If We Can't Touch,
How Can We Teach?
The catastrophic events of 2020 have made it obvious that in this day and age (and perhaps in the future) any business whose income is solely dependent upon person to person contact is extremely vulnerable.
As Alexander teachers, the lockdowns & social distancing have also served to poke an old wound : the fact that when compared to modalities like yoga, meditation & mindfulness, the Alexander Technique is virtually unknown to the public at large.
The consequences of the pandemic coupled with our being stuck on the margins, have made clear just how important it is that we secure our livelihood now and finally resolve the visibility issues that have limited the influence of the Alexander Technique for so long.
In my view, in order to do so...
We're gonna really have to start
thinking Outside the Box!
With that in mind...
What if you had a few new tools that would make it
possible to reach and teach a lot more students
that live just about anywhere in the world
without your ever having to leave home?
And...
What if those same tools also improved your Use
and enabled you to flatten the learning curve
for both you & your students while opening
up exciting new marketing possibilities?
Finally...
What if these changes enhanced your teaching so much
that it served to deepen your own personal practice,
allowed you to help a lot more students while building
interest in the Alexander Technique all over the world?
Is That Something
You Might Find Useful?
Introducing...
The First Comprehensive A.T. Training System Dedicated to the
Teaching & Marketing of the Alexander Technique Online...
We Need To Be
Teaching More People!
Primal Alexander
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 to facilitate a new student’s head neck reflex without hands-on
- How to accurately observe the quality of someone’s Use on a screen
- Movement activities that will improve a student’s use between classes
- A blueprint for a 45 minute private online lesson
- How to use your voice to induce ease in a student
- How to teach groups online
- How to begin marketing yourself as an online A.T. Teacher
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:
- An awareness process called ThreeEasyQuestions™,
- A collection of home-study activities called TheÉtudes™ &
- A mind frame called ThePrimaryConcern™
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:
- Where you’re currently noticing places of relative ease,
- What effect noticing that ease is having on your general Use
- How that effect is changing as you begin to engage in your activity.
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.
2. 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 & revealing 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.
3. ThePrimaryConcern™
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 Central Importance
of Experimentation
Dr. Frank Pierce Jones
"A new field of practical experimentation on the living human being"
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:
- TheTeachers12™(The 12 Etudes teachers do daily)
- 10 Week Game Plan For Teaching TheStudentEtudes™
- Blueprint for a 45 minute, one on one first lesson
- Intro to SubtleMovementEmpathy™ (Observation)
- Intro to VoiceTouch™ (Using your voice to induce improvement)
- Intro to HiveMindfulness™(Teaching groups online)
- Intro to ConstructiveConversing™(Verbal teaching strategies)
- Intro to MeansWherebyMarketing™ (Building a following online)
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.
By the end of this course,
you will have:
- Developed the ability to facilitate a student's Primary Control without hands on over the internet
- Deepened your sensitivity to the subtle changes in movement that reveal the fluctuations in someone's use throughout out an activity
- Accelerated the improvement of your own Use through regular practice of the DailyEtudes and consistent experimentation with your conscious choices
- Further clarified your practical understanding of how to apply Inhibition, Non-Doing and "Thinking in Activity" in your daily life
- Extended your influence as a teacher and thought leader by sharing your skills and knowledge through a variety of media
- Eliminated mindset habits that have interfered with your teaching and your ability to share your work.
- Learned how to orchestrate a 30 minute handsFree for a single student or a group
- Understood how marketing yourself as a teacher is just another way of expressing your teaching
- Eliminated any doubts about the true potential of online teaching
- Developed enough confidence in your teaching to share it in as many places as you can
- Understood why so many Alexander Teachers are adding the Primal Alexander études to their daily practice and are teaching them to their students
1. What changes have you noticed in yourself as a result of the course?
New Focus on Ease...
