Direction Journal

"The Art of Group Teaching"

I've always wanted to reach as many people as possible with my Alexander Technique. I put flyers out, ran newspaper adverts, put a notice on my website, emailed everyone I knew, sent letters to local practitioners who might send their clients...but still only a handful of people attended.

For Meade, 50-70 people to an introductory workshop is normal... and not just now that she has a reputation, but from the very start. Wow! How quickly could we touch people in our community if we regularly filled rooms like this.

But what do we DO with them when they're all sitting in rows waiting for their own cauliflower to open?

Meade has been doing this for 23+ years and now brings her knowledge to AT teachers who want to be more effective in communicating with groups. I'm looking forward to our chat and delving into the insights that Meade will be generously sharing with us.

To register your attendance at this conference, please click here.

More about Meade Andrews...

Meade has taught and performed as an actor, dancer, choreographer, director, and movement coach for dance and theatre throughout her career. She trained at the Alexander Alliance (1983-86), and most recently completed a teacher refresher course with John Nicholls in New York City, where she also attended Jesssica Wolf's course in the Art of Breathing. Meade has taught throughout the US, Canada, Europe, and Japan. Meade currently maintains a private practice in Boca Raton, and teaches in the graduate acting program at Florida Atlantic University. She also travels to teach in NY and DC, where she directed the dance program at American University, and continues to present workshops at the Studio Theatre, her professional base for 20 years. Meade presented her work "The Art of Group Teaching" at the Lugano Congress, 2008.

To celebrate the release of our first Direction Journal in 4 years, The Garlick Reports Compiled, we are launching two new subscription packages.

Late in 2008 a new “membership” section was created at the website.

Whilst we've been busy beavering away creating content like Walter Carrington audios, Live Interviews, articles, journals, congress papers etc, the whole concept of "membership" might have been lost on many.

So, we’ve simplified the whole “membership / subscription” thing. (hopefully!)

Now there are just two types of subscription available at Direction Journal, NOT “membership”. I won’t be mentioning “membership” ever again, ok? Well, maybe once.

Subscriptions Free and Subscriptions Paid.

A Free Subscription is a taste of our resource base. All of the Walter Carrington audios are available, with 2 new recordings loaded each month, a selection of Congress papers from 1988, 1991, 1994 plus a few bonus live interviews added every now and then from the paid subscription vault. Also a Directory listing is included, valued at $20 per year.

A Paid Subscription is the full deal. You’ll receive all benefits of the free subscription, plus every new issue to your door, all back issues online, the complete Congress Papers from 1988, 1991, 1994, recordings and transcripts of live interviews, plus more products and services to come. PLUS a pdf of every new issue for printing replacement copies from your desktop!

For more information on each type of subscription (see, it rolls off the tongue better than membership) click on the blue links above, or here.

If you were one of the first to join us back in November by paying $1 for a 2 month trial…we hope you’ve made the most of the 6 months of “trial”!

For Direction Journal to stay alive this time, we are looking for an ongoing commitment from you and the Alexander community. A brand new issue is in the pipeline for delivery before Christmas and the plan is to produce a print version quarterly. 

But wait there's more...

We're working on a community concept that just might be a revolution for publicizing Alexander Technique internationally and at the same time give AT teachers a place to develop their own businesses online. But more on that soon.

If you value the independent voice and creativity that is Direction Journal, subscribe now.

PC

Apart from a couple of final conversations with our designer and the printers...we are almost ready to go on the first Direction Journal since Volume 3 No. 4 in 2005.

Over the first 18 years of Direction Journal, Dr David Garlick was a pillar of its success. His passion, dry wit and unique talent at bringing the scientifically complicated to the Alexander Technique community was renowned.

Thanks to technology, Croatia, India, UK and USA...plus a tireless Editor in Melbourne...just relocated to the Gold Coast (!) we are able to now bring together all 20 of Dr Garlick's reports into one handy issue of Direction Journal...albeit squeezed into 40 pages.

If you've ever referred back to your Direction Journals...wondering "where did I see that reference to red and white muscle fibres that Dr Garlick explained so well...?" Soon it will all be at your finger tips. PLUS, you will also have an opportunity to print replacement copies from your desktop (as part of a subscription package)

We will only be printing exactly enough copies for orders. Gone are the days of carrying stock.

The new magazine will cost $22 + postage and handling...OR included as part of a subscription package.

Stay tuned for details on our new subscription plans.

PC 

Please click here to register for this conference call, seats are limited.

I first met Catherine via email when I took over Direction Journal in late 2001. She was the incumbent issue editor of our “The Future” issue (Volume 2 No. 10) which had been put on hold due to financial problems. Catherine had interviewed 6 master teachers of the Alexander Technique; Marjorie Barlow, Walter Carrington, Richard Gummere, Elisabeth Walker, Erika Whittaker and Peggy Williams and also brought together all of the writers for that issue…a commendable job.

When I attended the Oxford Congress in 2004, with a mountain of Direction magazines to sell, Catherine’s workshop was one of only two I signed up to experience. “Teaching Without Touch” was for me, a novel concept, having graduated from a more "traditional” training course. If we didn’t have physical contact with our student, there probably wasn’t much we were teaching them!

When Catherine and her training school co-director, David Mills suggested we grab somebody off the street to introduce to Alexander Technique I had to inhibit my skepticism. Why would a complete stranger to our work even want to experience it, let alone obtain benefit from such a quick experience?

I don’t think the volunteer I helped to bring in from the street really knew how their perspective on life could change so easily, so quickly. The process Catherine uses to introduce new thinking to people was revolutionary to my idea of how to help people change using AT.

Join me on this call for an insight into how Alexander Technique can be introduced and taught to groups, large or small.

Click here to register and post any questions you'd like discussed as we only have 60 minutes to fill.

More about Catherine…

Began studying the Alexander Technique in 1973 with Marjorie Barstow and qualified as a teacher in 1976. Has worked in United States and Europe.

• Presented at the 1991 Engleberg Congress, Switzerland
• Guest Teacher 1994 Sydney Congress, Australia
• Presented "Teaching Without Touching" at 2004 Oxford Congress, UK
• Helped found Alexander Technique International
• Co-founded The Performance School in 1986, an Alexander Teacher Training course based in Seattle, USA

Catherine is also an American Sign Language/English interpreter with a Ph.D. from the University of Washington. She came across Formal Consensus via her involvement with ATI which has led to an exploration of conflict resolution, dialogue and decision making processes. She enjoys horseback riding, Aikido, tap dancing, bike riding and learning languages.

I read Body Learning first, then I read Use of the Self. I wonder how many others around the world have found their way to Alexander Technique via this route over the past 28 years since it was first published. His writing is prolific, his calendar booked solid internationally and yet he speaks from his easy chair as if time is only a commodity that the unenlightened must labour with. (see clip below)

Juggling  was something that I had naively put into the same basket as learning a second language, perfecting the violin and ice skating. Either you learn it when you're young or spend half your life trying. But Michael gently rearranged my limiting beliefs by teaching me to juggle in under an hour...by reading his book !

Michael Gelb has worked with the top corporations in the world and takes time from his busy schedule to speak with me about life, his passions and the future for Alexander Technique.

Visit his website here for a biography that reads like several (of my) lifetimes.