This workshop is drawn from my book (currently in production): The Alexander technique, The Twelve Fundamentals of Integrated Movement. On could say that Alexander’s core discovery is that the body will self-organise if allowed to. We will take an evolutionary theme – what movement capacity we have lost in Western culture by preventing this from happening, and how we can re-access it by reawakening older, more balanced movement patterns. I identify twelve fundamentals of integrated movement that facilitate such self-organisation. These are all practical: biomechanics is one structural fundamental, while many others are aspects of perception and thinking. These are much more part of movement than is most people realise, because optimal movement is organised around our awareness, focus and goals.

This work emerges out of lessons taken between 1990 and 1994 with Miss Goldie, who worked alongside Alexander for thirty years and was closest to him. It presents a new interpretation of how Alexander developed the technique, and what happened next. The explorations recapture the essence of her teaching, and discovers the full scope of methods Alexander must have used to work on himself.

We will work with practical explorations, including natural breathing, body-play, conscious guidance and control and physical pulls to bring all the musculature back into play, from which we can let previously unknown integrated movements emerge out of a quiet system.

We will explore accessible science models and functional anatomy to understand the principles involved in self-organising.