I am just realizing how much stronger I am today than when I started my Alexander Technique teacher training program in January 2009.
When I started the program, which lasts for three hours every day (36 weeks a year), I had great doubts about my ability to do it. Just the thought of the 20-minute commute each way scared me. I would have to be operating at a high level while driving my car or I would get into trouble.
So the first few weeks of the program, I took an energy drink (Five Hour Energy) almost every morning to pep me up.
I found that interfered with my sleep, so I quit.
At the same time, I did yoga almost every day.
Within a couple of weeks, I started having cycles of extreme fatigue but I’d always come out of them after a few days.
During my first six months in the training program, the teachers would give me two ten-minute turns a day and a couple of the more advanced students would work with me to. We’d do things like sitting and standing, walking, and other tasks of daily life but learn how to do them with good use. So most of my time in the program, I’d sit around and watch or I’d read books and magazines on Alexander Technique.
During the last three months of my first year, I learned to start doing hands on work on other students. For the next year, I was exhausted most of the time and had to cut out of my life almost everything else. But I worked through this.
Now I get up at 7 am every day, go for a 20-minute walk, and then go in every day to the institute and for the next three hours, I’m working most of the time with other students. I can lift ’em up, throw ’em around, and treat ’em bad.
I come home and feel OK most days and I go to work on my computer.
I quit doing yoga to save on money in January, so that has freed up time and energy.
I feel like possibilities are opening up for me in life because of this work. I feel capable of doing more. I would love to get an MFA in Creative Writing.
I hope to establish a thriving Alexander practice so I can afford to go back to the institute for a fourth year to hone my skills.
Many people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome have found benefit from the three year Alexander Technique teacher training program.
There are about 4,000 certified Alexander Technique teachers in the world.
