Taught primarily through private lessons, the teacher utilizes highly skilled, hands-on guidance, verbal instructions, and visual aids to assist students in creating new understandings, pathways and options for movement.
Lessons explore every day activities such as sitting, walking, standing, and squatting, as well as specialized activities such as: athletics, martial arts, dance, theater, and voice, among others, depending on each student’s interests and pursuits. Students will also be asked to lie on a table fully clothed, while the practitioner moves the limbs and head, to integrate lessons.
Principles from the Alexander Technique are introduced over time, giving students basic tools to apply the technique on their own.
Two components are vital in bringing the principles of the Alexander Technique to life.
Awareness
Using the power of awareness, I will work closely with you, helping you at each step of the way to understand how your body works – so that you are able to draw upon its potential to give pleasure and grace. Understanding how you use your body and what your physical tendencies are, allows you greater freedom of choice.
Embodied learning
Students embody ideas through the kinesthetic sense, gathering information about where movements may be inhibited by excess muscular tension or collapse. Over time, each student learns how to engage in the following process: recognizing habit, taking pause, and sending new directions – a cycle that is dynamic, adaptive, and continuous at each stage of learning.
“As one goes on, new areas are opened, new possibilities are seen and realized; one finds himself continually growing, and realizes that there is an endless process of growth initiated.” – John Dewey
Patrick MacDonald was a first-generation teacher, taught by Alexander himself, beginning in 1932.
