Seeming, Being and Becoming:
Working with Potential
A Special Workshop with Senior Teacher of the Alexander Technique, Tommy Thompson
Friday, November 1st – Sunday, November 3rd, 2013
My workshops are largely guided by the participant’s questions and issues no matter what particular theme or focus is assigned. When teaching, I am always reminded that I am working with the person’s potentiality for becoming other than who they are currently committed to being. For me this approach is preferable than working with a person’s “habit of use” in the negative sense, implying the necessity of correcting that which is wrong.
Habitual response is governed by an individual’s commitment to who they feel they need to be at a given moment. And no matter how committed to habitual patterns of behavior and identity a person might be, there is always more to a given individual than their habits reflect; perhaps even who they truly are, or certainly wish to be. When we behave more closely in accord with the way in which we are designed to function the impetus to change is less impeded by the idea of a fixed identity that is given life by tensional patterns of behavior that interfere with the natural functioning of dominant head/neck reflexes which affect the total pattern of neuromuscular behavior in an integrative manner, i.e. FM Alexander’s principle of primary control.
When using my hands or verbal instruction to introduce this manner of self observation, I disperse the localization of contractive patterns of muscle and connective tissue behavior associated with a person’s habit of identity; and in so doing to his or her commitment to who he or she thinks they need to be, to be themselves. In this manner their sense of ‘self association’ truthfully emerges moment to moment, with a tendency towards fluidity rather than fixity.
My attention and my pupil’s attention to the inhibitive moment involves withholding definition of who we are committed to being to allow in new information that informs the experience we are having of us, rather than we always informing and managing our own experience based on past perceptions.
For me and for other Alexander teachers who have experienced teaching in this way, it is a truly wonderful approach of communicating to a student. The moment in which we are helping the student to let go of what was once quite useful, important and perhaps necessary to them as they forged their sense of self-worth calls for compassion on our part as teachers; and on the part of the pupil when letting go of an aspect of who they have been in favor of who they might become; or in the best of circumstance, remember who they are.
Our awareness of habitual ‘use’ in these terms opens the door to a vast world of possibility. Such awareness signals a point of reference to who we actually are and can be. The recognition that we are prey to habit is a good thing if viewed within the context of change and potential. Again, it allows us the possibility of meeting ourselves being ourselves, so that we can decide who we wish to be.
Tommy Thompson
Tommy Thompson, Co-founder, Charter member, and past Chair of Alexander Technique International (ATI), a former Assistant Professor of Drama and Managing Director of Tufts Arena Theater at Tufts University, has lectured and given over 350 workshops for Alexander teachers and students in the United States, England, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Germany, Hungary, Canada, Spain, Italy, Israel, Austria, the Netherlands and Japan. He has taught on teacher-training courses for over twenty trainings worldwide. Co-author of Scientific and Humanistic Contributions of Frank Pierce Jones, Tommy has contributed numerous papers on the Alexander work, Tai Chi, and Theater to Alexander and Theater journals, periodicals, Martial arts journals, and newsletters. Tommy presented papers at both the First and Second International Congresses for Alexander Teachers, and was one of the Second Generation Teachers invited to give master classes at the Third International Congress in Switzerland in August of 1991. In addition, he delivered a paper on “Inhibition as Direct Experience,” which was published in The Congress Papers. He was one of the teachers selected to give Continuous Learning classes at the last Alexander Technique Congress in Lugano and will give the same at the forthcoming congress in 2011. In 1976, Tommy was special assistant to the 1976 Olympic USA Heavyweight Rowing Crew. In 1982, he was co-founder of Alexander Technique Association (ATA) of New England and the Frank Pierce Jones Archives and the F. Matthias Alexander Archives, housed in the Wessell Library at Tufts University, and was the organization’s director for six years. Since 1983, Tommy has directed a Teacher Training School for Alexander teachers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where for the past 35 years he has taught the Technique to professional and Olympic athletes, dressage riders, scientists, physicians, musicians, dancers, actors, and children.
Location: 151 Markham Street, Toronto
Fee: USD$350.00
Special Rate for Teacher Trainees and Registrants at 2013 ATI AGM: USD$300
Schedule:
Friday, 12-6pm
Saturday, 10am-6pm
Sunday, 10am-5pm
Tommy Thompson
/1 Comment/in Uncategorized /by rjSeeming, Being and Becoming:
Working with Potential
A Special Workshop with Senior Teacher of the Alexander Technique, Tommy Thompson
Friday, November 1st – Sunday, November 3rd, 2013
My workshops are largely guided by the participant’s questions and issues no matter what particular theme or focus is assigned. When teaching, I am always reminded that I am working with the person’s potentiality for becoming other than who they are currently committed to being. For me this approach is preferable than working with a person’s “habit of use” in the negative sense, implying the necessity of correcting that which is wrong.
