Alexander Technique International Awareness Week 10-18 October 2009

Celebrating F. Matthias Alexander’s world famous Technique

To celebrate, Alexander Technique events, workshops, talks and demonstrations are being held throughout the UK. Log on to www.stat.org.uk to find out more about the events being organised in your area. The Alexander Technique has been taught and practised for over a hundred years, helping thousands of people to walk tall, reduce the impact of stress and pain and to perform at their best. It offers a practical and intelligent self-help approach to improving mental and physical well-being. The Alexander Technique is a skill that can be learnt by everyone. It can help athletes with performance, models and dancers with poise, singers with vocal quality and all musicians with flexibility and musical expression. Highly acclaimed in the British medical Journal, a study showed that the Alexander Technique has significant, long-term benefits for back pain . Since the study was published the Alexander Technique has gained wide support throughout the medical community – being increasingly recommended by doctors and included in the NICE Guidelines for Chronic Lower Back Pain. As well as back pain and other musculoskeletal difficulties, the Alexander Technique can help to reduce stress and anxiety, lessen muscular tension, improve posture and enhance presentation and vocal skills. The Technique is a unique kinaesthetic learning method that brings greater awareness to everything you do. Lessons are one-to-one and teachers use instruction and hands-on guidance to help people change poor postural habits and develop natural coordination and flexibility. American Alexander teacher and scholar Frank Pierce Jones wrote in ‘Freedom to Change’: "Habitual tensions that have grown up over a long period of time limit development and prevent the free expression of personality". To find your nearest, qualified teacher, go the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique (STAT) website - www.stat.org.uk - or call them on 020 7482 5135. -ENDS- The Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique (STAT) is available for interviews, tips, quotes and advice on all aspects of musculoskeletal health, posture, stress or performance. For more information please contact: Hollie Thomson or Kathryn Dunlop at CCD PR Tel: 020 7434 4100 Email: hollie@ccdpr.com / kathryn@ccdpr.com Editor’s notes: STAT was founded in the UK in 1958. It is the world's oldest and largest professional body of Alexander Technique teachers. www.stat.org.uk STAT Teaching members (MSTAT): • Are certified to teach the Technique after successfully completing a three-year, full-time training course approved by the Society or an affiliated society. • Adhere to the Society’s published Code of Professional Conduct and hold professional indemnity insurance. 1 - Little P, Lewith G, Webley F, Evans M, Beattie A, Middleton K. et al. Randomised controlled trial of Alexander technique lessons, exercise, and massage (ATEAM) for chronic and recurrent back pain. 19 August 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a884. BMJ 2008;337:a884