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"I feel a lot of tension here."    

Resources for Alexander Technique Teachers and Students

Welcome! On this page you will find a variety of material of special interest to teachers of the Alexander Technique, and to students who wish to deepen their knowledge and understanding of the Technique. Click on the links below or scroll down the page to explore the material on this page.

• Promoting Your Teaching Practice
• Information about Master Teachers
• Teacher Training Information
• Information Sources
• Alexander Technique Self Study
• Alternative and Controversial Views
   
  

Promoting Your Teaching Practice

Need a Website?

Click here to learn how you can get a website quickly, and very inexpensively - no technical knowledge needed!

Get a Website:

Many Alexander Technique teachers who have their own websites find that the majority of their new referrals come from their website. Unless you have all the students you want, it makes no sense whatsoever to be without one. Because of the way the web is presently structured, you cannot rely on the online or printed teachers' listings of your professional society to bring you a significant number of new students. For almost any kind of business today, not having a website is rapidly becoming equivalent to not having a phone.

Ways to Use the Web Effectively:

• Click here to listen to a series of conversations about how you can use the web effectively. Click here to listen to some interviews on the same topic.
  
  
• Please contribute a bit of your time to The Alexander Technique Twitter Project to make your teaching practice and everyone else's more successful.
  
  
• As the information in the link below explains, you can have an effective site very cheaply and quickly, with absolutely no technical expertise (or even a computer!) needed. This link also provides some general information about the internet, and how you can make use of it to promote your practice. How to Create, Promote and Host an Alexander Technique Web Site Easily and Quickly with no Technical Knowledge.
  
  
• If you already have a website, consider adding an MP3 interview to help promote your practice.
  

Other Tips for Promoting Your Practice:

• Defining the Alexander Technique: Once More Into the Breach (Word download) by Alan Bowers, a New York teacher, suggests some ways we can describe the Technique in a more effective manner.
  
  
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, by Chip and Dan Heath contains some of the most useful information available anywhere for Alexander Teachers who wish to effectively communicate the essential ideas of the Technique to prospective students. Click here to listen to a very short interview with one of the authors. Click here to listen to a longer interview with one of the authors. Click on the following links to read more about this book or order: from USA, Canada or the UK
  
  

Information about Master Teachers

• Marjorie Barstow - Information about this master teacher of the Technique.
  
  
• Walter Carrington - Information about this master teacher of the Technique.
  
  
• Margaret Goldie (Miss Goldie) - Information about this master teacher of the Technique.
  
  
• Classical Alexander Technique - A site devoted to Patrick Macdonald's approach to the Technique.
  
  
• Back to Simplicity - Senior Teacher Frank Ottiwell tells about his experiences with Judy Leibowitz, Patrick Macdonald, Marjorie Barstow and Walter Carrington.
  
  
• Marjory Barlow is a senior teacher of the Alexander Technique trained by Alexander in the 1930s. Click here to read an account of a teachers' workshop conducted by her in 1995.
  
  

Teacher Training Information

If you are thinking about training to become an Alexander Technique teacher, this link will provide you with information and advice: Alexander Technique Teacher Training.

Information Sources

 
 

"Ah, the ecstasy of moving all
the right muscle groups"    

General Information Sources:

• The Alexander Technique Email Discussion Group is a rich source of information for AT students and teachers. Click here to join the group.
  
  
• Alexander Technique Resources in the San Francisco Bay Area.
  
  
• Alexander Talk features lighthearted insightful coversations about the Alexander Technique.
  
  
• Pedro de Alcantara, a Paris-based teacher has created a page on his website devoted to resources for Alexander Technique teachers. Click here to go to this page.
  
  
• Click here to see a slideshow of the 2004 International Congress in Oxford, England.
  

Information on Specific Aspects of the Technique:

• Francisco Varela and The Gesture of Awareness: A new Direction in Cognitive Science and its Relevance to the Alexander Technique by Rachel Zahn relates cutting-edge developments in the field of cognitive science to the Alexander Technique in a thoughtful and interactive way.
  
  
• Voice and the Alexander Technique by Jane Ruby Heirich contains a detailed description of the "whispered ah".
  
  
• Whispered Ah - a short video describing the procedure by Alexander Technique teacher Ron Murdock.
  
  
• The Use of the Chair - Alexander Technique teacher Nicholas Brockbank discusses this classic Alexander teaching procedure.
  
  
• Origins and Theory of Mapping, by William Conable, describes some of the ideas underlying "body mapping".
  
  
• Listen to or download an interview with William Conable about the origins and the usefulness of body mapping.
  
  
• How to Use Bodymapping in your AT Teaching by Barbara Conable is taken from a lecture given to the Swiss Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique.
  
  
• What Every Teacher needs to Know - An Interview with Barbara Conable - Body mapping,inhibition and direction, breathing, the spine and more.
  
