It is very tempting as a new Alexander Technique teacher to offer your friends free lessons.
It rarely works out.
Alexander Technique demands a lot from the student and somebody taking a free lesson is unlikely to do the work necessary.
It’s not just that people will show up drunk or high or late, it is that the freeloader is unlikely to treat your observations with any respect. If you point out that they hunch their shoulders when they get in and out of a chair, they’ll say it’s not a big deal. Or it’s just a temporary blip. It’s not an observation that means anything to them.
Most people enjoy getting a table turn because it’s like a massage. But when it comes to the cognitive work demanded by the Technique, they’re not signed on.
By contrast, if you give a free lesson to a busy professional like a doctor, they are signed on. Because their time is so valuable, if they are willing to extend some of it to you, it’s because they’re seriously interested in what you have to say and what you observe. All the doctors I’ve met with and given free lessons to have taken the work as seriously as my paying students.
