Alexander Technique Career Success

A day off the blog yesterday, while reflecting on the just completed 12 Steps That Lead To A Financially Successful Career as a Teacher of Alexander Technique. Friends from Sweden are in town, and we headed off to a Xmas get together at Amriel’s in Brunswick Heads. There I met an old friend and fellow Alexander Technique teacher Jonathon. I unexpectedly worked the 12 steps with him, along the way designing an alternative life… Step 1 – Motivation Jonathon is passionate about soccer. He also knows how to make money – having successfully built a local company selling fresh organic greens – and he completed an Alexander Technique Teacher Education at a STAT certified school in Sydney more than 15 years ago. All ingredients that demonstrate he has the success drivers in place to make a new career teaching… Step 2 – Who to Teach? Soccer players, coaches, organisations. This is a huge industry, worth billions, so the notion that there is no money to make is not tenab...

Last week in Tokyo, we gathered together a group of people in the music industry to meet, talk Alexander and develop a relationship. We had an NHK composer, two Professors of Music, two magazine editors, a book publisher, a Jazz singer, several free lance journalists, Administrators from both university and private music schools, and some accomplished, classical musicians. What was more important than any immediate outcome, was simply establishing the basis of a relationship. Who could you host for an Alexander Technique event in your area? Next year we are launching the BodyChance Affiliates program. With that we plan to offer our graduates opportunities to work with companies with whom we are currently developing these relationships, while also educating them in the ideas that I am sharing in this blog. This is part of BodyChance’s plan to establish Alexander Technique more permanently in Japan – relationships with institutions has been one of the tried and true m...

This morning I was advising a Angela Bradshaw in England about her website. She was wondering how it could be improved, and as we dialogued I discovered that her clients included: “…Mums, pregnant ladies, therapists in many forms, business people, medical professionals, athletic types, musicians…” I thought: who would want to niche down with such an interesting variety of students? The answer is - Angela is already niched. The “niche” is Alexander Technique, which in England these days is a viable niche, probably one of the few countries in the world in which you can. Alexander Technique is more of a household name in England. Added to that, Angela is an empathetic woman, with a para-medical background. All of this is on clear show at her website. She is using an early stage version of the Celebrity/Authority strategy: it relies on being a sparkling person capable of generating word of mouth and referrals. This can either substitute for, or enrich your online strate...

You’re a golf fanatic and someone tells you about Alexander Technique. You go to the site and the first thing you see is a testimonial from a golfer talking about how his “yips” has completely gone, his drive has increased in both distance and accuracy, and his handicap is lower. Even if you disbelieve it, you can’t resist finding out more - what if it is true? You’re a golf fanatic and someone tells you about Alexander Technique. You go to the site and the first thing you see is a middle aged woman sitting in a chair with a tall, thin man wrapping his hands around her neck. The headline reads: “The Alexander Technique is a method of reducing unnecessary tension by consciously learning to re-educate your habits of use.” Lower down on the left you catch a black and white picture of an Edwardian looking man smiling, and next to that something about the British Medical Journal. Huh? Which website is most likely to develop a relationship with the golfer? This is the powerful reaso...

I’ve spent the last year crying most weeks, often every morning. It has been a powerful, healing process that I don’t fully understand. What I do understand is that first person I need to love is me. When I have no love for my Self, it is not possible to love anyone or anything else. Self-hate, in my growing knowledge and experience, is the only problem that we have. However, self-hate often won’t appear as self-hate. Instead, it comes with an effort to improve my Self (because I am not good the way I am) or the indignation of not being seen as you imagine (how dare you treat me that way) or the longing for love (when will I know that I am worthy of you). We rarely consider these emotions originating from self-hate, and we often blame others for how we feel. Victims are violent people - violent against their own Self. The pain and suffering a victim feels is not inflicted from without, it is inflicted from within: when you rage against what others say, you become th...