Is That Something
You Might Find Useful?
PrimalAlexander™ (P.A.) is a step-by-step A.T. teaching system informed by Alexander’s ‘Evolution of a Technique’, the work of Dr. Frank Pierce Jones and Marjorie Barstow & my more than 3500 hours of research into online teaching & training.
It’s a comprehensive, hands-free, distance teaching method that’s already proving to be of tremendous benefit to a growing community of Alexander teachers hailing from a wide variety of training backgrounds.
Primal Alexander-Level One is my 12 week entry level training for Alexander teachers serious about learning an authentic, non-compromising, comprehensive way to teach the Alexander Technique, online or in person, without any hands-on.
It’s part of my post-graduate training program for Alexander teachers looking to reach, teach and keep more new students using the internet both as a teaching and marketing medium.
This course will erase any doubts you may have about the effectiveness of online teaching because you will be able to see for yourself the effect it has upon you and your students.
Primal Alexander-Level One will build your confidence in the power of online teaching and will provide you with the skills & strategies needed to teach powerful Alexander lessons without having to use your hands.
In this introductory course you will learn…
How does it work?
Primal Alexander™ uses a step by step approach to teaching The Alexander Technique that focuses on teaching students how to experiment effectively with their thinking and their movement.
By applying a unique kind of Directing alongside a graduated series of self-study “études”, Primal Alexander™ provides students and teachers with a straightforward, easy to follow blueprint for improvement and empowerment.
P.A. is a self-healing process that uses Inhibition & self-observation to create a gap between the stimulus to act and our response.
In that gap, timely constructive thinking allows our native movement intelligence to preempt our habitual way of moving while it reinforces the neural pathways that lead to better Use at that moment and in the future.
Three of the assets within Primal Alexander™ that any Alexander teacher can immediately incorporate into their teaching and self-care are this Level One course. They are:
1. ThreeEasyQuestions™
3EasyQuestions™ is my approach to teaching constructive conscious control. It’s based on the simple discovery that when a person directs their attention to places of relative ease in their body, the head/neck reflex is facilitated.
Here’s how it works:
When exploring the possibility of easier movement, after inhibiting, in the gap between stimulus and response, instead of traditional orders or directing, you quickly assess these three things about yourself in sequence:
This gentle, but focused curiosity about the ease you’re currently experiencing shifts your attention in a way that circumvents your usual habit patterns.
It facilitates the Primary Control which reorganizes your movement on the fly, allowing you to perform the activity with increased ease.
As a form of Constructive Thinking, 3EasyQuestions™ allows the actual direction to come from the natural adaptive response of your nervous system.
You make a conscious choice to direct your attention to ease and then stand back and notice what happens. This prevents you from imposing a habitual feeling-based concept of forward, up, head, neck or body upon the process.
3EasyQuestions™ is a new take on constructive conscious control that is so easy to implement it can be taught to a brand new student in a first lesson.
In the hands of a teacher, it also becomes a potent self-healing tool that reveals and erodes deep habitual patterns that tend to be imperceptible & therefore impenetrable.
TheÉtudes™ are the “lightweight” home study activities that students do for a few minutes every day. They form the practice material they use to actualize what they are learning in the group class.
Like the Études in classical music pedagogy, these are studies; opportunities for students to learn specific skills in a simplified, focused setting. When done regularly the Études…
The Primary Concern is the foundational concept that underlies all of PrimalAlexander. It is the root formulation of the self-experimental process that Alexander pioneered. The Primary Concern takes the form of the question:
What’s happening to my Use as I _____?
(with any activity occupying the blank)
When you can ask and answer that question a few times during an activity, you’ve begun to “think in activity” and it’s the key to understanding how the “end” you’re trying to gain is affecting the “means whereby” you’re using yourself. Namely, how the manner in which you are doing things NOW is affecting your present and future ability to function efficiently.
Asking that question brings the “end” and the “means whereby” into the same frame so that you’re able view the changes in each simultaneously.
