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DIRECTION : FREEMAIL
November, 2003 Vol 5 No 3

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In this issue:

EDITORIAL : News roundup.

INTERVIEW : Gil Bomber teaching in the Czech Republic.

INTERNET NEWS : The online community.

PERFORMANCE - Actors and Acting : The Current Issue of Direction Journal.

FORTHCOMING EVENTS : Worldwide Events Guide for Nov & Dec 2003.

SUBSCRIPTIONS : Subscribe to Freemail, Alextech or Direction Journal.

DIRECTION JOURNAL : What's Coming Up, Back Issues, Alexander Technique Worldwide Directory..

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EDITORIAL

A big welcome to new members of the Freemail club! Freemail is open to anyone with access to email. And would you believe it, it's free!

We aim for an issue of Freemail every two months. Each issue we interview an Alexander Technique teacher. This issue we have Gil Bomber, currently the only teacher in the Czech Republic, gamely learning the language, using an interpreter and sometimes being paid in tomatoes! We also have a featured website, this time Anne Landa, an accordionist and teacher from Spain.

Please send in your nominations for next issue's featured website. Or if there's anyone you'd like us to interview (or you'd like to interview!) please let us know.

We're looking for more reader participation: got an idea for a short article? Any notes and queries? Applying the Alexander Technique to dowsing, sumo wrestling or writing a novel? Go on, live dangerously! Tweak habit on the nose and take a plunge into Internet publishing!

And we're still dishing up our regular features on forthcoming events worldwide, and present and future issues of Direction Journal.

Much water under the bridge since the last issue. Among other things there's been much talk of competencies and voluntary self-regulation in the UK, the US and Australasia. It's all part of a drive to give Alexander Teachers a more professional (or is that occupational?) image, to help us be ever clearer about what we teach. But all this amid concerns that our work could be distorted by bureaucracy, heavy-handed political control and too great a reliance on verbal formula.

At the STAT conference my personal highlight was working with Chloë Stallibrass, author of a major new piece of research on the Alexander Technique, Managing Disability in Parkinson's Disease (Clinical Rehabilitation 2002 volume 16 pp 705-718). Chloë is delightful, and her work with us and with her pupils (on videotape) was deeply moving. I was inspired to do more work on directing the face: one of the less well-known effects of Parkinson's is progressive loss of facial expression.

So what else is new? Do you work with blind people? Businesses? Rugby players? Chess Masters? Are you a pupil or student? Any interesting takes on the Technique, any odd or funny or fabulous or unsettling experiences of learning? Please let me know and help make the January issue!

	Nick Mellor
	Editor, Freemail
	Leeds, UK

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INTERVIEW: GIL BOMBER

Where did you train, Gil?

I graduated from Cumbria Alexander Training, Kendal, UK, last July. I already knew that I wanted to teach in the Czech Republic - in fact the decision to train as a teacher grew out of my desire to go back to my roots. My parents were Czech, and three weeks in South Bohemia just after I started AT lessons made me realise that I wanted to spend part of the rest of my life there. I considered training as a TEFL teacher but was not comfortable with that idea. When my teacher, Kevin Asheton, asked if I had thought of training as an AT teacher I knew at once this was the way forward. I loved the training even though it involved a 500 mile car journey each week. I think that the eclectic style at CAT was an ideal basis for teaching abroad in a language that I initially did not speak at all. And training away from home meant I could concentrate on being a relatively carefree student. I particularly relished having my Senior Citizen's Card in one hand and International Student Card in the other when visiting museums etc!

Where are you living now?

I alternate between Hertfordshire and a village in South Bohemia, 70 miles south of Prague, spending about four months at a time in each. My teaching is almost entirely in the Czech Republic where AT is practically unknown apart from a very small group of enthusiasts led by a remarkable young Tai Chi teacher called Milena Jerábková. She has set up workshops with Michael Parkinson of the Vienna school and other visiting teachers, interprets on the courses, has created a website (www.volny.cz/alexandrovatechnika-- "volny" means "free"), found teaching premises for me, and organised pupils. Everyone needs a Milena! I travel to Prague about twice a month and also have a few pupils in the village where I am likely to be paid in eggs or tomatoes rather than cash.

What are the special challenges of teaching in the Czech Republic?

As you will know, explaining AT in one's own language is a sufficient challenge! Czech is not the easiest language to learn and the grammar is fiendishly difficult. However, having spent the last four summers there, I can now teach in Czech with just occasional recourse to the dictionary - and many of my pupils speak some English or German so we get by. I have yet to tackle a group without an interpreter although Milena, who teaches babies to swim, is threatening to make me do a presentation to a group of expectant and new mothers very soon.

Who comes to you for lessons?

Most of those coming for lessons in Prague have either first met AT through Michael's workshops which have focussed on AT in Pregnancy and Childbirth, or they come from the Tai Chi classes run by Milena and her husband. They are mostly young and very enthusiastic - a joy to teach. I would love to see more teachers in the CR but the cost of training is prohibitive for Czechs themselves and those from abroad cannot expect to get rich on ca £7 a lesson...on the other hand, you can get a good haircut for 70pence and an excellent meal for three, with drinks, for under £10 so I'm hoping that someone may be tempted to join me soon!

gil.bom@virgin.net

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INTERNET NEWS

Featured Website
 

Check out Anne Landa's website. Anne is an accordion player and AT teacher living in Spain. We've chosen her web page this issue for its moody, unconventional photos and great use of colour. Congratulations, Anne, and thankyou.

There are a large and growing number of Alexander Technique websites out there, and we'd like to hear about more of them. If you have a teaching colleague whose website you envy, or if you think your own effort is rather smart, or you've run across one you really like, send 'em in! They don't have to be big, or the last word in Alexander scholarship, or a slick business website designed by somebody else. We're looking for thought-provoking, eye-catching and original sites to bring to the attention of our readers.

The Alextech List
 

• The Bates Method and Peter Grunwald's work with the eyes

• Is Inhibition Necessary?

• Discussion of a mainstream postgrad teacher training

• Marketing: Well pupils or sick pupils?

• Why do we teach musicians away from their instruments?

• Emphysema and the Buteyko Method

• Marjorie Barstow's Activity Model of teaching

• David Jernighan adopting a Chinese baby girl: http://www.DJernigan.com/sister.html

• Group Sessions for singers: any advice? (Yes!)

• Habits and Will

...and the list goes on. Alextech regularly throws up good international topics that you might not come across if you only talk to the locals. Dozens of "lurkers" from all over the world come out of the wood-work depending on the topics at hand. Try posing ANY question to the list and receive a response from teachers all over the world. To do so, you need to subscribe if you haven't already.

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FORTHCOMING EVENTS Nov-Dec 2003

The following is a brief list of Alexander Technique events worldwide. If you would like to add your event to the list, please email the editor. Inclusion is free.

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SUBSCRIPTIONS