The Alexander Educational Center

 Our Mission

The Alexander Educational Center’s mission is to create confident, skillful, working professionals. Upon graduation our trainees have: the essential “hands-on-skills” needed to convey the Alexander Technique, the teaching skills for presenting the work to various individuals and groups, the confidence that their training has given them a thorough grounding in the Technique, the ability to demonstrate and articulate the essential nature of F. M. Alexander’s work and the mastery needed to practically change a person’s “use”.

drawing by Julia Kay – AEC graduate

The Training Process

In the first trimester of training, you will constantly receive a new kinesthetic experience, i.e., hands-on work, from both directors and senior students. In this way you will begin to recognize, refine, and raise the level of your own “use,” preparing you for the next phase of training. Learning the use of the hands will be introduced slowly, at first with the training course directors and assistants—who will give you detailed feedback and practical help—and then with other trainees.

By the second year of training, you will be familiar with all the various procedures that are used as a means to teach Alexander principles. At this stage, you will be continually exchanging work with other trainees and, under the careful supervision of the directors, working with guest pupils. By this time, while your teaching skills and kinesthetic skills may be somewhat inconsistent, your level of proficiency should be helpful to certain pupils.

Toward the end of the third year, you will have acquired the necessary skills to begin working with your own private pupils. From time to time one of the directors will oversee this work. As well as giving you the experience of being a working professional, this will help you transition from training into teaching.

Further studies during the course of your training will include: basic anatomy, physiology, ethics, business development, some vocal study, class discussion, analysis of Alexander’s writings and related literature and the application of the Alexander Technique to specialized skills.

Apprenticeship Training

F. M. Alexander’s discovery of his Technique was a highly individualized process requiring patience, perseverance and uncompromising self-observation. Likewise, training teachers of the Alexander Technique is also a highly individualized process. In this respect, training to become a teacher of the Alexander Technique is entirely different from standard academic study. Facilitating an “improved condition” in others is truly an art and as such, training for this art follows the “apprentice” model. This is also the model of teacher training practiced by F. M. Alexander himself.

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