Habitual response is governed by an individual’s commitment to who they feel they need to be at a given moment. And no matter how committed to habitual patterns of behavior and identity a person might be, there is always more to a given individual than their habits reflect; perhaps even who they truly are, or certainly wish to be. When we behave more closely in accord with the way in which we are designed to function the impetus to change is less impeded by the idea of a fixed identity that is given life by tensional patterns of behavior that interfere with the natural functioning of dominant head/neck reflexes which affect the total pattern of neuromuscular behavior in an integrative manner, i.e. FM Alexander’s principle of primary control.
When using my hands or verbal instruction to introduce this manner of self observation, I disperse the localization of contractive patterns of muscle and connective tissue behavior associated with a person’s habit of identity; and in so doing to his or her commitment to who he or she thinks they need to be, to be themselves. In this manner their sense of ‘self association’ truthfully emerges moment to moment, with a tendency towards fluidity rather than fixity.
My attention and my pupil’s attention to the inhibitive moment involves withholding definition of who we are committed to being to allow in new information that informs the experience we are having of us, rather than we always informing and managing our own experience based on past perceptions.
For me and for other Alexander teachers who have experienced teaching in this way, it is a truly wonderful approach of communicating to a student. The moment in which we are helping the student to let go of what was once quite useful, important and perhaps necessary to them as they forged their sense of self-worth calls for compassion on our part as teachers; and on the part of the pupil when letting go of an aspect of who they have been in favor of who they might become; or in the best of circumstance, remember who they are.
Our awareness of habitual ‘use’ in these terms opens the door to a vast world of possibility. Such awareness signals a point of reference to who we actually are and can be. The recognition that we are prey to habit is a good thing if viewed within the context of change and potential. Again, it allows us the possibility of meeting ourselves being ourselves, so that we can decide who we wish to be.
Tommy Thompson
Tommy Thompson, Co-founder, Charter member, and past Chair of Alexander Technique International (ATI), a former Assistant Professor of Drama and Managing Director of Tufts Arena Theater at Tufts University, has lectured and given over 350 workshops for Alexander teachers and students in the United States, England, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Germany, Hungary, Canada, Spain, Italy, Israel, Austria, the Netherlands and Japan. He has taught on teacher-training courses for over twenty trainings worldwide. Co-author of Scientific and Humanistic Contributions of Frank Pierce Jones, Tommy has contributed numerous papers on the Alexander work, Tai Chi, and Theater to Alexander and Theater journals, periodicals, Martial arts journals, and newsletters. Tommy presented papers at both the First and Second International Congresses for Alexander Teachers, and was one of the Second Generation Teachers invited to give master classes at the Third International Congress in Switzerland in August of 1991. In addition, he delivered a paper on “Inhibition as Direct Experience,” which was published in The Congress Papers. He was one of the teachers selected to give Continuous Learning classes at the last Alexander Technique Congress in Lugano and will give the same at the forthcoming congress in 2011. In 1976, Tommy was special assistant to the 1976 Olympic USA Heavyweight Rowing Crew. In 1982, he was co-founder of Alexander Technique Association (ATA) of New England and the Frank Pierce Jones Archives and the F. Matthias Alexander Archives, housed in the Wessell Library at Tufts University, and was the organization’s director for six years. Since 1983, Tommy has directed a Teacher Training School for Alexander teachers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where for the past 35 years he has taught the Technique to professional and Olympic athletes, dressage riders, scientists, physicians, musicians, dancers, actors, and children.
Location: 151 Markham Street, Toronto
Gilles Estran Guest Teaching November 4
/1 Comment/in Uncategorized /by rjGuest teacher, dancer and Contact Improviser, Gilles Estran, will be visiting the Training Program Monday, November 4th, 2-9pm. All Alexander teachers and trainees are welcome to join us. Please contact the Director of Training, Susan Sinclair, if you are interested in attending.
Fee is $100, which includes the morning training session with Susan.
