Two Workshops – One Result:
Happy Teaching To Many Grateful Students
with Jeremy Chance
(assisted by ATSuccess Director Peter Jacobson)
Art of Teaching - Click Here
Art of Marketing - Click Here
In all the workshops I had the sense of a safe, supportive environment where every student’s personal steps in the process were respected (no matter where you trained) and authenticity was encouraged. Your skills with clear focus and sensitivity in allowing students to recognise and work with their real needs were so valued by me.
Eileen Johnson, AT Teacher, London Symposium, 2016
Attracting students who love your work is a puzzle, and you are not the first person to wonder about how to do this.
There are two steps:
1. Offering Something That People Want
2. Attracting People Who Want that
ATSuccess will be returning to London in early 2017 with two workshops focused on these two steps:
Workshop 1: Saturday, February 4th: The Art of Teaching Groups 09.00~17.00
Workshop 2: Saturday, February 11th: The Art of Marketing Groups 09.00~17.00
Venue (for both workshops): Regent’s Conferences & Events, Inner Circle, Regent’s Park, London, NW1 4NS
- First Workshop -
The Art of Teaching Groups
(Offline & Online)
Jeremy set up a framework which allowed me to get maximum benefit from the theme of teaching groups by having specific volunteers discuss their real-life strategies and issues in group teaching. I was able to think through the issues around teaching groups in a much more focused way.
Kevin Saunders, Trainee, London Symposium 2016
This 1st workshop is about your service – how you can effectively deliver Alexander's discovery in a group setting – whether a live workshop, or an online learning group.
Since 1894, Alexander’s work has been generally been taught through the activity of sitting and standing (chairwork) and, later, lying down (tablework). However, this does not transfer well into a group teaching situation. I think you already know that.
Therefore, how do you organise and improve upon effectively teaching groups?
Start by asking a simple question:
What are you teaching?
You are teaching people how to integrate Alexander's discovery into their lives; to help them do what they want to do. This keeps it simple.
So ask them: what do they want to do?
While it can take a long time to explain what the Alexander Technique process is all about, it is quite quick to explain what Alexander discovered:
Head movements govern vertebral co-ordination. (i.e. use affects functioning)
Of course, by itself that is not very exciting. This will not cause people to be rushing to sign up for your workshop: In this first workshop, you will explore how to craft and deliver a service that appeals to people.
(In my second workshop, you will explore how best to communicate your service.)
Group teaching is simple when you follow…
Three simple guidelines:
1st Guideline: Explore issues that students want to explore.
2nd Guideline: Explore those issues in the context of an actual situation.
3rd Guideline: Always teach the whole group, all together one after the other.
Most AT teachers are experienced in giving individual lessons. That’s a skill that can be put to great use when teaching in groups. You don’t have to invent the wheel again, you can simply follow these three guidelines by using the skills you already have. If you do, magic will start to happen. You probably don’t know how good you already are! Just be ready to change…
1. The 1st guideline involves finding a replacement plan for your usual teaching procedures.
This workshop has given me much more confidence to develop my AT practice than any other AT related workshop I’ve been on.
Jeremy Cassidy, AT Teacher, London Symposium, 2016
Here’s the nice part – you don’t have to find that replacement plan.
Here’s the challenge – you must encourage your students to find that plan.
That’s it: student-driven learning.
Follow this 1st guideline, and already your group will be spontaneous, relevant and engaging for your students, because they are choosing what to do. In ATSuccess we call this finding a niche activity – i.e. something your student loves to do, like playing music. Fill a room with people like that, and your workshop increases in its attraction and power. (That will be covered in my 2nd workshop.)
2. The 2nd Guideline shows you how to cope with the 1st Guideline
Most courses are very specific in topic and structure. This course involved many different angles not only of Alexander’s discoveries but how to explore them effectively with others in a fun and entertaining and informative way. Thank you – really useful!!
Liz Jeffries, AT Teacher, London Symposium, 2016
If you have spent a lot of your teaching career getting people in and out of chairs, it can be scary to suddenly hand over the power to your students to decide what to do.
Now, instead of asking your student to stand in front of the chair, you ask them:
“What would you like to do today?”
Since they have no real understanding of that question, they will ask about things that worry them. Suppose you say to the group:
“Who has something they would like to explore?”
And then a person puts up their hand and says:
“I easily get frightened. What should I do?”
Then someone else says:
“My mother really irritates me. How can I stop that?”
(Both of these happened to me)
What the heck are you supposed to do with THAT?
This is where Guideline Two saves you. It’s simple – ask them to give you an example.
YOU: “When/where did that happen?”
Set up an activity derived from a real life situation, then have some fun in the workshop exploring what happens in that situation. Your job is to wake up them up to what they are doing.
You are not a therapist or a councillor – you are a there to mirror back information.
Your means of doing that is through the head/spine relationship – how is their “Use of the Self” as they do what they do? This maintains your integrity and centres your work: you reflect back to them what you see about their use. No advice, prescriptions or judgements…
It’s not your job to change them: they have that job.
