Alexander Technique Career Success

I laughed yesterday when Larissa, an AT teacher in Canada commented that she was interested in her students, but not as much as I encouraged in yesterday’s FaceBook post! But interest in others is related to interest in you, and this in turn relates to the power of teaching into a niche market. What makes a niche market viable for you? Well, it starts with being fascinated by the hobbies, skills and interests of your students! Of course that’s easy when they are doing something you love. So harness your passion to their passion and you have the first ingredient - your passion is onside. Next you need to check this: are there sufficient people geographically close enough to come to you for sessions? | How do you figure that out? Well, there’s a formula that’s pretty accurate… I got reminded of this formula from an exchange with Martin, a new AT teacher in Australia. He’s just starting out, wondering how to make a business work, and I realized how it helps to ...

When you start a lesson with anyone, you want to be totally fascinated with that person. Wholly absorbed, as though you were considering a life time relationship, which actually you are. Is that how you approach teaching? No agenda, no plan, no form – just utter fascination and curiosity. Listening, watching, waiting – letting your unconscious feed off the millions of packets of information hurtling their way through your sensory system into your brain for processing. At some point this process prompts you to say or do something in response: this is the process of exploration with your student. People who are averse to marketing and selling need to understand that their teaching process is fundamentally the same in nature… For the ethical marketer, or the ethical seller, the student is of primary interest. People who have a “thing” about selling just have to make the well-being of their student their top priority. What you want for them ...

The Alexander world is full of them – people proudly beating their chests saying: “What I do works.” I guess I am one them. J However, my message is different: I am not a traditionalist. I am not a purist. I don’t believe the past is where you look to understand what will happen in the future. The old argument (that I have used too): “This is what Alexander did, so it must be right…” was more convincing half a century ago just after he died. Today is a very different world from the place Alexander lived. Different solutions for different times. Some people will not agree with me and you know what? I don’t care. That person has already decided what they want and that’s great. Good on them! So what I am about? I am here to help this person: You love this work, you believe Alexander's Discoveries can make a significant positive impact on Society, but you sometimes wonder and doubt your ability to deliver on that promise. You also want to earn a decent livin...

One of my big lessons in the evolution of communicating the value of this work to wary listeners, is that the skills in the teaching space utterly reflect the skills to communicate outside it. Marj was an innovator here – understanding that the motivation to learn can not be supplied by the teacher. Sure you, the teacher, feel safe when you know that you have “procedures” to follow, such as “Alexander’s teaching procedures” but the hard question you’ve got to ask your self is this: who is really interested in that? In “chairwork” or “tablework”? You know it works, I know it works – but are they interested in that or not? If not, you’ve got your self a major marketing problem before you are even out of the gate! Some people will always stay with you. You could ask them to hang from their feet for 10 minutes in the hall until your lessons starts, and they would probable do it. Those people will accept whatever you dish out. Those people need no convincing, but those people will not bui...