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The Centre
Located just off St Martin's Lane in London WC2, with easy access from Leicester Square, Charing Cross and Embankment Stations, the Centre was opened by John Hunter in 1993.
We are within walking distance of Soho, Whitehall and Bloomsbury.
We offer different options for learning the Alexander Technique - one-to-one lessons and ongoing study groups - in our quiet and friendly Central London location.
You can contact us by email or phone 020 3239 1212.
The Alexander Technique
Human beings evolved to be upright and to move around freely whilst attending to our immediate environment.
Then, as intelligence developed, we began to increasingly separate the mind from the body.
Many people, after leaning on a desk in school for years on end while our bodies were still developing in order to learn the three R’s, and more commonly nowadays slouching over computers and burying one’s head in a smart phone for hours every day, have lost all the natural tone and poise that our ancestors had as their birthright.
This cannot easily, if at all, be recovered solely by strengthening exercises - which tend to become another way of practising one's habits - nor by stretching muscles and tendons, nor by building core stability, nor by having one’s soft tissue and joints manipulated. Our mind and body work as one system and what is necessary is to learn how to use what Nature has given us.
Located just off St Martin's Lane in London WC2, with easy access from Leicester Square, Charing Cross and Embankment Stations, the Centre was opened by John Hunter in 1993.
We are within walking distance of Soho, Whitehall and Bloomsbury.
We offer different options for learning the Alexander Technique - one-to-one lessons and ongoing study groups - in our quiet and friendly Central London location.
You can contact us by email or phone 020 3239 1212.
The Alexander Technique
Human beings evolved to be upright and to move around freely whilst attending to our immediate environment.
Then, as intelligence developed, we began to increasingly separate the mind from the body.
Many people, after leaning on a desk in school for years on end while our bodies were still developing in order to learn the three R’s, and more commonly nowadays slouching over computers and burying one’s head in a smart phone for hours every day, have lost all the natural tone and poise that our ancestors had as their birthright.
This cannot easily, if at all, be recovered solely by strengthening exercises - which tend to become another way of practising one's habits - nor by stretching muscles and tendons, nor by building core stability, nor by having one’s soft tissue and joints manipulated. Our mind and body work as one system and what is necessary is to learn how to use what Nature has given us.
We can throw away the habit of a lifetime in a few minutes if we use our brains. |
A bad driver will be constantly taking his or her car to the garage to repair brakes, clutches, dents and scratches. Until he or she learns to drive properly, this will just go on and on. So it is with us. If we don't know how to use our "selves" properly, injury and discomfort will follow. Most of these problems can be repaired, but it makes sense to learn a better way of being.
Our great evolutionary advantages – a developed brain and an upright posture which liberates the arms for skilled activities – have also caused us great problems. Unless you know how to carry this heavy head - and it weighs 4 -5 kilos (that’s like four or five bags of sugar) - in the right way, it is going to bear down on your spine and cause you problems.
Fortunately there is a simple and effective way to recover natural tone and poise. This is what F M Alexander discovered at the end of the nineteenth century and, because of its effectiveness, now forms part of the training of most actors and musicians in the United Kingdom.
A bad driver will be constantly taking his or her car to the garage to repair brakes, clutches, dents and scratches. Until he or she learns to drive properly, this will just go on and on. So it is with us. If we don't know how to use our "selves" properly, injury and discomfort will follow. Most of these problems can be repaired, but it makes sense to learn a better way of being.
Our great evolutionary advantages – a developed brain and an upright posture which liberates the arms for skilled activities – have also caused us great problems. Unless you know how to carry this heavy head - and it weighs 4 -5 kilos (that’s like four or five bags of sugar) - in the right way, it is going to bear down on your spine and cause you problems.
Fortunately there is a simple and effective way to recover natural tone and poise. This is what F M Alexander discovered at the end of the nineteenth century and, because of its effectiveness, now forms part of the training of most actors and musicians in the United Kingdom.
Find out more
Follow the links to find out about lessons with our teachers and group classes at our centre or contact us directly now by email or phone 020 3239 1212.
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Alexander Technique Centre
8 Hop Gardens, London WC2N 4EH Tel: 020 3239 1212 coventgarden@the-alexander-technique.eu |