Tag Archive | back back
November 10, 2025  

New Year Residential: “Orders” and “Directions”

 

A Three-Day Residential for Teachers and Students of the Alexander Technique

Surprisingly, some teachers now no longer teach their pupils how to direct — a loss that deprives them of one of the most fertile means of self-study and of applying the Technique in daily life.

In this residential we will explore, in depth, what F. M. Alexander and the first-generation teachers taught about ordering and directing: their different shades of meaning, their shared roots in conscious intention, and the ways each invites a different quality of awareness.

We’ll work practically and reflectively with how ordering can calm and clarify the mind, how direction awakens orientation and relationship in space, and how both together lead toward the integrated directive state that unites thought and movement.

See my blog post, Tips4Teachers: Some Thoughts about “Orders” and “Directions”, for an introduction to the ideas behind this course.

Dates: Friday 2 – Sunday 4 January
Cost: £420 (including accommodation in twin, single-sex rooms and all meals)
Overnight accommodation is also available on 1 and 4 January to facilitate travel.
CPD: 15 hours

To enquire about availability, please email me.

Schedule

Time Day 1 Day 2 Day 3
08:00-09:00   Breakfast Breakfast
09:30-11:00   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
15:00-16:30 Session 2 Session 6 Session 10
16:30-17:00 Tea Tea Tea
17:00-18:30 Session 3 Session 7 Departure
19:30-21:30 Dinner Dinner  
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:

March 15, 2023  

Lessons with Miss G: #11, Now I’m a Believer

“Now you are doing it again!” she said, with more than a little exasperation in her voice. She stepped back so that she could look at me and pronounce her verdict. “John, you are such an unbeliever!”

Well, that was not what I was expecting to hear. All sorts of reasons had been flooding through my head as to why it just wasn’t working: it was because I was doing or not doing this or that, or that she was doing or not doing this or that, but the idea that it could have anything at all to do with my beliefs – or lack of them – had never occurred to me …

And yet, she was absolutely right. Because I didn’t feel what I expected – had even been ‘trained’ – to feel when getting out of the chair, I didn’t believe it was possible. I was used to “keeping my back back”, but this was brought about with the help of a strong stimulus from the teacher who provided the opposition, thereby stimulating the “anti-gravity response”. But Goldie didn’t do that; she was not going to make it work for you, and if the usual signals and sensations were not there, then I didn’t believe something could happen.

So Alexander was right: “Belief is a matter of customary muscle tension”.1 I didn’t see this all at once: it was a gradual realisation, but one that was set in motion by that remark of Goldie’s.

Of all the “master teachers” I worked with, it was only with Goldie that I did not always feel wonderful during or after the lessons. Far from it! Sometimes it all felt very static and pointless. On more than one occasion I could not wait for the lesson to end, swearing to myself that this would definitely be the last time I would put myself through such an excruciating experience. She was, of course, picking up this “resistance” and would sometimes comment that I should not concern myself with whether or not I felt it was working, or give way to an inner criticism that she was “not up to scratch today”, but I should “just go on with the brain-work”. Then, perhaps several hours later the same day – and quite unexpectedly – some new discovery would emerge; a clarity of thought, a more vivid perception, or an unknown part of my spine would suddenly wake up. I was coming to understand that what she called “brain-work” was bringing about changes from the inside rather than through muscles or nerves. Another of Alexander’s aphorisms began to make sense:

“When the time comes that you can trust your feeling, you won’t want to use it.” 2

1 Some references to belief and muscle tension.

  • “Do you know what we have found that belief is? A certain standard of muscle tension. That is all”. (The Bedford Lecture, in Articles and Lectures, p.174, Mouritz (1995))
  • I remember one morning his coming briskly into our classroom, looking very pleased with himself, and saying, ‘Belief is a matter of customary muscle tension.’
    ‘F.M.,’ I said, ‘don’t you mean that belief about what you can do with the body is a matter of customary muscle tension?’ The discussion was on. He kept talking while he worked. Finally at the end of the morning’s work F.M. said, ‘Yes, belief about what you can do with the body is a matter of customary muscle tension.’ Lulie Westfeldt, F. Matthias Alexander, The Man and his Work, Mouritz 1998, p.68
  • Was FM’ s aphorism that belief is a matter of muscle tension simply designed to shock people, or was there a more serious element behind it? He was perfectly serious about it, because he equated belief with fixation. In his experience a rigidity of mind corresponded to a rigidity of body. (Walter Carrington on the Alexander Technique in discussion with Sean Carey, 1986, p.45f)

2 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).

© John Hunter 2015

The Trustees of the Charity for the F Matthias Alexander Technique are piloting what we call a “legacy project” with the aim of recording and storing material about first-generation teachers trained by F M Alexander. The first subject of the project will be Margaret Goldie (1905-1997).Anyone who knew Miss Goldie, either in a personal capacity or as a pupil, is invited to contact the Charity with a view to participating in the project: https://www.fmatcharity.org/legacy-project.html
Email us on enquiries@atfriends.org

June 16, 2013  

Tips4Teachers – Lying-down Work, #2 – Connecting the Legs and Back

Related to using lying-down work as a ‘horizontal monkey position‘, there is a simple procedure  through which the pupil can be taught to connect the action of the legs with the powerful anti-gravity muscles of the back.

