BATTSA Teachers

Permanent Staff | Visiting Teachers | School Alumni

Permanent Staff

Caroline Chalk - Head of Training

(Qualified A & J Haahr 1984)

Understanding that the way we think can improve our quality of life is a subject that has fascinated me since I started having Alexander lessons at the age of 11. I had problems with headaches and was painfully self-conscious. Once I started lessons my headaches disappeared and my confidence began to grow.

I continued with lessons throughout my teens and found applying the Technique to my music and sports - especially my horse riding which soon became a passion of mine - improved my performance and enjoyment enormously. The Technique was making a huge impression on my life and I was becoming more and more enthusiastic about the possibilities that it offered to everyone and so decided to train to be a teacher in order that I could pass these possibilities onto others.

I did my Alexander training with Jeanne and Aksel Haahr (Carrington trained) in Totnes, Devon and qualified in 1984. Since qualifying I have worked with a wide range of people from many walks of life and love the way the application of the Technique enables people to make the very best of whatever they are engaged in. I am also a qualified and experienced therapist and bring relevant skills in communication and personal development to my role as head of training.

I have a private teaching practice working with individuals & groups. I enjoy the mixture of teaching the general public as well as working on the training course. It is important to me that I teach people at all levels because this means I am constantly in touch with what I am training others to do! I have worked at BATTSA since 2003 and find it very rewarding being able to work at a more advanced and in-depth level with trainees.

I have two dogs and enjoy lots of walking in beautiful places. I love singing and am part of a choir which meets regularly and when I make the time I play the piano a bit, ride horses, play tennis and anything else that catches my interest!

I value the input and companionship of the core teachers at BATTSA very much. I am also grateful to all the visiting teachers that come to BATTSA with their own individual ideas, views and outlooks on applying the Alexander Technique to life which contributes hugely to my continual learning process.

Colin Tully

(Qualified A & J Haahr 1983)
Composer and musician

The AT could be described as a method which explores how the mind effects the body. At the age of ten, long before I'd ever heard of Alexander, I made my first experiments with influencing a physical outcome with a mental attitude.

During a game of golf I discovered that if I didn't try too hard or even adopted a 'couldn't care less' attitude I generally found that I would have a better chance of hitting a golf ball where I wanted it to go. This, I thought, was my own unique discovery (which sadly did not lead me to become especially good at golf, just a slightly less moody child for my father to play his game of golf with!)

When, at the age of nineteen, in my first Alexander lesson my teacher said the words 'don't try' as he took me in and out of the chair, it connected with my earlier golf experience. So, there I was in this lesson, being asked to 'try less hard', 'make less effort' and I again noticed that my mental attitude could affect the physical outcome. I noticed with a rising sense of relief that an enormous heaviness, of which I had been hitherto unaware, was no longer pressing my body down.

As I strolled home from this lesson, the physical lightness was matched by a different and more optimistic mental outlook. More things seemed possible. The future was bright. I was hooked and went back for more!

Several years of private lessons ensued, followed by a training course, 1980 - 83 at Dartington College, Totnes, Devon, which for me was a blissfully, self - indulgent journey of self-exploration. Fortunately, the reality of passing on Alexander's principles to other people, i.e. teaching, has brought me back down to earth. Occasionally, one does get difficult pupils but in a general sense, Alexander teachers can count themselves lucky to be in a 'person based' profession with possibilities of really making a difference for people.

So what was the 'enormous heaviness' that was weighing me down as a teenager? Awkwardness, perhaps, or emotional difficulties which most of us go through at that age.

Another factor was an obsession with playing various musical instruments. Piano, guitar, flute and saxophone all left their impression on my physical structure i.e. I was hunching over at the piano, twisting to play the flute etc.

Needless to say the Technique has helped me a lot in the relationship with my instruments and playing, not just in a purely physical sense but helping to keep me free and constructive within a greater range of musical environments.

Nowadays my professional life is happily split between playing saxophone, (I run my own band) exploring the 'use of myself' in music and teaching the Alexander Technique to pupils and trainee teachers.

