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March 6, 2024  

Summer 2024: Residential Masterclasses

There are two dates planned for residential weekends at my home in Hampshire this summer:

Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th August
Friday 6th to Sunday 8th September

TimeDay 1Day 2Day 3
08:00-09:00Check-inBreakfastBreakfast
09:30-11:00Check-inSession 4Session 8
11:00-11:30CoffeeCoffeeCoffee
11:30-13:00Session 1Session 5Session 9
13:00-15:00Lunch & breakLunch & breakLunch & break
15:00-17:00Session 2Session 6Session 10
17:00-17:30TeaTeaTea
17:30-19:30Session 3Session 7Departure
20:00-21:00DinnerDinnerDeparture

All the procedures used in the learning and the teaching of the Alexander Technique have a purpose, and being clear about that purpose can help us to decide when and how to apply them in our teaching.

In this three-day residential course, we will examen, discuss and practise the following procedures – which constitute the main physical aspects of Alexander’s teaching. 

  • Squatting
  • Walking
  • The Lunge
  • Semi-supine
  • Baby-bend (Monkey)
  • Breathwork: Whispered Ah
  • Breathwork: the vowels
  • Breathwork: widening the ribs
  • Hands on the back of the chair
  • Going up onto the toes
  • Wall work
  • Being at the back of the chair
  • Coming forward in the chair
  • Leaning forward in the chair
  • Keeping the back back

Musicians are welcome to bring their instrument. For pianists, please note that I have a piano.

As well as traditional AT work, we will cook and eat together, discuss the therapeutic, educational and evolutionary ideas of F M Alexander. We will explore ways of integrating “stopping” and “directing” into all aspects of our lives.

Attendance will be limited to seven people; teachers, students and pupils welcome.

The cost for each weekend, including food, accommodation (in single-sex twin rooms) and over 17 hours of tuition is £400.  A non-refundable (unless the course is cancelled) deposit of £80 is required to secure a place. The balance is due 28 days before the start date.

If you would like to apply or to get further information, please email me.

For feedback from previous courses see:

November 2, 2023  

Forward and Up into 2024

My next immersive 3-day weekend masterclass at my home in Hampshire (accommodation provided) will take place from 5-7 January 2024.

Travel from London, if not driving, is by train to Bramley, Hants. via Reading or Basingstoke.

As well as traditional AT work, we will cook and eat together, discuss the therapeutic, educational and evolutionary ideas of F M Alexander. Drawing on my work with many first-generation teachers we will explore ways of integrating stopping and directing into all aspects of our lives. For people travelling long distances, overnight accommodation can also be provided at no extra cost on Thursday 4 and/or Sunday 7 January.

These weekends have been very well-received by earlier participants (see First Weekend Masterclass and Second Weekend Masterclass).

Attendance will be limited to seven people; teachers, students and pupils.

Cost, including food, accommodation and over 17 hours of tuition, is £400.

If you would like to apply or to get further information, contact me by email.

The Schedule

Time Day 1 Day 2 Day 3
08:00-09:00 Check-in Breakfast Breakfast
09:30-11:00 Check-in Session 4 Session 8
11:00-11:30 Coffee Coffee Coffee
11:30-13:00 Session 1 Session 5 Session 9
13:00-15:00 Lunch & break Lunch & break Lunch & break
15:00-17:00 Session 2 Session 6 Session 10
17:00-17:30 Tea Tea Tea
17:30-19:30 Session 3 Session 7 Departure
20:00-21:00 Dinner Dinner Departure

The Programme will include:-

April 9, 2020  

The Giving and Withholding of Consent: the Secret of “Letting Do”

So you’ve learnt how to direct – and perhaps you experience some expansion, integration and a flow of energy when you “give your orders”.

You can inhibit some of your reactions and enter into a more quiet state. Maybe you can let your head lead as you go into activity. Then now it’s time to explore the world of giving and withholding of consent: the secret of “letting do”.

I had my first real experience of this in a lesson with Margaret Goldie. I was sitting with my hands resting palms-up on the tops of my legs. She took one arm, moved it around – up and down and rotating it in a particular way that she had – and let it rest at my side. Then the brain work!

“Not you doing it!” she quietly insisted.

