Jennifer Claire Roig-Francolí is an Alexander Technique teacher in Cincinnati, USA and below she offers a deeply honest and clear portrayal of the profound and far reaching effects Alexander's Discovery can have on someone's life. A story like this one renews my awe of the magnitude of this work. It easy to forget that we are the gatekeepers to something extraordinary that simply can't be compared or classed with the methods or techniques it so easily associates with today.

Alexander died on October 10th, 1955, but did he really?

He still lives in the minds and hearts of many of his followers. It's a blessing and a curse. Twirling around the air at my school in Japan, you can often catch the phrase…

"Is that really the Alexander Technique?"

After Marj visited Australia in 1986, I totally switched my teaching.

I made a decision, quite clear cut, that I would:

1.Do no more table work
2.Do no more chair work
3.Insist that my pupil choose the activity of the lesson

It was a simple plan, but for the next year I stumbled about in total confusion and disarray. Although I had been teaching for 7 years by this time, this 8th year felt like I had reverted back to my 1st: I was a novice teacher all over again.

How precious do you need to be about the work?

Dr. Barlow, back in the days after Alexander's death, strove to identify Alexander Technique teachers with Doctors. The constitution of STAT – and the affiliated Societies that followed it – were shaped by strict, purist values: protect our profession; behave in a dignified manner.

Today is the 58th anniversary of Alexander’s death.

He died October 10th, 1955. So yeah, his copyright has run out in most places, but not his long persuasive influence on the work. Chair and table work is still the international norm, and a BodyChance purpose is to change that totally over the next 25 years. I want to live to see it.

Tomorrow, on Saturday September 28th, Cathy Madden officially launches BodyChance’s first school in the United States.

Those participating are entering into the first of 3 x 2 year modules that are prerequisites before entering the 2nd stage of education. 2nd Stage education is where you educate your Self to be a teacher, with BodyChance’s support.

2nd Stage Teaching Practice

Day Four – Clarity

Amirel is an Israeli property investor living in Mullumbimby, and we often chew the fat about business, life and our families. Like me, he married a Japanese woman and has two children at our local Steiner school. One day he excitedly told me about a piece of paper he'd found hidden amongst his belongings.

It was a document he wrote years ago detailing the concrete details of what he intended to achieve with his property investment over the next 10 years. What got him most excited was:

Out of retreat and in London with my children. It's 9.30pm and my two girls are finally asleep after a long flight from Tokyo. I am sitting at my desk in the Savoy, excited to be soon offering my workshop to a good gathering of students, teachers and friends on August 4th in Regents Park. Are you coming?

It's going to be the School of You: you are the doer of your business, not your business the doer of you. Anyway, saying I am all "refreshed" delivers a distorted image of what I was up to the last 9 days!

Innovative certificate programs hardly exist in our Alexander Technique education milieu, and there is currently a great opportunity for you to consider creating one.

You need something as a back-end business, and this is the obvious candidate. To freshen up on "back-end businesses," start with this blog, then read the next three posts for an overview of why you would be smart to create an Alexander Technique back-end business.

Top level Marketers understand human behaviour as well as, if not better, than top level Psychologists, Philosophers, Psychiatrists, Counsellors and Humanists.

Why?

Their livelihood depends upon it. Like Alexander, they start with how things are and theorize backwards. Practise and theory. They are quick to dump one theory in place of another, if it predicts behaviour more accurately than the one it supersedes.