Think Different.

This was a hugely successful prelaunch campaign instigated by Steve Jobs to put Apple back on the map after years in the wilderness. It also sums up my approach to Group Teaching. This is not about adding another fiddle to your concert performance, this is about re-orchestration of the entire show.

As teachers have found in my Facebook coaching group, moving your 121 (one to one) people into groups does not always work out. In some cases, it’s fabulous, but in others “I miss my hands-on” is the refrain.

Why is that?

Group teaching can become your main source of income, the primary way you teach. The advantage to you is that you can leverage your time and reach a wider range of people. Does that fit with your vision?

It will demand more of you as a teacher. You have to go verbal. Using touch as a communication tool alone (i.e. “hands on”) simply won’t cut it any more. Many teachers – to their dismay – have already discovered the truth of this with a bored group of students watching another person getting in and out of the chair.

It gets crazy inside our Facebook group sometimes - there are many possibilities that awaken in the minds of those participating, and they tend to share with each other about that. I realize it is equally important that now and again we stop and take stock of what we are learning.

As a service to those who read my blog, but are not in the Facebook group as Basic Members, every now and again I am posting some of the answers I am giving to members' questions. Not all of them are here, but enough to give you some encouragement to build your Alexander Technique practise.

I had a half-written blog prepared on the plane last night, but once I landed in Australia and checked our secret Facebook group (where 43 teachers share as part of the paid area of my blog) I was overwhelmed by the volume of comments to behold!

So instead of posting a blog, I decided to post answers and comments in Facebook. Then I worried that the members may not have caught my torrent of replies in the midst of a messy, scrolling Facebook page, so I decided to post them here. How original ideas are born.

I always know two hands will shoot up before I have barely finished my sentence:

"Has someone got something they want to explore with me?"

Welcome to Basil's Music ProCourse - BodyChance's Teacher Education course exclusively for musicians. This is the niche experiment at it's finest: a band of enthusiastic students intent on developing their skill by leveraging Alexander's Discovery in their playing.

This post describes an online course for Alexander Technique teachers and students on how to teach and market groups. It is running in November 2013, than remains available after that to anyone who joins my online coaching group. You can join here now:

http://atsuccess.com/membership-plans

My journey with group teaching began in London back in 1980 when I formed YAAO with Duncan Woodcock to run evening classes. (YAAO stands for Yet Another Alexander Organisation).

Some people have already jumped on board for next month's workshop on teaching that is marketable. Joining today (Oct 27th) gets you an extra month's membership for free.

Those of you who follow my blog are familiar by now with my mantra - niche, niche, niche. This is easy to say, vast to implement. It's not just a marketing thing - it is a service thing, it's how you teach, how you implement in your lessons. Many companies spend vast amounts of time and money simply developing new products, and Alexander Technique teachers are not exempt from this law of the market place.

Susannah Keebler is an Alexander Technique teacher living in Mallacoota, Australia - a small town in Victoria whose population fluctuates between 972 and 8,000, depending on the time of year. Where she lives is odd enough, but the life and work she is creating makes that seem mundane. Her story has the potential to challenge your own idea of what you can do with the work. Are you interested in people who climb out of the box in order to change the world? Then you must be interested in Susannah's story…

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I was on a Skype with one of my mentoring clients yesterday, and the topic came up about how to use your time effectively. Over the years, I have learnt many ways to analyse this task, but the most useful of all was to ask a simple question…

Is this activity putting me into contact with new students?

Of course, I are talking about your time in the business, not your time with family, friends or in conscious rest. When you are "on" what are you "on" to? There are so many tasks required to build a business, and one way to categorize them is like this:

To respect the person you want to attract, you need to stand with them.

Of course to "stand with them" may mean voicing an opinion that causes controversy amongst others. My declarations about chair and table work fall into this category.