Second Weekend Masterclass
It was so interesting that the programme, and even the menus, for the second weekend were just the same as the first – and yet, with a different group of people, the event was so different.
We were so lucky to have good weather and be mostly outdoors.
With the permission of the writers, I will share some feedback from this course.
The next weekend residential masterclass will be from 5 to 7 January 2024. Contact me for details.
First of all, thank you very much for the residential weekend and your kind extra hospitality! It was really generous from you to share everything with us, your house, your wisdom, your presence, your example. As I said there, I got a very good refresher of the Alexander technique. It was powerful and inspiring, encouraging me to keep up with it.
On the Sunday, I felt already the wonderful effects of being busy with the technique for two days. I was feeling light, pain-free, energised, easy in my body and movements… I felt happy!
The atmosphere at your home with you and the other students was super pleasant to me! I really enjoyed your comfortable house and felt super cosy sharing a room with Gabriella. The fact that the sessions were in the garden made it extra pleasant and I think that was very helpful for keeping the learning atmosphere light and so enjoyable.
It was great to learn with the other ladies. To enjoy my dear Gabriella’s presence. To practise with and get feedback from the qualified ones. And actually to be with all of them, each one made a precious contribution to the course, sharing what they had.
I got a lot of inspiration from watching Naama playing the Beatles. Normally I feel very upset with myself in this kind of situation because I am never able to play anything without a music sheet. But this time I think I was able to stop and choose to think something different: “let’s see how she does it, let’s see what I can learn from her” and when I watched her it didn’t seem so difficult, and I got the sense I would be able to learn it too and the motivation to do it. So, when I came back, I made the resolution of playing a little bit from ear every day.
Also, it felt really good when I played some Beethoven on Sunday. I was able to really enjoy the music and enjoy that I was able to sight read it. I didn’t know you and Naama were sitting down listening, but when I found out your words of appreciation meant also a lot to me, thank you!
I also feel very grateful for the reassurance and the encouragement you gave me to go on with the AT and teach it.
I was reminded that I have the possibility to take my time to think the means whereby for any end.
I also loved how you taught us about directions in the hands-on, as coming from a smooth movement and meeting the person.
How if we wanted the person to move we needed to be movable ourselves.
I loved to be able to walk so light and easy with the hands-on walking game.
I realized I need to realize that I have freedom to choose.
The idea of a flux state of mind instead of a fixed one.
The hands on back of a chair with extra rotation was very helpful, and especially for piano playing.
The talks in and outside the sessions where very much inspiring and appreciated.
And I really appreciate your open, truthful, gentle, quiet presence. The clarity of your teaching and the being able flow into singing and to telling us stories.
Elena
AT teacher and pianist
I value the time I spent at John’s masterclass weekend retreat in September. It was an enjoyable and invaluable learning experience with a group of 7 people all interested like me in deepening more into the understanding of the work.
We explored different themes and one of them was the primary postural pulls. John demonstrated “hands on a student” and then allowed us one by one to explore the same movement with him and each other. The pace was just perfect, with lots of inhibition and directions.
I felt comfortable and at ease as John created a safe learning environment.
I also loved the time spent preparing the meals and eating together, the discussions around the tables and the singing in the evening.
Thank you, John, for sharing your knowledge and your lovely home, bringing everyone together and making the weekend a special time.
Daniela
AT teacher MSTAT
The course responded brilliantly to the interests and needs of every participant. It is such a privilege to witness and receive John’s art of teaching! My main interest was to refine my teaching skills and hands on work.
On another level, it was a joy to reconnect with old Alexander friends and meet new wonderful people. We cooked and enjoyed together delicious meals. In a word: a unique mix of learning hugely and having a great time.
Anca
AT teacher
Alexander Technique made me discover a profound way of transforming my whole being and helped me understand what unfavorable effects my usual way of “using myself” can have, so I came to this Masterclass with the intention of refreshing and deepening my ability to apply Alexander Technique in everyday life. The opportunity to do this under the guidance of John Hunter is a chance for which I am deeply grateful.
Several times during this Masterclass, each of us individually benefited from personalized guidance from John. On the second day (at the exercise where we apply Alexander Technique while walking), as a result of the few minutes that John checked and corrected my use, I felt a continuous flow of upward energy in the spinal area. I perceived this upward flow as an engine that fuels and even energizes me as I walk. I felt as if I was being carried on the arms. My back had awakened and was strong like a massive door that (not only supported itself, but) was also in a continuously uplifting direction. I continued to walk through the workspace, and I felt that this transformation that I felt in my body produced such profound effects on me that I became a completely different person, much more confident and more free than I used to be. Although my usual “relaxed-collapsed” attitude had disappeared, my wrists were moving freely, the inner state was one of serenity and joy.