"The new focus on facilitating ease on the spot, whatever I do wherever I am is always so delightful and so empowering. I am more myself in certain situations and after 20 years of AT and I worked all these years quite regular, I now have a mental working tool to speak 'when I am ready to speak' Can't believe what took me so long . Hahaha Thank you for that especially!"
Staying with myself...
"There are so many! One is my trust in myself. My observation has improved greatly. Noticing what happens in me as I see another person or as I see a movement has helped me to be more responsive to my students. Staying with myself is improving. I would also say being with stressful situations in a new way gave me a new tools to be with uncomfortable feelings and to trust the place I am meeting in myself. I've also noticed an overall softness and clearer expression of myself."
Life-Long Learning Tool
"Gosh, where do I start?! It has changed and opened up my thinking in all sorts of ways. The reason I have always loved and been passionate about AT is because it is a life-long learning tool, and I'm always amazed and delighted by how my thinking can be challenged, changed and opened out - I just didn't expect this from online work."
Greater ability to Recognize EndGaining
"Changes in thinking that affect use. Changes in use that affect sensitivity; Greater capacity to recognize and accept unusual sensory experience. A decrease but not a cessation, of the desire to "fix things that are wrong" Greater ability to recognize end-gaining. Greater confidence in my agency as a teacher."
I'm Picking Up More Subtle Things...
"I've noticed that I am picking up more subtle things that my students are doing to themselves than I could at the beginning of the course. I've also noticed that I am not getting stuck in feeling as much as I was at the beginning of the course. My constructive thinking seems to be much clearer with less internal dialogue going along with it."
Much Easier To
Access Ease...
"I generally feel calmer, less reactive, and more objectively observant of myself and others. I find it much 'easier' to access ease through Primal Alexander than through traditional ordering/directing."
2. In what way has Primal Alexander™ added to your understanding of Alexander's Discoveries?
The Freedom of Choice That Emerges...
The essential business of non interference. The freedom of choice that emerges from directing attention as opposed to “doing” directions. The Glimpses of experience of the resistance caused by habit dropping away to release movement... The renewal of each zero/moment being a new event rather than a sustained “something“
A Step in The Right Direction...
In a way, Primal Alexander has really saved me as an AT teacher. Primal Alexander brought me so much closer to FM's process.He connected visual perceptions with kinesthetic ones over many years. He did not receive a series of hands on lessons and then try and recreate what someone else helped him feel. All that to say I think Primal Alexander is a step in the right direction.
Asking Just This
One Question...
Just This One Question Read More I learned more about the thinking process, the constructive thinking in a deeper way. It is so stripped down by asking just this one question. It makes it in a way easier to look more closely to what's happening in oneself.
Hidden Treasures...
"The sheer magnitude of transformation the course had on me and the hidden treasures of your simple movement exercises!!!"
Conscious Expansion...
"I'm understanding how this regular, systematic training of my conscious thinking isn’t limiting - instead it provides a framework from which the expansion of conscious thinking is enabled."
The Primary Control...
"I'm finding out just how primary Primary Control REALLY is!"
3. What do you think Primal Alexander adds to the lexicon of Alexander Technique teaching in general?
Ingenious!
An ingenious take on the Technique!
Legitimate!
It offers a completely legitimate and in depth way to explore the work!
The Origins of A.T.!
It takes you back to the origins of A.T. and brings you into a deeper consciousness!
The Use of The Self
Primal Alexander™ gives a clear and specific way of experiencing and practicing the process that FM Alexander describes in The Use of the Self, namely, how to pause in the face of a stimulus, direct myself, and move with constructive thinking.
Looking After Yourself
I think it's a fantastic tool for teaching people how to look after themselves without relying on a teacher's hands 'fixing them'. As the crux of AT is self/Self discovery, PA really enables people to THINK for themselves.
Responsibility
I'd say it is THE WAY to teach the Alexander Technique because of the way it puts the responsibility for change directly where it belongs: ON THE STUDENT
