally, or it may be possible to stay with us.