  
• On "Postural Education" by Ron Dennis, suggests that the Alexander Technique has a unique role in posture education (Word doc. download).
  
  
• Dr. Norman Doidge discusses brain neuroplasticity, a topic of great relevance to Alexander Technique teachers and students.
  
  
• Guided Sensory Education in Group Lessons in the Alexander Technique (Word document download) by Bobby Rosenberg describing the processes he has found useful.
  
  
• Listen to an interview with Gittle Dollerup Fjordbo about challenges facing the AT teaching profession, limitations of the Technique and more.
  
  
• Listen to or download an interview with Franis Engel, providing suggestions for Alexander teachers and students who want to describe what they're teaching or studying to others.
  
  
• Making Sense - Excellent and provocative article about proprioception, posture, movement and our understanding of the physical laws of nature.
  
  
• Ukata (UK Alexander Teachers' Association) - Interesting and informative website created by a group of teachers in which they share ideas about teaching.
  
  
• Richard Brennan, an Irish teacher of the Alexander Technique has written an article titled "Cultural Habits" which examines how our cultural background influences our habit patterns. Click here to read "Cultural Habits".
  

While moving up, he got    
a little ahead of himself.    

Alexander Technique Self Study

For Alexander Technique students who are studying with little or no help from an Alexander teacher, suggestions and links to several useful resources can be found at: Alexander Technique Self-Study.

Alternative and Controversial Views

• John Appleton is an Alexander Technique teacher and the developer of Posture Release Imagery. He puts forward some fascinating new self-help ideas based on imagery, which is sometimes a taboo subject in the Alexander Technique teaching world. They require some patience to understand at first, but many have found his ideas to be very helpful. Click here to read or download Posture Release Imagery resources.
  
  
• Jeroen Staring, a Dutch researcher, has written an extraordinarily detailed - and very provocative! - biography of F. Matthias Alexander, Frederick Matthias Alexander 1869-1955. The Origins and History of the Alexander Technique, A medical historical analysis of F.M. Alexander's Life, Work, Technique, and Writings. Click here to read a summary of the book and learn how to order it.
  
  
• Lessons and Learning by Nicholas Brockbank takes a critical look at Alexander Technique teaching methods.
  
  
• A Response to “A Crucial Distinction: Manner and Conditions of Use” by Joe Armstrong and a sanitised version, What's the Use?, by Robert Rickover, originally published in the AmSAT Newsletter, explore the distinction between conditions of use and manner of use.
  
  
• Is the Monkey out to Lunch? - by Nicholas Brockbank, takes aim at the sacred simian.
  
  

   
   
  
  

• The Transistor and the Technique, by Robert Rickover, originally published in the AmSAT Newsletter, explores some serious problems in the transmission of the Technique from FM's head and hands to the heads and hands of today's teachers.
  
  
• Upon Reflection - Alexander teacher Joseph Boland suggest a rigorous review and overhaul of the Alexander Technique.
  
  
• Monitoring and Analyzing "Use" - Alexander teacher Joseph Boland challenges some conventional ideas about how to improve use.
  
  
• Use of the Hips by Nicholas Brockbank questions whether going for maximum length is always the best idea.
  
  
• Ed Bouchard, a Chicago teacher has created a website, ATeducationresearch.com, devoted to furthering research into the Alexander Technique. It includes some interesting - and very controversial! - historical information.
  
  
• Michael Protzel has written two very provocative articles, "Why do we Tense our Necks?" and "Alexander's Error " in which he asks some fundamental questions about the basis of the Alexander Technique. These can be found at uprighting.com.
  
  
• Alexander's Dream by Robert Rickover, originally published in Direction, asks how we can - as FM desired - do away with the Alexander Technique teaching profession.
  
  
• Change - by Nicholas Brockbank discusses some non-Alexander ways to change.
  
  
• Who Was Alexander by Robert Rickover exposes some myths about the man.
  
  
• In 1998 a spirited debate took place on the Alexander Technique Email list concerning the validity of the Alexander Technique. It has been posted by Direction Journal on the web: "On Belief Systems and Learning"Ron Dennis, a teacher in Atlanta, Georgia, began an interesting debate about Primary Control with an article in the AmSAT Newsletter. Click here to read this article, "Primary Control and the Crisis in Alexander Technique Theory".
  
  
• Click here to read a reply by David Langstroth.
  
  
• Click here to read Ron Dennis' Reply to David's Reply.
  

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you said.
I was listening to my body."

Several books related to teaching the Alexander Technique can be found on these pages of The Alexander Technique Bookstore (USA and Canada) in Association with AMAZON.COM and AMAZON.CA and The Alexander Technique Bookshop (UK) in Association with AMAZON.CO.UK A number of audio CDs and other Alexander Technique related products can be found at AlexanderStuff.com

The future content of this page will be determined by your questions, comments and suggestions.
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and
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