Teaching online has made me a better teacher
Working with Vanessa in her natural habitat.
I start most first lessons with a line something like, “I want to teach you to use the Alexander Technique so that you can use it yourself, in your life, whenever you need it. That’s the ‘Integrative’ part.” And then I make a joke about what a terrible business model that is because I don’t want you to need me.
Teaching online over the past eight months has brought into high-relief one of the most important aspects of Integrative Alexander Technique: I cannot Alexander you. The real reward, and the only way it works, is that it is by you, for you.
In-person lessons usually involve me using my hands to gently follow my student’s movement while they start to make a change. This “following” supports the change process, a sort of companionship into a new idea so that the old idea doesn’t start squawking, “Hey, that was my job!”
Coaching and teaching online is a radical shift, but it has been fun for me to leverage my “seeing” skills as a choreographer, super-charged by the adaptability skills that IAT provides.
A key change is that I have to ask even more questions than usual. — What are you noticing? I saw something happening right then, what were you thinking? I can’t quite see your legs, tell me what they are up to. — I am relying on this fact-finding process to do my job while at the same time teaching my students a key component of learning to use the process, what Alexander called “analyzing conditions of use present.” In the online context, noticing, and saying out loud, what you are discovering about yourself and your environment while you process the information that is coming in through your senses, and then being able to decide how to respond… It’s gold. Building a practice of noticing is what will eventually become that bank of experiences, awareness.
Discovering this year that there is real value in online teaching, that it is not only possible but extremely effective, means that I will be able to continue to connect with students wherever they are, even when I eventually go back to teaching in-person.
In the meantime, even if you are my neighbor, this is a wonderful way to spend some time together while we are apart.
Join me for a group class or private lesson.
