Workshops, Seminars and Classes

At the World Congress for Alexander Teachers, in Lugano, Switzerland, Tommy has be chosen to part of the Continuous Learning Faculty. He will be giving a workshop every day of the Congress from 9:30 AM to 10:00 AM. See the description of his workshops below.

PRACTICING AND TEACHING THE ALEXANDER WORK WITHOUT LOSING TOUCH WITH THE WORLD AROUND YOU

Alexander's teaching was predicated upon self referral and self monitoring

He advocated using kinesthetic perception as the initial tool of awareness to identify habitual and unconscious behavior previously unrecognized. Once identified, he provided the person with a "means whereby" to cease to reinforce those aspects of reaction behavior that might interfere with a more preferred and expanded range of human potential in all relationships.

Throughout my 30 plus years of teaching' I have found "self referring" to be a natural, indispensable and organic sensibility that is inherent to our design. We really do not have to work at restoring optimal primary control to augment our experiencing of the events in our lives. We need only acknowledge it. However, without conscious monitoring of our response in both mundane and extreme circumstances, we do often tend to react to ourselves having the experience, and neglect to experience what we're actually experiencing. Thus, we know what we feel and think in reaction, but we might not really know what we actually feel and think.

As part of the Continuous Learning workshops at the congress, I would like to explore habitual and non-habitual aspects of 'self referring' as a natural, organic sensibility that is more closely aligned to our design and function. In doing so, we will explore practical and organic ways of using key components of Alexander's teaching, including kinesthesia, inhibition, and direction.

When 'self referring' is viewed as organic to the system, and the 'self' referred to is inclusive of the larger, ever changing landscape of experience, apart from personal desire, it is a mysterious delight to have deeper aspects of ones self unveiled, and available in all relationships.

We will use the interactive, integrative and tensegrative nature of relationship as a paradigm to practice and teach the Alexander work without losing touch with the world around us.

for instance, foremost, we are born into relationship.

What makes the difference? And, how can we make a difference

These are questions to ask our self. Are my relationships meaningful and fulfilling, or are they habitually difficult and unsuccessful? Has my experience with the Alexander Technique enhanced the quality of my relationships to the people I encounter briefly on a daily basis, or to my more enduring relationships with my family, my friends and my loved ones, and, do I feel more at home in relationship to the planet and all that it offers? And, how, when I attend to myself (self referral) do I do so without pulling away from active participation with the person or event I am encountering?

This workshop will focus on using the principles and concepts, which form the basis for the Alexander teaching, to foster and enhance meaningful relationships -- with everything and everyone. The participants will work individually, in pairs and in groups to explore this theme.

Prior to the workshop each participant is encouraged to think about relationships in their life, about those, that have proved to be unsatisfying and complicated, and those, which have always been easy and engaging. This kind of thinking, prior to participation in the workshop will increase the possibilities of each participants individual contribution.

TOMMY THOMPSON: Co-founder/past Chair of Alexander Technique International (ATI) and a former Assistant Professor of Drama and Managing Director of Tufts Arena Theater at Tufts University, Tommy has lectured and given workshops on the Alexander Technique for American and European universities in addition to educational and medical centers. Among these include: Harvard, Brandeis and Cornell universities, New England Conservatory of Music, California Institute For The Arts, School at Jacob's Pillow Summer Dance Festival, Expanded Dance, Harvard and Bates College Summer Dance Festivals, La Canal Danse, institut de pedogogie musicale et choreographique, American Dance Guild, and Children's Hospital, Boston. He currently teaches the Alexander work at The American Repertory Theatre at Harvard University.

Co- author of Scientific and Humanistic Contributions of Frank Pierce Jones, Tommy has contributed numerous papers on the Alexander work to Alexander journals, periodicals and newsletters. He has also given over three hundred workshops for Alexander teachers and students in the United States, England, France, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, and Italy. Tommy has taught on teacher-training courses for over twenty trainings world-wide. He presented papers at both the First and Second International Congresses for Alexander Teachers and was one of the Second Generation Teachers invited to give master classes at the Third International Congress in Switzerland in August of 1991. Tommy presented three classes as part of the presenters' forum at the Sixth International Congress in Freiburg In addition, he delivered a paper on "Inhibition As Direct Experience," which is published in The Congress Papers and in ATI's news journal, ExChange.

In 1982, Tommy co-founded Alexander Technique Association of New England, the Frank Pierce Jones Archives, and the F. Matthias Alexander Archives, housed in the Wessell Library at Tufts University. He was the organization's director for six years. In 1992, he was a charter and founding member of Alexander Technique International and served as Chair of ATI's Executive Board from 1993-1998.

Prior to teaching the Alexander Technique beginning in 1961, Tommy was involved in over two hundred theatre productions as a professional and university actor and director, working with notable theatre artists including film actor/producer Michael Douglas, playwright Tennessee Williams, Polish director Jerzi Grotowski, and Yugoslavian director Georgi Paro.

For the past thirty-two years, Tommy has taught the Technique on a weekly basis to professional and Olympic athletes, dressage riders, scientists, educators, physicians, musicians, dancers, actors, and children. Since 1983, Tommy has directed an Alexander Teacher Training School in Cambridge , Massachusetts, co-founded by Tommy and his late wife Julie Ince Thompson. He is now assisted in teaching by Debi Adams and Bob Lada, with adjunct faculty Andrea Matthews, Jamee Culbertson, and Rosa Luisa Rossi.

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