Study with Penelope

Work chapter by chapter through all the explorations of Penelope's book: The Alexander technique. Twelve fundamentals of integrated movement.

If you have not already obtained your copy, you can find it on my SHOP page to purchase it directly from Handspring publishing. Here's the link: https://www.handspringpublishing.com/product/the-alexander-technique/ or from most major book sellers. It is also available in Kindle format.

"You so embody what you teach and for me you are an inspiration - your work is definitely the missing link," Carolyn Butt, AT teacher

Chapter 4: the Fundamentals of awareness and thinking

These videos guide you deeper into the material in real time. They build and embody your learning

In Chapter 4 we discover how thinking processes and the awareness of vision and embodiment can change the quality of our movement and patterning. These processes are truly game  changing. They are at the core of the Alexander technique and all integrated movement, but most have not been fully articulated before.

  • Learn how the eyes lead the body into fluid movement and access our innate movement patterns. It is also deeply calming.
  • Use thought in different ways for relaxation and changing our habits.
  • Learn how over-involvement with the body creates tension and how to step out of this, finding ease.  
  • Enhance your embodiment and spatial awareness to come present to yourself and your surroundings.
  • Move to and from the floor with ease. 
  • Use semi supine - active rest - to balance and recharge your body and mind.


Four bonus videos: 

  1. Relax the whole head and face
  2. Working with pain
  3. Explore working with your spectacles off
  4. Avoid getting drawn into your computer

Benefits of this course

  • Penelope guides you through the explorations in real time as if she is in the room with you

  • Go deeper into the material covered in the book

  • Experience key processes of the Alexander work that were never explicitly articulated - and that unlock so much

  • Four bonus videos to deepen your process

Why does this series start at chapter 3?

Because Chapter 3 is the first of the chapters with explorations. So there are no chapters 1 and 2 in this series as they introduce the book and its concepts. Chapter 5 is also text only with no explorations and so is not included.

"Penelope really practices what she preaches. She teaches us how to work on ourselves and is totally authentic." Jill Payne, AT teacher

This course is for you

Alexander teachers, trainees and students,
yoga, Pilates or movement teachers and students,
sports or fitness enthusiasts and coaches,
tai chi and martial artists,
runners, swimmers and athletes,
riders, golfers, rowers and skiers,
somatic therapists, massage therapists or physios,
musicians, singers and their teachers,
actors, dancers and performers and
anyone who wants optimal movement patterns.

  • Learn the fundamentals underlying all movement

  • Improve coordination, mobility, strength and freedom simultaneously

  • Using the intelligence of your whole brain and body to aid your chosen activity

  • Develop greater consciousness of your movement patterns and how to improve them, even on 'bad' days

  • Benefit yourself and then your clients and students

  • Anyone can improve their quality of movement, strength, ease and poise

Course curriculum

  • 1

    Chapter 4: the fundamentals of awareness and thinking

    • Exploration 4.1. Tracking from side to side.

    • Exploration 4.2. Tracking a line

    • Exploration 4.3. Observing without reacting

    • Exploration 4.4. Using inhibition to reduce whole body tension

    • Exploration 4.4 Bonus 1 – releasing versus self-organising

    • Exploration 4.4 Bonus 2: Using inhibition to reduce tension in the face and throat

    • Exploration 4.5. “Negative directions” given to the activity itself

    • Exploration 4.6. Interoceptive awareness

    • Exploration 4.7. Discovering mind in the brain

    • Exploration 4.8. Liquid light with eyes closed, to find the body

    • Exploration 4.9. Liquid light with eyes open, to bring about an integrated flow between head and body

    • Exploration 4.10 and 4.11. Finding depth perception and full peripheral vision

    • Exploration 4.11 Bonus –for spectacles wearers, especially the short sighted

    • Exploration 4.12. Adding spatial awareness of the body

    • Exploration 4.12 Bonus – using computers

    • Exploration 4.13. Depth perception for sounds and smells

    • Exploration 4.14 - Bonus. Using the two “up-forces” to bend without shortening

    • Exploration 4.14. Organising a bend consciously

    • Exploration 4.15. Discovering the fundamental bend, led by perception

    • Exploration 4.16. Using vision to sit into a chair

    • Exploration 4.17, part 1. Semi supine – the position of active rest

    • Exploration 4.17, part 2. Lying in the semi supine position, finding spatial awareness of the body

    • Exploration 4.17, part 2. BONUS AUDIO. Finding your spatial awareness to your surroundings and self from mind in the brain

    • Exploration 4.18. Rolling off the floor with adaptive movement

    • Bonus audio. Guided meditation to manage or reduce pain

Facilitator

Penelope Easten

Penelope’s story. I initially read zoology at Cambridge university. I took my first lessons in 1983 and qualified in 1989 from the North London Alexander School (Misha Magidov). After training, my use fell apart, as no-one had taught me to work on myself. This took me to Miss Goldie, who stripped away everything I had learnt, and rebuilt it as she saw the technique should be - a scary process! I worked with her for four years, and that began a thirty-year journey to understand the differences and power of Miss Goldie’s amazing work. It has taken me to many other teachers – including Erika Whittaker, John Hunter, and Jeando Masoero, and to many avenues of exploration and understanding – both scientific and alternative. From age seventeen, I also battled with another 30-year journey - with chronic fatigue syndrome. This is now sorted, but after it I needed to rebuild tone and strength, and increased calm and resilience, which this work has enabled. I have been teaching workshops on Miss Goldie’s work since the Oxford Congress in 2004, in UK, Ireland (including the Limerick Congress), Germany and America. My book: The Alexander technique. The twelve fundamentals of integrated movement was published by Handspring Publishing in March 2021. After 19 years in the West of Ireland, I now live in Edinburgh with my husband and dog, and nearby to my daughter and small grandchildren. I am passionate to share this work that can bring us such renewed vigour, sense of youthful springiness and calm presence.

Buy as a one-off purchase here,
or in a bundle with chapters 3 and 6
for the complete Part 1 package