Suggested Projects for Alexander Technique Teachers

The bibliography of the Alexander Technique grows apace. Every year new books by and for teachers are published in the US, in Britain, and elsewhere: introductions for the general reader, interviews with senior teachers, manuals about the application of the Technique to specific activities, and others still.

The multiplicity of new titles is most welcome. Yet there remains room for many more books to be written and published about the Technique. I believe that we teachers haven't been sufficiently ambitious in our writing efforts; for instance, we haven't fully explored narrative techniques from fiction, journalism, and cinema. These can be very effective in communicating complex ideas to a public that, however willing to learn, expects - quite rightly - to be informed in lively, creative, concrete, and amusing ways.

In this essay I'll propose a number of projects for enterprising teachers and ways in which they
may be explored, prepared, and published. The projects are listed below.

• a volume of case stories
• a book for children
• a videotape or DVD inspired, in its tone and narrative style, by Al Pacino's "Looking for Richard," a documentary on Shakespeare's Richard III
• imagined dialogues between Alexander and other great thinkers, visionaries, and teachers, such as Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Hannah Arendt, Maria Montessori, Jesus Christ, Morihei Ueshiba (the founder of aikido), and others
• a voyage of initiation, similar in dimension and character to Eugen Herrigel's Zen and the Art of Archery
• the Alexander Technique and psychology
• the Alexander Technique and specific music instruments (the violin, the cello, the piano, and so on)
• the Alexander Technique and specific sports (golf, tennis)
• the Alexander Technique and politics
• the Alexander Technique and the organization of work habits and routines