In ATC Kyoto we are dedicated to preserving and practising the essential principles of the F.M. Alexander Technique. Individual lessons are the typical way to learn. The one-to-one situation enables the concentrated participation and guidance from a teacher which Alexander indicated was so necessary. A series of ATC lessons over a number of weeks is recommended. Once a week for about twenty five weeks is usually enough to obtain a basis of understanding which can be applied outside the lessons. The heart of ATC Kyoto are private lessons meaning because we are all unique in our habits you always get the full, undivided attention of your teacher. We offer opportunities to be part of our public business of teaching and learning the Alexander Work and its technology in an open and friendly atmosphere through the classical set of all known traditional and authentic teaching procedures. Among others two main components are Table Work (standard part of a lesson - to work with the limbs and their integration into the back in the semi-supine active resting, senceing the support underneath you the back lengthening and widening onto the table) and Chair Work in front of a mirror (monkey, lunge, squatting, hands on the back of the chair, whispered ah, working with the head-neck-back relationship seeing with clarity how to create balanced conditions which can be released into the activity). The effectiveness, efficiency, energy, joy, power and value of this time-tested teaching technologies has been attested to by the experience and application of countless thousands of people. Both are a working in activity and the pupil isn't just lying on a table or is seated on a chair the teacher working on her or him. In this re-educational and transformational process we experience the pleasure and importance of 'the undoing of doing' and an alert inner stillness in the background while things happen in the foreground. Fluidity of movement can follow as a direct result of less 'doing', 'willing' or 'trying'. This dimension is there in everyone, but most people are completely unaware of it. What we really need to have in learning and teaching the Alexander Technique is personal full attention, which also implies acceptance and is an important key to transformation. Therefore we teach / learn in one-to-one lessons, how to re-discover balance and ease within ourselves. Through direct experience and observation, we learn how our coordination works, how we create tension and how we can prevent or release it. This consciousness which is really a state of acute awareness can change longstanding habits. The ability to inhibit and to direct and to use ourself in a different way depends on this shift in consciousness. Last, if we are successful in changing ourself, reality will mirror the change back to us. ATC lessons with an Alexander Teacher are about learning this new way of approaching your everyday activities. They are not therapeutic sessions where you remain passive. You are very much asked to participate and engage in your lesson, read around the subject, and take personal responsibility for your own change and growth. If you reached a decision and wish to take qualified Alexander lessons in Japan please contact our space for availability of times to book your private lesson. To see learning and teaching activities in the ATC Kyoto click here. Do you belong to a group of musicians and performing artists who remember that they are sensitive and delicate instruments too? If you would like to experience more ease, confidence, a fuller range of expression as an artist and performer, and have more presence with your self, your instrument and music, and your audience you may visit our introductory workshops. We offer a method that can be used by the musician to play without locking, tightening, grabbing, or forcing, thereby allowing the playing of the instrument to "happen" from moment to moment with the performer as the active observer, but not the "doer" of the playing. How many musicians playing a piece of music literature with "difficult" passages worry about these sections long before they arrive? And what happens when these passages are reached? It has been our observation that the person quits breathing, the hands, wrists, arms, and neck lock, and the individual "forces" his way through these areas, worrying the whole time if he will make it without falling apart. For over 100 years the Alexander Work has been helping individuals enhance their kinesthetic integrity by letting go of unconscious mind and body habits that interfere with their natural way of being and harmonious performing in life. In our workshops they experience their undivided self and the innate lightness, poise and grace that comes when thinking and movement are one integrated action; thus giving up the stress and disconnectedness that comes when mind and body are split, and thinking and movement are seperate. Participants of our workshops for musicians experience human love, warmth & communication through "the touch of hand", showing pupil and teacher as partners who can listen to and learn and grow from each other. Everyone can cultivate his personal sensitivity through individual "hands on" experience with the Alexander Technique. ATC - Introductory Courses The Alexander Centre Kyoto has further studios in Minoh Osaka & Chiba, Tokyo. All campuses are connected with the International Music Academy Maestro-JP (Director: Junko Kasahara- pianist- musicmaestro.jp / info and media attention & recognition you can find in the original website). The institutions offer individual lessons, introductory workshops and seminars for musicians ("The Alexander Technique and Enhancing the Quality of Your Performances") in Hiroshima (Elisabeth University of Music), Chiba, Kobe, Nagoya, Tokushima, Nishinomiya (Nishinomiya Music Society), Osaka (Osaka University of Arts, YAMAHA Music Osaka, Musicians' Union of Japan, Osaka Musikverein), Kyoto (Kyoto Women's University / Kyoto City University of Arts) Tokyo (Toho Gakuen School of Music - piano group, Mikimoto Methode Finger training school) and other cities. To enjoy a short video produced by Frederick Lacy "The Alexander