That way, when the way you’re doing something begins to interfere with your coordination, you become aware of it and have a chance to make a change.
That’s the bigger picture of how the Études function in Primal Alexander. Through consistent daily practice, they quickly teach a student the value of “thinking in activity” and a simple way to do it.
The quote above is from the beginning of the use of the self; it’s it’s Alexander’s summation of his work. In my opinion, The key to getting the most out of Alexander’s discoveries is to follow him (as best we can) down the road of self experimentation.
As a step by step, systematic learning and teaching process, first and foremost, Primal Alexander™ is designed to improve your Use by teaching you, how to EXPERIMENT!
That is, how to use movement, experimentation, observation and desire for change as the means whereby one can systematically improve the quality of one’s own Use of themselves.
By applying a unique kind of directing and a graduated series of self-study “études”, Primal Alexander™ provides students and teachers with a straight forward, easy to follow blueprint for continual improvement.
It’s a self-healing process that uses Inhibition & self-observation to create a gap between stimulus and response that allows our native movement intelligence to preempt our habits of movement while reinforcing the neural pathways that lead to better Use right now and in the future
In that gap, our native movement intelligence can offer up an alternative to our habitual way of moving while it reinforces the neural pathways that lead to better Use now and in the future.
In this course you will learn how to become aware of (and then subsequently untie) the psycho-physical knots that limit your effectiveness as practitioner and teacher of the Alexander Technique.
With an assortment of new tools and objective feedback from me and the other members of this course you’ll be able to enhance and refine your teaching much more quickly, assuredly and easily than you can on your own.
Here are some of the things that you’ll be learning:
The HandsFree Teaching skills you will acquire in this course will enable you to teach authentic and powerful Alexander Technique lessons in situations where hands-on guidance is either not optimal or, in some cases, not even possible.
The bottom line is that you’ll discover an elegantly simpler way to “stick to principle” and “Think in Activity”. And you’ll do both more fully and more often in your teaching and in your daily life so that you can more deeply enjoy and share Alexander’s wonderful work with the world.
If you’ve managed to get this far, the odds are that you probably have a pretty good idea of what’s on offer here.
In early March, when the Corona virus crisis became inescapable, so did the need for Alexander teachers to at least take a look at teaching online.
More than 700 Alexander teachers showed up for the workshops I taught with the help of Jennifer Roig-Francoli those three weekends and it was wonderful to able to share some of the things I’ve been exploring.
Now, just a few months later, lots more people are both teaching online and training teachers to teach online which is great thing for our community, for the world and for the work itself.
While it’s certainly true that after taking this 12 Week introductory course you’ll be better able to adapt what you already know about teaching Alexander’s work to possibilities and limitations of this new medium, the real value of what you’ll be learning, I think, goes way deeper than that.
On the personal side, you will have in your possession a brand new set of tools that you can use to literally follow in Alexander’s footsteps.
Your increasingly acute self-observational ability when combined with a deepening commitment to change through experimentation will greatly speed the improvement of your own Use of yourself.
On the teaching side, all the wonderful work you’ll be doing on yourself will infuse your lessons with new insights and a new spooky sensitivity.
You’ll be able to use your deepening empathy and clarity to help your students to first uncover and then untie their habitual psycho-physical knots on their own.
Primal Alexander, Level 1 is more than just a few activity tricks that you can do with your students online until this Corona virus cloud lifts.
It’s a first look at a rich, robust and nuanced new angle on the groundbreaking science that Alexander invented more than a century ago in order to save the career he loved so deeply.
It’s also an invitation to become part of a lively international community of like-minded learners that continues to expand…
It’s an additional means whereby your personal growth can instantly become the gift of transformation for your students and anyone you come in contact with…
Finally, for anyone who loves this work, it’s another way to utilize and share the many amazing treasures that that constitute The Alexander Technique at a time when the World just might need them more than ever.
Thank you for your attention. I hope you decide to join us in class!
Cheers,
Mio