Lynne Conway
Lessons in the Alexander Technique and Tai Chi
About me
Alexander Technique
My professional life has been as a research scientist and in the pharmaceutical industry. I started Alexander lessons in 2014 and started the full time teacher training a few years later. Now I am passionate about introducing others to the Technique. I continue to be fascinated with how the Technique fits into current thinking in neuroscience, psychology and anatomy and this interest flows into my teaching.
I am also passionate about continuing my exploration of the Technique for myself and my teaching. I am very grateful to David Moore and Jenny Thirtle for my training at the School for FM Alexander Studies in Melbourne. And I am very grateful for the opportunities that opened up during COVID and beyond for post graduate training with wonderful teachers including Robert Britton, Ted Dimon, Michael Stenning and Caren Bayer.
I am accredited with Australian Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique (AUSTAT)
Tai Chi
I have been learning traditional Yang Style tai chi for eight years with Charles Leong, a disciple of Xi’an-based Master Zhao Youbin. I have attended advanced classes with Master Zhao in Xi’an and in Thailand. Charles fosters and supports a large group of tai chi enthusiasts that learn and practice together across much of Melbourne. More details of the wider group can be found at Traditional Yang Style Taijiquan
“Many of the principles of Tai Chi are similar to those of the Alexander Technique. If the principles of each were the same, there would of course be no reason to study both of them. The Alexander work brings students’ attention to their habitual ways of using themselves, and teaches a process by which any activity can be approached with conscious awareness of those habits and the alternatives. Tai Chi presents its practitioners with fascinating challenges in movement and attention, challenges that ask us to fundamentally change our habitual way of being. The Alexander work is a very powerful tool helping us to make those changes.” Stacy Gehman
It is no surprise that many Alexander teachers are also tai chi practitioners. Like them, I find the Alexander Technique and tai chi entirely complementary. Both are pathways to balancing body and mind in stillness and in movement with each enhancing the other.
