If We Can’t Touch,
How Do We Teach?
This global pandemic is requiring everyone to think and to act differently.
Sadly, some of the things we have to do to keep safe are the very things
that will continue to make it even tougher for us to earn a living.
(Especially if you’ve never had quite enough students to begin with!)
What Can We Do To Safegaurd Our
?? Livelihood in the future ??
How To Really
!Teach A.T. Online!
An Introduction to:
PrimalAlexander
The First Alexander Technique Training System
!Developed Specifically For Online Teaching!
Hi…I’m Mio Morales. I’m an Alexander teacher/trainer who trained with Dr. Frank Pierce Jones from 1972-1975 and Marjorie Barstow from 1972-1993.
Since 2005, I’ve been teaching & training Alexander teachers using a unique approach to the Alexander Technique developed to address the specific limitations & possibilities inherent in online teaching.
PrimalAlexander™ (P.A.) is a step-by-step teaching system informed by Alexander’s ‘Evolution of a Technique’, the work of Dr. Frank Pierce Jones, Marjorie Barstow’s work & my more than 3,000 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.
Click to find out what the members think!
“How To Really Teach A.T. Online” is my 10 week entry level training for Alexander teachers serious about learning an authentic, non-compromising comprehensive way to teach the Alexander Technique without any hands-on guidance online or in person.
This course is Level 1 of TheCoachingClub™, 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.
“How To Really Teach A.T. Online” 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.
The Curriculum
Primal Alexander
Primal Alexander™is a step by step teaching/learning approach designed to improve your Use by teaching you how to experiment with movement in a way that lessens habitual excess tension.
By applying a different 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 improvement and empowerment.
P.A. is a self-healing process that uses Inhibition & self-observation to create a gap between stimulus and response.
In that gap, our constructive allows our native movement intelligence to preempt our habitual way of moving while it reinforces the neural pathways that lead to better Use now and in the future.
The three assets within Primal Alexander™ that any Alexander teacher can immediately take advantage of are:
- An awareness process called 3EasyQuestions™,
- A collection of home-study activities called TheÉtudes™ &
- A mindset called ThePrimaryConcern™
3EasyQuestions
3EasyQuestions™ is my approach to teaching constructive conscious control. It’s based on the fact that when a person directs their attention to places of relative ease in their body, the head/neck reflex is gently facilitated.
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:
- Where you’re currently noticing places of relative ease,
- What effect noticing that ease is having on your general Use and finally…
- How that general effect is changing as you begin to move.
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 move outside of your habit 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.
However, 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 & impenetrable.
TheEtudes
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…
- Give students a simple way to practice directing
- Keep them engaged with their studies between lessons.
- Empower them in their own learning
- Provide a way of facilitating the Primary Control on their own.
- Give them a way to improve their Use whenever they want.
- Teach Inhibition, Non-doing and Directing quickly.
- Improve their sensory appreciation.
- Develop the awareness they’ll need to apply the Technique in any activity.
ThePrimaryConcern
The foundational concept that underlies all of PrimalAlexander I call “The Primary Concern”. It is the root formulation of the self-experimental process. It takes the form of the question:
What’s happening to my Use as I _____?
(anything you do can go in that blank)
When you can ask and answer that question a few times during an activity, you’ve begun to “think in activity”. It’s the key to understanding how the “end” you’re trying to gain is affecting the way 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 (the “means whereby”).
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.
Quote
title
I remember reading that quote for the first time as young, slightly fanatical Alexander enthusiast. I felt like Alexander was issuing a challenge. Challenging me to buckle down and apply what he had discovered more seriously.
Did I aspire to someday being able to do what Alexander could do? Yes, I did. Was I willing to sit in front of mirrors for years and years to achieve what he did…Apparently not, because I never did!
However, as the years went by, I came to realize that spending all that time in front of the mirrors was not what Alexander did as much as how he did what he did. What he actually learned to do in front of those mirrors was to…
title
For me, the key to getting the most out of Alexander’s discoveries is to follow him down the road of self-experimentation. We have a huge advantage over Alexander. Because as a result of his efforts, we know that there truly is gold at the end of that rainbow.
Primal Alexander™is a step by step approach designed to improve your Use by teaching you how to experiment with movement in a way that lessens habitual excess tension. By applying a different 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 improvement.
It’s a self-healing process that uses Inhibition & self-observation to create a gap between stimulus and response. In that gap, our native movement intelligence preempts our habitual way of moving while it reinforces the neural pathways that lead to better Use now and in the future.
Add Your Heading Text Here
In TheCoachingClub with the help of 3EasyQuestions™ and TheÉtudes™ you will learn how to identify and then untie the psycho-physical knots that limit your effectiveness as practitioner and as a teacher of the Alexander Technique.
With those two tools and objective feedback from me and the other members, you’ll be able to enhance and refine your teaching much more quickly and easily than you could on your own.
If you’re interested, you could also acquire HandsFree Teaching skills that will enable you to teach authentic Alexander Technique in situations where hands-on guidance is not optimal or perhaps not even possible.
But, the bottom line is that you’ll discover a simpler way to “stick to principle” more fully and more often while teaching and in your daily life, so that you can more deeply enjoy and share this wonderful work with the world.
CLICK HERE TO READ WHAT MEMBER ARE SAYING ABOUT THE COURSE
- What kinds of changes have you noticed in yourself during the run of the course?
I am more interested in collaborative work with other AT teachers and more interested in the Barstow based dialects of AT work. I am playing with a more structured approach to practicing AT, I recognize some places where my thinking and concentration could develop, and I’m curious about developing more simplicity and curiosity in my work with myself because my body and mood seem to like that.
I’ve been doing a lot of yoga and weights along w Primal AT donuts hard to separate however, some nagging hip pain While sleeping has greatly diminished. I’m moving slower. My flute playing seems easier. I’m newly aware of how I’m moving.
- Experimentation
- Ease
- Practice
- Community
- Helping students detect when the way they are thinking interferes with their moving.
- Giving them tools to use as soon as they notice that interference starting to happen.
- Providing a home practice regimen to sharpen those tools & increase their overall understanding & awareness.
- Creating a learning environment that supports their efforts and keeps them engaged & motivated.
From the very 1st lesson, the goal of PrimalAlexander™ is to empower students in their own learning. To help them experience & understand how the thinking choices they’re making create the movement results they’re getting.
Rethinking of conscious control
Paint them a picture of what A typical class looks like give a rundown of the order of events
This is not a rehash of …This is a re-imagination…What if FM had never decided to use his hands. Where might the Technique be now after a hundred years?
I often wondered how the Alexander Technique might have evolved if F.M. had continued to explore using only words, voice and presence as the means whereby he taught. What if he had just never decided to use his hands?
THERE ARE A LOT OF GREAT TEACHERS OUT THERE BUT…
HOW MUCH EXPERIENCE DO THEY HAVE TEACHING ONLINE
WHAT SYSTEM DO THEY HAVE.
Here are some of the benefits that teachers are experiencing from learning to work this way