Perhaps, however the most daunting field of exploration is in my loving relationship with my two high energy daughters of 10 and 13, who daily threaten to transform me back to the grumpy man I might have become!

Belinda May - Assistant Director

(Qualified BATTSA 1999)
Teaches anatomy at BATTSA

About 20 years ago I was given a book, the Alexander Principle by Wilfred Barlow, which I dutifully decided to read. By the end of the book I was so fascinated I decided to have some lessons and so began my association with the Alexander Technique.

At the time I suffered from headaches and "poor posture", throughout my life I had always being told to stand up straight, but had never imagined the two were connected. I found that after a lesson I had a very different sense of co-ordination, it felt good, and in time my head aches left me, my posture was improving along with my confidence. So I continued with more lessons until one day I decided to train as a teacher as soon as my youngest child started school.

I qualified from BATTSA in 1999 and set up my teaching practice at home in Blagdon, North Somerset. I have helped on various introductory courses including a weeks course for musicians in France. I have also held introductory courses for Somerset Council Adult Learning programs.

At the beginning of 2003 Ali Burrows - then head of training - asked me if I would like to come and teach at BATTSA and take the anatomy session, I naturally said yes. I feel very lucky and privileged to work there for many reasons. Working with the trainees in depth as they study the Technique and learn to apply the principles to their lives; helping them on their journey to become teachers and the wonderfully supportive atmosphere of the school. I find teaching the anatomy session fascinating, the more you learn and discover about the workings of the body the more you realise you cannot separate mind and body.

Lucia Walker - BATTSA's Moderator

(Qualified D & E Walker 1987)

Lucia qualified as an AT teacher in 1987 after training with Dick and Elisabeth Walker.  Since then she has taught individuals, groups and on teacher training courses in Europe, America and Japan. She also continues to work as an independent dance teacher and performer specialising in improvisation.

In teaching Lucia likes to use games, discussion, touch, stillness and activity to explore Alexander's principles in ways that are relevant and enjoyable. She loves the way Alexander work supports the ability to find greater wholeness and confidence in our lives.

For more info on the moderator's role click here.

Jacqueline Evans

(Qualified BATTSA 2006)
Violinist

I discovered the Technique at the end of 25 years of being absorbed in motherhood and family life, when I was feeling that I hardly knew who I was without this role.

I am also a violinist and teacher of the violin but had long been frustrated that pain and stage fright got in the way of my enjoyment of performing.

After a few lessons I decided to train as a teacher because I was exhilarated by a sense that the Technique was enabling me to peel away habits and choose how to be, rather than being dominated by parts of myself that felt as though they were beyond my control. During the training I had a sense of clearing a fog of limitation and fear. Instead of being overwhelmed by a sense of how much I couldn’t do – no longer a hands-on Mum, and too scared to get on stage and play my violin – I became full of a sense of possibility and potential.

I am now passionate about teaching the principles of the Alexander Technique to others – it is a joy to watch people rediscovering their true selves. I have a thriving private practice and have been honoured and delighted to be asked to teach at BATTSA this year. I’m also thoroughly enjoying playing the violin again.

Vivi Hansen

(Qualified Ali Burrows 1998)
Also teaches Pilates

I have always been a keen athlete. Competitive runner from the age of 10, running every single day for 7-8 years.  Although I did well, I also suffering endless running related injuries. In the end I packed up the spikes, became a casual runner and looked elsewhere to fuel my energy.

By coincidence I was introduced to rock climbing (living in Denmark, a country where the highest peak is a grass slope at 147m high, with no rocks anywhere in sight, climbing wasn’t the obvious thing to do). My life revolved around climbing for the next 10 years. I moved to Norway where I could work and climb at the same time, I travelled as much as possible to explore new climbing places. In the winter seasons I climbed and competed indoors, taking part in National competitions. In 1990 I pushed myself a bit too far and I had a bad fall from a rock face in Australia. In some ways I was lucky not to hurt myself more seriously, but I did injure my back.

