News

PRE-PUBLICATION OFFER ON ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE FOR ACTORS:

Save 30% and get your copy of Alexander Technique for Actors: A Practical Course by Penny O’Connor for just £10.49 (RRP £14.99) when you pre-order direct from publishers Nick Hern Books – head to https://www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/alexander-technique-for-actors-a-practical-course and enter discount code ALEXANDERNHB30 at checkout. This pre-publication offer is valid until 14 July only.

Nearly there! It was due out last April and of course lockdown happened. It’s been quite a journey and based  on my work with  drama students at ArtsEd, and other London theatre schools over the years. Even if you’re not in the drama biz you will love it – it gives a very good idea of the  work, fun games to play and deeper experiments to carry out – oh and there’s a few illustrations by the brilliant Jenny Quick:

Glad to say that under latest government guidelines I have re-opened my teaching space in Old Street. So if you are fed up with Zoom, come back into touch with a kinaesthetic experience of human contact. It is so essential for our well being.

touch

Staying in the moment

Touching the heart with our hands.

I am hosting a half hour meeting on zoom on Saturday 3^rd April at 6.30 pm UK time, called Coming To Quiet.

An experiment in doing nothing. There will be silence for the half hour. I suggest gallery view, muting yourself and keeping your camera on so we have the visual experience of witnessing each other sitting or standing there not doing anything. As Alexanders we may think of it as coming to a unified field of attention, finding our ‘up’, directing ourselves, a half hour of inhibiting reactions,  a state of rest, being present, sensing the Earth holding us up through our feet and our sitting bones, sensing the space surrounding us, the space we take up, the still point of the turning world…..coming to quiet.

There is no attendance fee. Email me for the zoom login. pennyoconnor1@gmail.com

Hi

Every 1st of the month I invite you to lie down in semi supine on Zoom, as I give some guiding thoughts.

It’s free but a donation to Alzheimers Research UK on my ‘justgiving’ site would be much appreciated in memory of my sister and mother who both died suffering this terrible disease. https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/penny-o-connor6

Next one: Thursday April 1st 6.30 pm

Please email me for the zoom link

pennyoconnor1@gmail.com

‘

‘Loving your classes on Friday. I look forward to them every week and it has really set me off thinking about all sorts of things.’

‘Many thanks for a lovely class, to come back into the body, connect with the breath and the space around is very needed right now.’

Every Friday 6- 7 pm, drop-in group workshop £10 email me pennyoconnor1@gmail.com  to introduce yourself and I will email you  the zoom details.

‘Thank you for a lovely session, thoroughly enlightening and beneficial. You have a particularly easy manner and flow about you. ‘

‘Thanks so much Penny, really enjoyed the session, the fact that I even attempted to dance is quite miraculous!’

It is a real pleasure to have the leisure to be able to properly think about and sustain the AT work. I have always loved your practical yet imaginative teaching…..

I loved that session thank you so much. This all makes such wonderful sense – I think due to your beautiful  teaching gift….

This class is one of the most beautiful appointment of the week. Thank you!

‘Thank you so much for the session last night. It was wonderful! Exactly what I needed and beyond what I hoped for. To find we were focusing on arms and shoulders was a dream come true.’

‘This lesson has been fabulous. You are a treasure and a very precious one. It answered so many questions I have been asking myself and around throughout the year! Thank you! ‘

Thanks for the precis of what we covered and for the link up and for a lovely class. The reach of the arm literal and metaphorical is quite mind blowing – and I thought I knew a bit of anatomy – so that’s opened up a way of thinking about that shoulder arm relationship.

Hi there

One of my regular clients would like to pair up with someone to do lessons online with me. They are £25 each for 30 – 40 mins shared lesson. Its really useful doing it as a pair as you can see what is going on with the other person as well as yourself, and have someone to connect with between lessons to share Alexander experiences.

If you’re interested let me know at pennyoconnor1@gmail.com and we can go from there.

experiments in attention with a partner – pre covid19!

Working together on Hamlet at ArtsEd

ongoing deep discussions on the nature of inhibition

Greetings!

During the present situation with Covid19 I am offering lessons online. Although usually taught hands- on in the presence of a teacher and student,  I have discovered that screen presence and guidance also leads to significant change, helping us think differently and more presently so we can free ourselves of habits we no longer require.

‘I feel taller…I feel lighter…my shoulders have dropped away…I can feel the ground under my feet….this really works…it’s as though you are in the room with me…’   feedback from some of my delighted students this last week.

We are already being asked to change our  habits – not to go out whenever we want, to walk two meters away from anyone else, to wash our hands more diligently and not to touch our face.

Alexander Technique can help with all that.

Most of us are spending a lot more time online with a screen in front of us, without any ergonomic help.  Some of us may be getting back pain, neck and shoulder tensions.

Alexander can help with all that.

A lot of us are anxious about the dangers of the virus for ourselves and our loved ones. And for the economic consequences.

Alexander can help with that anxiety too. And calm and deepen our breathing.

If you’ve not had a session before, why not give it a go?

£40 for half an hour using Zoom.

Contact me now on pennyoconnor1@gmail.com or text/call me on 07901976364 to arrange an appointment.

Yes, still doing them. The details are up on my sister site: www.alexanderingreece.com

Pleased to say bookings already coming in so, check them out before they all go!;

3rd – 10th July with Shaw Method Swimming

10th – 17th July  assisted by  Christos Noulis, Alexander teacher from Thessaloniki

4th – 11th September just me!

From £598 inc accommodation

Travel: Flights to Skiathos, and ferry to Alonnisos.

Here’s a group from last year with me there, on our way for a swim and Chi Kung in the bay below.

Have a wonderful Christmas! And let’s hope for the best in 2020 with a brave heart, a cheery step and ready for adventure, as the world turns and the light is chequered with dark patches.

Pleased to say that the brilliant teacher Poppy Walshaw is covering my Tuesday morning sessions at Neal’s Yard Therapy Rooms in Sevenoaks from  25th June – September 17th. 9.30 – 1.30 pm. 

Book with Neal’s Yard on 01732456402 or contact Poppy at poppywalshaw@gmail.com or visit her website https://poppywalshaw.com/2015/03/08/alexander-technique-lessons/