Technique and Performing Arts" click here. For more details about the Alexander Work for instrumentalists and how to bring an Alexander workshop to your area contact the ATC. Info about the International Music Academy Maestro International Music Academy Maestro was founded in 2002 by the concert pianist Junko Kasahara to create a cultural forum in Kyoto. Since then Maestro offers fundamental education for pianists combined with qualified lessons in the Alexander Technique and regular concerts with international artists. Musicians play various programs on Sunday afternoon. Please check IMA Maestro-Salon Concert for more info on these monthly special events. The ATC Kyoto Training Course for Teachers of the Alexander Technique ATC Kyoto is situated in quiet historical area and offers the finest standard of a contemporary teacher training program in a beautiful, peaceful, stimulating and supportive learning environment. To see location and building of the ATC Kyoto on a Google map click here. The training course at ATC offers a thorough teachers education and a solid grounding in Alexander's unique teaching principles over a three-year period presently based on the requirements of-and accredited by the Solidarity of Teachers of the Alexander Technique JSTAT. In this conventional residential training, leading to certification as an Alexander teacher, students study and train in the principles of "psychophysical re-education of the use of the self" as discovered by F.M. Alexander: recognition of the force of the habbit, faulty sensory perception, inhibition, direction, means whereby and end-gaining. The course always encompasses both professional and personal development. Participants learn to identify, evaluate and change habitual somatic patterns in daily life and learn how to direct others in the discovery and application of the principles. The coursework of the teacher certification program develops comprehensive understanding of the concepts of the Technique, both kinesthetically and intellectually, and provides training in the established practices of teaching the Technique. The course is of three years duration equalling a minimum of 1600 training hours. ・The first year of the ATC Kyoto training focuses on enabling each student to understand in both practice and theory the three key elements of the Alexander Technique: Primary Control, Conscious Inhibition and Direction. ・・The second year focuses more on developing the refined manual skills and physical practices that have been evolved to pass on the Alexander Technique. ・・・The third year focuses on the practical problems of Alexander teaching and trainees progress from practicing on each other to supervised practice on members of the public. Of the 1600 hours over three years, 60 hours will be allocated to approved independent study in which students may pursue an individual area of interest. In the ATC Teacher Training Course tuition takes up to 15 hours per week, for four terms a year. Students receive individual instruction from the director during their training and learn to apply the principles of the Technique through practising their finely developed practical 'hands-on' work on fellow-students and working on themselves. On completion of the training course students will receive an Alexander teaching certificate from ATC's school and will also be eligible to apply for membership in the Japan Solidarity of Teachers of the Alexander Technique JSTAT, as a teaching member. JSTAT is the professional Alexander teachers organization in Japan which is connected with affiliated societies and networks around the world. [Friends, mentors and supporters of ATC Kyoto, pupils, students and teachers who graduate from ATC's training course have the additional option to join the USA- based (main office) ATI (Alexander Technique International). ATI has also teaching members in Japan and is an open organization which embraces the diversity of the international Alexander Technique community and is working to promote international dialogue. Anyone who supports the purpose of Alexander Technique International and who pays the dues as set by the executive board is welcome to join ATI whether they are teachers or not. Anyone wishing to become an ATI teaching member with an ATI teaching certificate must be assessed by and obtain the written sponsorship of three duly elected ATI sponsoring members. ATI uses this sponsoring mechanism to certify teachers. ATI has not set a quantitative standard of Alexander teacher training courses such as a certain number of hours, weeks and years of training or a specific ratio of students to teachers and ATI certification never follows as a direct result of any training.] Established in January 2004 the ATC Kyoto F.M.Alexander Teacher Training School welcomes prospective students. Head of Training is Lucas Lorenzi (STAT certified 1985). Putting hands on, and not making speeches, is the only way to convey the idea. In the words of the creator of the Alexander Technique himself: Words cannot convey, describe, express, explain it, or give the experience of it. If you desire to explore practically the possibilities open to you, the work offered in ATC Kyoto is teaching an intelligent way to relieve the pain and stress caused by everyday misuse of the self and a chance to change not only your body but to connect body and mind and to tune up your whole system to create balanced conditions which let you be flexible in different daily activities and moments. The Alexander Technique teaches how you can apply those balanced conditions in all areas of life and gives you an ability to be one with, in harmony with the flow of physical, mental and emotional change while walking your way on the path of the human beeing. If you wish to learn this practical technique which is based on mindbody awareness and re-coordination you are welcome. "Change is a continuing process, not a goal; a constant journey, not a destination." If you wish to learn about the Alexander Technique and for having qualified individual lessons, group classes, workshops & teacher training in Japan contact our centre for music & mindbody awareness in Kyoto: info@alexandertechnique.ne.jp