“You are going to give consent to letting your hand come back up onto the top of your leg, but you are not going to do it.”

I had already been having lessons with her for some years so I was not distracted by “unbeliever” thoughts. I just listened to her and followed her instructions as exactly as I could.

“Not you doing it! You are going to give consent to allowing your hand to move. Give consent and let it do it!”

Then suddenly, effortlessly – my hand floats up onto the top of my leg. How? Not, evidently, by using the familiar pathways I associated with such a movement.

It’s all there in one of Alexander’s Teaching Aphorisms:

“The reason you people won’t give consent is because none of you will give consent to anything but what you feel.

F M Alexander 1

This approach gave me new insights into Alexander’s work, in particular the similarity with aspects of Taoism.  2

Withholding consent – inhibition – is the doorway. Pass through it and experiment with giving consent to what you wish to do – volition – and then “letting do”! Allowing activity to take place using unfamiliar pathways, given that so many of our “identity habits” are embodied, challenges our sense of who we think we are, opening a door to a world which seems to operate under different laws.

 …the Alexander Technique, like Zen, tries to unlock the power of the unknown force in man.

Patrick Macdonald 3

Your early experiments might be simple physical activities – like the one Miss Goldie showed me; giving consent to a very basic movement of some part of the body, getting out of a chair, moving around from A to B or even (and this takes patient practice) making a cup of tea. As you become more at home in this new medium, you could experiment with interacting with other people. Give consent, for example, to chatting with your neighbour about the weather.4

You must learn to get out of the teacher’s way, learn to get out of your own way, then learn to get out of ITS way.

Patrick Macdonald 5

What do you find? Do you become more the watcher than the doer?

If you wish, share your experiences in the comments section or write to me.

1. Teaching Aphorisms: The Alexander Journal No 7, 1972, published by the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique. Also published in Articles and Lectures by Mouritz (1995).
2. The concept of non-doing in Taoism – Wu Wei – has been understood in different ways throughout its long history. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_wei
3. The Alexander Technique As I See It, Patrick MacDonald; Notebook Jottings. Published by Rahula Books, 1989
4. At the time of writing we are all practising social distancing so interacting with others may have to wait.
5. The Alexander Technique As I See It, Patrick MacDonald; Notebook Jottings. Published by Rahula Books, 1989

© John Hunter 2020

May 25, 2018  

Why don’t we have embodied awareness naturally?

Perhaps if we lived more natural lives, we would. Our ancestors were more dependent on their senses for survival and thus kept certain pathways active in a way which – in the era of comfortable furniture, soft beds, sedentary lifestyle and 24 hour IT – we do not. Human beings have, one might say, evolved in a lopsided way.

How does it differ from fitness or posture training?

You can get an enhanced sense of well-being – and even improve your health – through any form of exercise but this does not cultivate the subtle connections between mind and body. Similarly one can learn a set of postures, ranging from ridiculous so-called “power-poses” to “deportment training”, but such approaches are guided more by outward appearance than inner sensitivity.

Is it like Mindfulness?

There are similarities and differences. Mindfulness was developed by Buddhist monks as part of their spiritual practice; centuries later certain elements of this practice were adapted by psychologists for therapeutic or developmental purposes. For many Westerners – and increasingly Easterners too – a meditation practice is not sufficient to connect them with themselves in an organic way; there are too many abnormalities in a nervous system which is partly over-stimulated (by lifestyle choices such as caffeine, alcohol, Facebook and other stimulants) and partly almost dormant (lacking sensory self-awareness).

The gentle “hands-on” element of Alexander work can cut through these patterns of thought, nerve activity and muscle tension to give one a direct experience of another way of being.

Click here for classes and courses in Central London.

May 23, 2018  

Be In Your Body!

I can still recall the intensity of my first experience of the Alexander Technique in March 1978.

Although nothing dramatic seemed to happen during the lesson – and from the outside the untrained eye might think that nothing was happening – the changes in my nervous system were profound.
​
After the session, which lasted no more than 25 minutes, I went and sat in a nearby café to drink a cup of coffee and try to process the new sensations, which I can best describe as an awareness of myself as a living organism rather than a continually changing procession of thoughts.

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