Has studied the Alexander Technique with senior teachers in England, Germany, Israel and the U.S. since ’84. She has extensive experience in working with groups and individuals. She is a Certified Teacher of the Alexander Technique and member of the American Society for Teachers of the Alexander Technique (AmSAT) as well as a Licensed Massage Therapist and offers: Group and Individual Classes in the Alexander Technique, Presentations and Introductory Lessons, Five Element Shiatsu and Swedish Massage.

Many people are interested in learning how to develop more awareness and control in their activities. F. M. Alexander (1869-1955) demonstrated that the difficulties many people experience in learning, in control of performance, and in physical functioning are caused by unconscious habits. These habits interfere with your natural poise and your capacity to learn. When you stop interfering with the innate coordination of the body, you can take on more complex activities with greater self-confidence and presence of mind.

The Alexander Technique provides a concrete means for overcoming these impeding habits, and for helping people learn better and do things more freely -- from learning to play a musical instrument better or moving with more comfort and ease through your daily life. From back pain to learning blocks, whether you are a musician or an office worker, Alexander lessons remain fundamentally the same: Guided through simple movements you learn to develop more control in your activities.

The Alexander Technique, however, is not a therapy that treats a passive patient.

It is for the person interested in working toward his or her goal with increased awareness and practical intelligence. Although the Alexander Technique does not treat specific symptoms, you can encourage a marked improvement in overall health, alertness, and performance by consciously eliminating harmful habits that cause physical and emotional stress, and by becoming more aware of how you engage in your activities.

While the Alexander Technique has been successful in reducing tension, it also has been popular among artists to enhance performance ability. Some of the more notable include actors Paul Newman, Kevin Kline, William Hurt, John Cleese, Kenneth Branaugh; musicians Paul McCartney, Sting, Shmuel Ashkenasi; writers Aldous Huxley, John Dewey, George Bernhard Shaw.

American educational philosopher John Dewey, Nobel-prize winning scientist Nikolaas Tinbergen, Aldous Huxley, George Bernhard Shaw, and many others have recognized the Alexander Technique as an effective aid in improving physical and psychological well-being.

How the Alexander Technique Works

F. M. Alexander called the relationship between head, neck and torso Primary Control. Whether this relationship is interfered with or is allowed to work freely has negative or positive consequences for the whole organism. By addressing interfering habits as follows, and thereby creating choices, the Alexander Technique aims at restoring the optimum functioning of the Primary Control.

What we have done for a life-time follows established patterns, which determine the way we move and how we tend to think. Only when we decide to change these patterns, we realize their influence on us.

• Regaining accurate sensory awareness

Often, we only recognize with the help of a mirror or the objective view of another person/teacher that we are not exactly doing what we intend to do or believe we do. For example, we might be convinced we are standing up straight, but the mirror/teacher informs us that we lean toward one side.

• Pausing and non-doing

Saying no to constricting patterns in every-day or professional routines and making room for choice. For example, stopping to reassess the effort one really needs to make to get out of a chair, work on the computer, or play the piano, etc.

• Sending directions

To do things in a new way the student is encouraged to pause before carrying out an activity and to project guiding thoughts at any time throughout the activity, such as: I am allowing my neck to be free, my head to release forward and up from the top of the spine, and my torso to lengthen and widen.

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For more information please contact

Stefanie Proessl 

Tel/Fax: (718) 832-2027   Day: (212) 439-8715

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