This back injury became the beginning of my Alexander Technique journey.  After 2 years of conventional treatments, I still had a lot of pain, and the frustration of not living my “normal” life was getting unbearable. I was only 27 years old. Luckily I meet my first Alexander Teacher and she soon got me interested in lessons and needless to say, started changing my life.

My back pain improved, I moved back to Norway and climbing, and in 1995 I came to the UK and started training at BATTSA.

The change in my approach to life and sport has been radical. Applying the Alexander Technique has given me a tool to listen to my body, avoiding injuries, gaining more freedom of movement and not least more constructive thinking.

I thoroughly enjoy teaching, both in my private teaching practise in Wells, and teaching Teacher trainees at BATTSA, where I have been teaching on and off since 1998, both in the daily teaching and doing specialised Running and Climbing workshops.

Gunda Fielden

(Qualified Danny McGowan A.Z.A.T. 1996)
Theatre background

I first came into contact with the Alexander Technique at the age of 19… my mother sent me! I’d had a lot of trouble with my back from a very young age; a built up shoe for my ‘shorter leg’; a variety of not particularly positive experiences with physiotherapists and a great deal of niggly ill health from the age of 17. I took 2 lessons and then forgot about it… or so I thought.

7 years later, now in Berlin, I’d found myself a boyfriend with similar ‘poor posture’ who also had asthma. He’d had enough… so I sent him! Then he began to change, and I began to feel shorter and shorter, more and more rounded. “Oh no!” I thought. “I’ve sent him to the thing I should be doing.”

I’d been working in the theatre, assistant directing, stage managing and lighting etc. and happened at the time to be touring only 10 days of the month so I had no excuse. I had the time. I went for lessons and the Technique grabbed me.

Almost immediately I knew I wanted to train to be a teacher. It was something about the ‘wrong way round’ way of thinking – the ‘doing nothing’ to solve my problems, but rather to stop creating them in the first place, which appealed to me. As Marjorie Barlow said – with a charming smile – at a Master class I went to some years later in Basel: ”The only lesson you can go to where you get praise for doing nothing is an Alexander Technique lesson… but then you find out that doing nothing isn’t quite so easy.”

I trained at A.Z.A.T. (Ausbildungszentrum fur F.M. Alexander Technik) in Berlin from 1993-96 and then became a teacher there, 2 mornings a week for 3 years. During this time I had private practices in Berlin and Dresden and ran introductory courses.

I returned to England in 1999 and have since been based in Sherborne, Dorset, where I have my teaching practice, and am ‘bringing up’ or rather ‘being brought up’ by my lovely challenging twins, Rory and Tara who were born in 2002.

Nowadays I like to think of the Technique as a kind of personal ecology. I feel inspired by the idea that if we can restore balance and well being to our own eco-system by inhibiting the habits which disturb its good functioning, then we may, just may, be able to put this knowledge to good use as we learn to look after the planet better as well as ourselves.

Linda Jordan

(Qualified J Haahr 1990)

I found my way into the Alexander Technique via a sore neck and arm – generated by learning to play a clarinet with more enthusiasm than knowledge. After a year of lessons I wanted to study the technique in greater depth but certainly didn’t want to be a teacher. I qualified in 1990 (Jeanne Haahr) and the teaching just happened anyway.

I have been teaching at BATTSA since then; as a core teacher, as Assistant Director and as a visiting teacher. I have also trained with Steven Shaw in the Art of Swimming and qualified as a Shaw Method teacher in 2001. I teach A.T. privately at my home in Devon and continue to play my clarinet – without a sore neck!

Teaching Term

Recently qualified teachers from the Training School are encouraged to do a teaching term of one day a week.

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Visiting Teachers

To complement our core teachers we have regular visits from experienced Alexander teachers from around the world, some skilled not only in the Alexander Technique but also in specific areas, e.g. swimming; running; group teaching; acting and voice; music; anatomy, etc.

We welcome visitors to the workshops (see information below) where they can join in on the day's activities. Visitors are welcome to come at 9am before the workshops starts and share work with teachers and trainees for the first hour. The cost is £30 a day.

Summer and Autumn 2009 terms

Lucia Walker - Awareness in Action

10th Jun 2009

Lucia will explore this topic through the use of games, stillness and discussion.