Your job to present them with a clear choice.
3. The 3rd Guideline shows you how this happens best in a group
Not talky, but interactive and good example of engaging the group so that it (the group) works as a cohesive thinking unit. One member of the group indicated that he was watching transformational work.
John Cutts, AT Teacher, London Symposium, 2016
When you work with a student in the situation you figured out together (2nd Guideline), the rest of the group is engaging in that process with you. Many of them have been in a similar situation.
In group teaching you are not giving individual lessons: you are working with the whole group through individual lessons.
Alexander’s expression sums it up well: altogether, one after the other.
Yes, there must be individual lessons happening in the context of your group. That is the way of the work – group teaching does not mean you stop working with individuals! (Therefore, you already have a tremendous set of skills to bring into your group teaching work.)
However, it is unimportant if you work with everyone individually or not: because you are working with all of the individuals, all of the time. It’s nice if you can, and fine if you don’t.
The underlying issues are universal, not individual. This is why the group teaching works so well. People start to see their issues in other people, they start to understand how to use what you are teaching by seeing others learn it.
In my 1st workshop, I will be exploring many activities, games and exercises that help you to understand, practise and integrate these 3 guidelines in your group teaching.
COME ALONG AND FIND OUT MORE !!!
Workshop Fees
Regular Price: £175
Early-Bird Price (before Jan. 27th): £125
Special Offer: Add the other workshop for an additional £65 (and get a FREE "Hot Seat" Bonus – a £50 value!)
Scholarships available for those with photography/videography experience.
- Second Workshop -
The Art of Marketing Groups
(Offline & Online)
The ATSuccess workshops gave me clarity on the next steps I need to take to promote my business. A great opportunity to connect with a motivated community of successful international teachers.
Margie Chadwick, AT Teacher, London Symposium, 2016
In ATSuccess, marketing is approached as the flip side of teaching.
BOTH require education.
BOTH require communication skills.
BOTH require clarity about what you offer.
The difference is simple…
In Teaching = you know who is there: you don’t have to guess who.
In Marketing = you do not know who is there: you have to guess who.
How do you guess who? You choose a niche.
In ATSuccess, this is the rigorous standard you will meet to start your educational marketing:
“A niche is a community of people bound together by an activity they love, with message delivery system in place.”
Let’s break that down:
“A niche is a community of people…” – this is important.
Have you ever been in an Alexander Technique workshop, and the chemistry of the group is weird? There are too many different types of people, either in age, interests, inclinations, personalities – whatever. They don’t mix. This happens less when you find a niche community. These people have something in common, and this unity creates a better atmosphere in your group. Before you even start, you are ahead of the game.
“…bound together by an activity they love…” – even more important!
AT teachers love to market to the pain market. Who loves their back pain? Who loves suffering? When you market to fix problems, people want to leave once it’s fixed! That’s not where our work belongs. Our work is an ongoing lifelong education: less about rehabilitation; more about developing human potential. Therefore, help people do what they love to do. When you can achieve that, your students will stay longer.
“…with a message delivery system in place.” – this will save you a lot of time and money.
When you develop your teaching to match the needs of a niched community – and you’re successful – what do you think the participants at your workshop will do? They will tell other people in their community! They do your marketing for you. And it’s power is increased by “the message delivery system” of the niche. This could be a newsletter, a Facebook group, an annual conference, an email list, a magazine – a good niche already has a way to spread your message. This makes your work both easier and cheaper.
I found the workshop helpful for opening my mind up to new ideas for marketing myself as an AT teacher, exploring attitudes and fixed beliefs that can limit us and lower confidence, and today I have just written a plan for a group workshop for the choir I sing with, and I feel excited about offering it in the summer !
Rebecca Rees, AT Teacher, London Symposium, 2016
Finally, What You Offer Must Make Sense...
Your service – i.e. the way you teach Alexander's discovery to your niche – must be crafted elegantly to match the language, expectations, needs and outlook of your niche. This means that marketing is like teaching, and your teaching becomes a form of your marketing. This issue permeates both my 1st and 2nd workshop – you can NOT split teaching from marketing, not really...
If you think you can, you're jeopardizing your chance to succeed as an effective working teacher of Alexander's discovery.
Don't many psychophysical problems arise out of this "mind vs body" dualistic kind of thinking? Then wouldn't that also be true for splitting "teaching vs marketing"? Why separate them? At ATSuccess you unite teaching and marketing – as you unite body and mind.
Come to my workshops (I recommend both) and discover a new way of thinking about communicating Alexander's discovery in the 21st Century.
COME ALONG AND FIND OUT MORE !!
Workshop Fees
Regular Price: £175
Early-Bird Price (before Jan. 27th): £125
Special Offer: Add the other workshop for an additional £65 (and get a FREE "Hot Seat" Bonus – a £50 value!)
Scholarships available for those with photography/videography experience.