Schedule: 9am-12pm (with Susan); 2-5pm (with Gilles); 7-9pm (with Gilles)
Sakiko Ishitsubo
/0 Comments/in Uncategorized /by rjSakiko Ishitsubo
Sakiko’s movement career began 30 years ago, as a young athlete. When she was 26, while in Japan, she worked with Bruce Fertman and decided to become an Alexander teacher. She moved to Colorado, studied English intensively for a year, then began her Alexander studies for the next three years in Philadelphia. Upon graduating, Sakiko was accepted into a Master’s Program in Physical Therapy. She graduated, moved back to Japan, married, had a child, and began an Alexander Teacher Training Program in Tokyo. In addition, she maintains a lively private practice.
Martha Hansen Fertman
/3 Comments/in Uncategorized /by rjMartha Hansen Fertman, Ed.D., directs the Philadelphia School for the Alexander Technique and has done so since 1983. She also maintains a private teaching practice in the Princeton, NJ area as well as in Philadelphia. Martha travels extensively to teach Alexander Technique workshops and to help train teachers in several training programs in the US, Canada and Asia. She came to the Alexander technique through a life-long engagement in the movement arts, largely through modern dance and T’ai Chi Ch’uan. She herself trained in the Alexander Technique with Kitty Wielopolska and with Marjorie Barstow, both of whom were first generation teachers. Martha continues to learn from her students, trainees, and colleagues.
More information about Martha can be found here.
loren fishman new york times jan 2013
/0 Comments/in Susan's Blog /by rjAn article was posted online recently by the Medical Director of Manhattan Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation which focuses on back pain and alternative therapies, and specifically Alexander Techique: Here is an excerpt:
Last month, a hunched-over patient came to me complaining of such severe pain that she could not bear physical therapy. All she wanted was an opium-based medication. She’d been in this situation for about four years, and said she knew what would help: either this drug or that drug, but not some other ones. I asked her about her history. When did her pain begin? Did she have any clue about the reason for it? What were her activities? While we were having this rather long conversation, I began to suspect that I knew the reason for this woman’s problem. She sat at a computer all day. Her posture was poor. She was hunched over!
It wasn’t that her posture was a result of her pain, it was that her pain was a result of her posture. I checked her physically, and sure enough, the muscles in her back were in impressive spasm. I gave her several injections that gave her quite a bit of immediate relief. Then I sent her for a massage, wrote out a plan for physical therapy and made what was perhaps the most important recommendation for the future. I referred her to a teacher of Alexander technique who could help her get to the root of her problem and correct it. So much of Alexander technique is about posture. It took nearly a month, because changing old habits can be difficult. But then this woman cancelled her scheduled follow-up appointment with me because, as she said, “I don’t need it.”
The article references the British Medical Journal study discussed previously in this blog and also an earlier New York Times article on the same issue.
Alexander technique reduces low back pain disability
/0 Comments/in Susan's Blog /by SueSynopsis of Study
OBJECTIVE: To determine the effectiveness of lessons in the Alexander technique, massage therapy, and advice from a doctor to take exercise (exercise prescription) along with nurse delivered behavioural counselling for patients with chronic or recurrent back pain.
DESIGN: Factorial randomised trial.
SETTING: 64 general practices in England.
PARTICIPANTS: 579 patients with chronic or recurrent low back pain; 144 were randomised to normal care, 147 to massage, 144 to six Alexander technique lessons, and 144 to 24 Alexander technique lessons; half of each of these groups were randomised to exercise prescription.
INTERVENTIONS: Normal care (control), six sessions of massage, six or 24 lessons on the Alexander technique, and prescription for exercise from a doctor with nurse delivered behavioural counselling.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Roland Morris disability score (number of activities impaired by pain) and number of days in pain.
RESULTS: Exercise and lessons in the Alexander technique, but not massage, remained effective at one year (compared with control Roland disability score 8.1: massage -0.58, 95% confidence interval -1.94 to 0.77, six lessons -1.40, -2.77 to -0.03, 24 lessons -3.4, -4.76 to -2.03, and exercise -1.29, -2.25 to -0.34). Exercise after six lessons achieved 72% of the effect of 24 lessons alone (Roland disability score -2.98 and -4.14, respectively). Number of days with back pain in the past four weeks was lower after lessons (compared with control median 21 days: 24 lessons -18, six lessons -10, massage -7) and quality of life improved significantly. No significant harms were reported.
CONCLUSIONS: One to one lessons in the Alexander technique from registered teachers have long term benefits for patients with chronic back pain. Six lessons followed by exercise prescription were nearly as effective as 24 lessons.
Little P, Lewith G, Webley F, et al. Randomised controlled trial of Alexander technique lessons, exercise, and massage (ATEAM) for chronic and recurrent back pain. BMJ 2008;337:a884.