Michael Harper - Singing and the Alexander Technique

24th Jun 2009

Michael Harper, countertenor, studied at Virginia Commonwealth University then got his Master of Music degree at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music where he also did further doctoral studies. In Britain he studied at the Mayer-Lismann Opera Centre and the Britten Pears School.

He has sung in opera and recitals throughout Europe, USA and China. He also teaches throughout the UK and Europe and works regularly with the National Foundation for Youth Music as a consultant and trainer. He is now chorus master for Pegasus Opera. His recent engagements include: Devi: The Female Principle with Mavin Khoo Dance Company at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and the Venice Dance Bienniale; Koanga (Delius) with Pegasus Opera (chorus master) at Sadler’s Wells, London; a recital and master class at the Asolo Song Festival (Italy); Sing for Water London (Water-Aid) (chorus master); Soul Journey by the jazz trombonist Dennis Rollins in at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival; and a premiere of a new ballet at the Geneva Ballet with dancer/choreographer Isira Makuloluwe and composer, Jennifer McConachie.

Tommy Thompson - Practising And Teaching The Alexander Work Without Losing Touch With The World Around You

2nd Oct - private lessons
3rd & 4th Oct - teachers workshop

Tommy Thompson, Co-founder, Charter member, and past Chair of Alexander Technique International (ATI), a former Assistant Professor of Drama and Managing Director of Tufts Arena Theater at Tufts University, past lecturer at Harvard University, has since 1974 lectured and given well over 300 workshops on the Alexander Technique for American and European universities, Alexander Training Schools, educational and medical centres, for professionals and for Alexander teachers and students in the United States, England, France, Switzerland, Hungary, Germany, Canada and Italy.

In addition to teaching privately in Cambridge, Massachusetts where for the past 34 years he has taught the Technique to professional and Olympic Athletes, dressage riders, scientists, physicians, musicians, dancers, actors, children and the disabled, since 1983, Tommy has directed a Teacher Training School for Alexander teachers. He also currently teaches the work for the American Repertory Theatre/Moscow Art Theatre School in the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University.

For further information on this topic please look at Tommy Thompson’s website – www.easeofbeing.com.

Brigitte Cavadias - Vision Work and AT

Nov 09 - date to be confirmed

Brigitte Cavadias studied the Alexander Technique and the Bates method in London between 1989 and 1992. Ever since, her passion has been to make the link between the two techniques and to integrate them both in her teaching. She lives part-time in  Paris and part-time in Provence; she teaches privately as well as running workshops and courses all over Europe.

With her friend and colleague Marjory Fern from New Zealand, she founded the Altevi Team, which gathers Alexander Teachers working on including the use of the eyes in the use of the self (www.altevi.com). 

For more information on any of the workshops please contact Caroline: caroline@battsa.co.uk

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School Alumni

All teachers on this list are members of STAT.

UK

Bristol

Ms Anna Christy
Ms Lisa Clarke
Claire Coveney
Christine English
Bethan Evans
Jackie Evans
Ms Lesley H. Harrison
Mr David Harrowes
Julia Norman
Charlotte Ostafew
Miss Sandra Tancock

Cambridgeshire / Norfolk

Mrs Susan Reid

Devon

Nick Cann

Gloucestershire

Mrs Sarah Anne Chubb
Joanna Greaves
Bridget Malcolm
Judy Schunemann

London

Rosie Hayles

Oxfordshire

Mrs Matilda Leyser

Somerset

Ms Fiona Clogstoun
Ms Vivi Hansen
Mr Stephen Linley
Mrs Belinda May
Mrs Hellie Mulvaney
Maki Quayle
Ms Jill Ray BHS(SM) BHSH
Mrs Susan Trott

Wales

Ms Sarah Tovey

Wiltshire

Susan Stewart

Worcestershire

Pam Street

Overseas

France

Ms Deborah Cranston

Germany

Anne Pommier

Ireland

Miss Anna Gordon
Bel Spencer

Singapore

Mr Hwa Boon Lee

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