Another exercise that left deep traces in my being is the exercise in which a colleague played the role of “student” and I was the one who had to offer her Alexander Technique guidance – of course under the careful guidance of John. On this occasion I felt in my body how much an Alexander Technique professor has to work on himself moment by moment and how non-intrusive needs to be the guidance he offers to the student through touch. Thus, practicing the “hands-on” exercise became for me an opportunity to work on my own being so intensely that the effect could be transmitted subtly, by means of touches (gentle but firm) on the exercise partner. I also received feedback from my colleague who was at that moment in the role of “student”, and I was amazed to learn that such a gentle touch on my part can have such great effects on another. I remember now how in my first meetings with Alexander Technique I was so amazed: I didn’t understand why my being suddenly transformed (like a Phoenix Bird) when the teacher only lightly touched my neck or my back…
Another discovery I remember is that during the practical exercises, when I invited my back to expand, I saw that I could intentionally and consciously connect not only with the lumbar area but also with the intercostal muscles of the floating ribs. The effect of this discovery remained even after the Masterclass, even when I did not remember to do this consciously. In the days that followed I was amazed to notice that during breathing my ribs moved freely and fluidly like an underwater plant and that the resonance of my voice had become wide and deep. Although during the workshop I did the exercise related to breathing and vocal sounds only once, I discovered with amazement that the effects of this exercise were maintained over time. My voice continues to be softer and warmer. Even my attitude became much more lenient. I noticed that when I feel like reacting impulsively, a new attitude of patience and compassion awakens inside me. Even when I express a critical opinion, I do it with much more gentleness and tolerance. When I remember the individual exercise at the end of the Masterclass it helps me to access and relax a deeper part of the muscles inside the ribcage.
The experience lived at the masterclass this September 2023 was much richer than I can describe in words. During these 3 days I also had experiences that I am only now beginning to understand little by little. Maybe I overlooked them at the time, but my body’s memory is starting to remember parts of the practical teaching that was shared and passed on to us.
I tried to reawaken in my being the intense experiences I lived there, but I did not manage to access all the inner processes that generated those effects. Therefore, I began to apply little by little what remained in my memory and in the memory of my body.
Cristina
Actress, Acting Teacher
Lessons with Miss G: #7, Stopping
To come into Miss Goldie’s teaching room was to enter a space of quiet presence – another world, in a way; one in which there could be some insight into the hidden laws which control human reactivity – and the possibility, if just for a moment, of becoming more free from them.
The form of the lesson did not seem so different from any classic ‘Alexander turn’; you stood in front of a chair; you might sit down and stand up; you could be taken into “monkey” or work through “hands on the back of a chair”. But there was no mistaking the fact that the medium (of the procedures) was not the message; the work was about what was happening in one’s brain (a place where, it is worth remembering, there is no sensation); moreover parts of the brain which seemed to be stubbornly resistant to being accessed and activated.
In the early lessons there was little outer movement – perhaps a centimetre backwards or forwards in the chair – but there was movement; the movement of thoughts, of nerve-impulses, of energies normally well below the radar. It was a revelation to see just how much of the unnecessary was taking place.
She showed us young teachers that sensations, be they ones of muscular release or of directed energy (depending on the school where one had trained), did not on their own address the great problem which – to Alexander – was at the heart of his work; human reactivity. It became clear that FM’s concept of ‘Man’s Supreme Inheritance’ did not only mean going through life with a more upright posture, a lengthened spine, a feeling of gravity in the pelvis or of contact with the ground, or any other kind of sensation – however subtle; it was the developed capacity to make choices and decisions; “the transcendent inheritance of a conscious mind” 1
And the key? Stopping!
“Stop doing your thing”, she would say again and again. “Quiet throughout, with particular attention to head, neck and back! Not you, doing your thing!”
She held out the promise of a kind of ideal: one in which ‘stopping’ meant the absence of interference with the workings of the organism at a very deep and fundamental level; not just muscular tensions but habits of thought, uncontrolled emotionality, attitudes, the functioning of the internal organs – everything.
She said once, rather enigmatically, “If we could stop – really stop, all our difficulties would simply disappear!”
1. Man’s Supreme Inheritance, FM Alexander. Chapter III, The Processes of Conscious Guidance and Control. Published by Mouritz, London 1986.
© 2013 John S Hunter
Equilibrium: Rights and Responsibilities
“They will see it as getting in and out of a chair the right way. It is nothing of the kind. It is that a pupil decides what he will or will not consent to do” 1
FM Alexander
In contemporary times, particularly in the West, many people have a sense of entitlement; the words ‘human rights’ are heard all too often. But what about ‘human responsibilities’? Not on a global, national, regional or even local level, but on a deeply personal level. Am I or could I be responsible for myself?
Take some situation in your life about which you find yourself inwardly complaining. (Best to start with something small.)
Stop!
Coordinate yourself!
Consider your options! Doing nothing at all, carrying on in the same way or what I call “The Monty Python Option”, i.e. doing something completely different.
You may think you have no options, but try and find some- even ones that you would in no circumstances do such as, perhaps, letting people down or being reckless (if you need some help with this you could always read The Diceman).
Then make a choice!
You may find that you choose to do the thing you are already doing, but now you are doing it because you chose to do it and, hopefully, in a more coordinated way. No one else to blame. Your choice, your responsibility!
This experiment can be a step towards taking responsibility.
It’s so interesting that in English we have this expression “take responsibility”. In all Romance Languages it is “assume responsibility”. The language reminds us that it calls for something active.
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).
© 2014 John S Hunter
Tips4Pupils – Pausing is not Stopping
A pause is not a stop; they are quite different. A pause implies that one is going to do the thing, but not yet. A stop has no such implication. We are free to do something else.
If you press the pause button on an old-fashioned cassette player, the motor is still engaged but with, so to speak, the brakes on; as soon as you release the button the machine can only continue in the same direction it was going. If you press the stop button, other options become available; you can rewind, fast-forward, record or even remove the tape.
Real stopping means giving oneself real choices.
But take care! With choice comes responsibility.
© 2013 John S Hunter
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