21 May 2022: Alexander Farkas - 'Why Is It So Hard to Teach the Alexander Technique' — £35.00

This afternoon Zoom workshop will run from 1:30pm UK time to 4:30pm with Alex Farkas and your hosts, the directors from Hite. From New York, Alex will be sharing his 21 years of international teaching experience.

'Why Is It So Hard to Teach the Alexander Technique'

This will be an exploration of the title question rather than a 'how to'.

I’d like to deal with the challenges the new teacher faces with a student, the attitudes of needing to be successful, achieving an aim, self judgment, the need to measure and the need to analyse to get it.
And the link to our lack of confidence in teaching.

What’s the Secret?

Macdonald was known to have said, before starting the class one day: 'Do you think it’s easy to go in there and put life into those people?'

"How do I get this student out of the chair?" or
"Why is it so difficult to teach the Alexander Technique?"
"There must be some secret that no one told me during my training years." or even,
"I’ve tried so hard to learn how to direct and yet I seem to be missing some essential step!"

Such thoughts are common at those moments when the student under our hand seems stuck, unable to move.
What is the student trying to do but obviously not succeeding? How can we unravel the student’s expectations so that a moment of non-doing can open a path to ease of movement?

These are the obstacles in the way of thinking differently which we will explore.

About Alex Farkas

Music, for Alex, has always been a driving passion. Childhood was spent dancing and playing the piano. At the Manhattan School of Music he was awarded a degree in piano studies.

In his late 20’s he took ballet classes with Alfredo Corvino who taught ease, line and fluidity - and always to listen to the music. He discovered Kodály music education, went on to study in Hungary and armed with this new knowledge he was offered a position at the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, Connecticut where he taught solfege and ear-training for 27 years.

A gift of an Alexander lesson with Judith Stransky changed the course of his life. Soon afterward Patrick Macdonald visited New York where Alex was a stand-in ‘body’ for a teacher having a lesson with Macdonald.

‘After I was taken to the chair with Macdonald looking on and saying, "I didn’t much care for that'’, he put the teacher’s hands back on me and then placed his hands over hers and I felt myself inexplicably lifted from the chair. My immediate thought was: This is what I’ve been looking for only I didn’t know I was looking for it.’

Teacher training began in 1991 with Shoshana Kaminitz and family circumstances stretched his training until 1998. Further lessons followed with Margaret Goldie, Marjorie Barlow and Elisabeth Walker.

Since then Alex has taught both music and the Alexander Technique throughout Europe and in the north eastern United States.

All participants will receive a record of attendance after the event.

Please book early to avoid disappointment as places are limited and note that no refunds will be possible after 7th May 2022.

HITE Ltd, 10 Harley Street, London W1G 9PF.
T: 020 7467 8461. E: info@hiteltd.co.uk