The pupil being in semi-supine, the teacher takes one of his or her legs and firstly ensures that the hip and knee joints are free. Keeping the pupil’s leg bent at the hip and knee, the teacher then applies a gentle pressure to the pupil’s heel whilst the teacher stays ‘back and up’ in opposition to the applied force. In this way one can elicit a reflex response which will cause the pupil’s leg to straighten.

This response, however, is often overlaid with patterns of learnt movement and persistent, unnecessary tensions. Consequently it is necessary to patiently ‘look for’ and ‘cultivate’ this response. It is interesting to note that the overuse of certain muscles and some uncoordinated movement patterns are usually related to the inadequate use of the postural muscles.

In order to ‘wake up’ the reflex response, the pupil may be asked to push against the teacher’s hand in the direction which could be described as the ‘virtual continuation of the lower leg’, and ‘through the heel’.

Usually repeating this a few times is sufficient to be then able to elicit the reflex response to a rightly applied (i.e. applied as a consequence of the teacher him or herself ‘going up’) pressure against the heel. It should at this point be explained to the pupil that he or she is to try to catch the moment at which the leg seems to want to straighten of its own accord, and that he or she should not attempt to inhibit this activity in the leg. Indeed at the beginning he or she should be encouraged to ‘go with’ the leg movement even if they are not sure whether or not it is a reflex response or something they are doing. Once the response begins to be more active, it is practically invariably very easy for the pupil to recognise the difference between the two.

Needless to say, reminders should be given frequently, with words and hands, to the pupil’s head and neck.

The benefits of this procedure are:

  • It engages the right muscles in an effortless leg-straightening movement.
  • It connects this movement with a simultaneous, coordinated ‘spreading out’ (lengthening and widening) of the back muscles against the surface of the table.
  • The engagement of the postural muscles of the back and legs allows for a freedom in the hips and lower back which is otherwise difficult to bring about.
  • The postural muscles having been activated in this coordinated way makes them more ‘vital’ even at rest. Energy begins to flow.
  • It introduces to the pupil the action of the anti-gravity muscles in a secure position (i.e. lying down), thereby helping him or her to be able at an appropriate time to keep the back back in chair-work, walking etc. and – most importantly – to understand the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ of it.

© 2013 John S Hunter

June 10, 2013  

Peggy Williams: Going Up in High Point

One of my closest friends was the first person I heard coin the name ‘the surgeon’ for Peggy Williams.

“She puts her hands on me and they feel enormous, like I imagine Alexander’s did. She just opens me up. I call her ‘the surgeon’. She can put me right in two minutes”.

With PR like that, how could I resist…!

I had been teaching for a couple of years and still did not know very much. I was already having lessons with Margaret Goldie and with Patrick Macdonald, but my friend assured me that Peggy’s work was something different again.

Peggy lived in High Point, an upmarket 1930’s modernist apartment block (designed by Berthold Lubetkin) in Highgate, London. She was always very welcoming, but definitely didn’t like anybody arriving late.

Standing in front of ‘the chair’ on a thick rug in my stocking feet, I felt her ‘enormous’ (yes they felt like that) hands arrive on my shoulders and start to press them down. The more they released, the more I went up!. It seemed as though my whole frame was going up from the inside and that there was no end to it. With a prod at my hips, my knees went forward and then I was in the chair. I went on going up.

Getting out of the chair was easy if you kept the back back; something Alexander insisted on, she said – adding that many young teachers coming to her would ‘lurch forward’ as soon as they felt the slightest pressure on their backs.

Then she would put me on the table, still chatting throughout; her ‘surgeon’s hands’ would go to work, opening up my whole body. Under those hands everything just let go, and I knew then what my friend had been talking about.

The lessons mostly followed that pattern, and at some point she would always ask “Well, any news?” She loved to hear what was going on in the Alexander world and always had some good gossip to exchange.

There was a lovely flow of direction as she worked, and she kindly commented once that it was a pleasure “to work with someone who knows how to direct”, adding that giving me a lesson was like receiving a lesson, because I had so much direction. She would often make supportive remarks like that, which was very encouraging for a young teacher. When I was grumbling once about some persistent difficulty, her response was “Don’t worry! It must come right in the end, because the direction is there”.

Mostly she would stimulate the upward response of the anti-gravity mechanisms with her hands on my (troublesome) shoulders, or with one hand on my head and the other on my back. Once though, coming off the table, she took my head forward and up with such clarity that I can almost feel it as I write now, some 25 years later.

I continued to see Peggy every couple of months for about three years between 1986 and 1989.

I was very glad to have had that experience, particularly from a senior teacher not only trained by Alexander but also strongly associated with the Constructive Teaching Centre, where she taught for 17 years.

An Interview with Peggy Williams, by Glen Park, is very helpful reading for all teacher-trainees.

© 2013 John S Hunter

« Older Posts