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AT Congress® Berlin 2022

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Portrait Penelope Easten

Penelope Easten
Clare, Ireland

Alexander technique as relationship to myself and my world

This workshop is based on the teachings of Margaret Goldie.

Exploring ourselves and our use is a living process, and Miss Goldie taught that coming to quiet is the key to this. It brings us fully present, relating to ourselves and our surroundings simultaneously. By learning this you can:

  • find quiet aliveness in everyday life
  • achieve a quality of use that is more free, more real, more alive
  • allow co-ordinated action to come spontaneously from intention
  • find your comfortable space with others
  • be at ease with yourself and others, and meet their eyes with confidence

This is crucial in a world where we increasingly communicate by cell phone or online, and it is too easy to become afraid of each other through lack of human contact. We will experiment with coming to quiet in body and consciousness in order to explore open and authentic face-to-face contact, while also remaining totally present to the room.

We will also seek to understand it by looking at the autonomic nervous system and the polyvagal theory i.e. how to move from states of fear and alarm to calmer states of balance and social receptivity. This is important to know for ourselves as AT teachers, and as supportive friends and family members. This work also enables us to bring our pupil to a state of safety and presence so we can work with them effectively in person and online. I also feel that relating to ourselves and our world in this way is key to relating to all people equally without judgement or fear.

About Penelope Easten

Penelope was born in Wales, and studied Zoology at Cambridge University, England. She left a PhD there to train at the North London Alexander School, qualifying in 1989. She then worked with Miss Goldie for four years, who, it felt, stripped away everything she had learnt, and rebuilt it as she saw the technique should be –a scary process!

Since then, she has worked extensively with other teachers who had known her, including Erika Whittaker, to understand the essence of the difference of her understanding. During two separate years, Penelope was unable to walk with chronic fatigue syndrome. These years of illness became times of quiet retreat, deepening her work.

With the illness now gone completely, she has regained resilience, strength, and fitness, particularly through using the Initial Alexander technique, which she studied with Jeando Masoero, along with The Embodied Present Process with Philip Shepherd. The Miss Goldie workshops started as a 90-min workshop at the International Congress in 2004 (Oxford), and was then followed with workshops in the UK, Ireland, Germany, and New York, including the Limerick International Congress in 2015.

Her book: The Alexander Technique: the Twelve Fundamentals of Integrated Movement, based around Miss Goldie’s work, was published in March 2021.

Since COVID-19, she has run trainings for AT teachers on teaching online, based on the material from her book. She now lives and works in the beautiful West of Ireland, teaching locally and online. Her work facilitates the pupil to discover the technique for themselves, to find natural breathing, poise, quiet awareness, integration, true fitness and strength. 
In her free time, she enjoys making discoveries about the technique through singing and reciting, piano playing, yoga and fitness work, gardening, running, dancing, and walking her dog. 

penelope.easten@gmail.com
https://alexandertechniqueinfo.org/

See also: Penelope Easten – Presenter Detail Page

How-to
Wednesday, 24 August 2022
15:00 h - 17:00 h (3.00pm-5.00pm)
Math Building
Floor: 1.OG (1st floor)
Room: MA 141

CATEGORIES
AT Principles and Procedures||Performance/Music/Acting/Voice||Everyday Activities||Practical Teaching Skills||AT Games||Communication/Verbal Skills||DEI – Diversity/Equity/Inclusion||Science

2

WORKSHOP STYLE

Fully Practical

Lecture

OPEN FOR
Teachers||Trainees||Everyone