ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE
OLIVIA DUQUE
Alexander Technique
Can Help You With...
A wide range of benefits have been experienced through lessons in the Technique. The Technique helps us to re-learn our unhelpful patterns of muscular and postural tension, and restore a sense of ease and improved coordination. Lessons in the Alexander Technique may help with:
- Mood and general well-being
- Back and neck pain
- Repetitive Strain Injury
- Postural issues
- Injury recovery
- Breathing and voice issues
- Musical Performance
- Migraines and headaches
- Parkinson’s Disease
How we hold ourselves and move in our daily lives impacts our physical and mental well-being. The Technique is based upon the understanding that our thinking and our bodies work as a whole. As we learn to un-do and prevent unhelpful tension and patterns, and use our awareness to encourage a more healthy balance of effort, we can experience improvement and benefit in many ways.
"Since having Alexander Technique lessons with Olivia so much has improved in my body. I used to wake up almost every morning with some kind of headache and now that’s a thing of the past. I used to ache and have soreness in my legs and back every time after working in my music studio, but because I use my body in a totally different way than before I don't get those pains anymore. And as a bonus, my playing is freer and more embodied. I am so happy with the work we’ve done together"
- Gary Albert, Musician & Therapist
How The Lessons Work
We talk about having Alexander ‘lessons’ as this is an experience-based approach; it will develop your awareness of how you are holding tension, moving and breathing. You will learn to let go of unhelpful effort and tension, to allow the natural postural mechanism to come back into play.
I teach one-to-one lessons that last between 50 minutes and an hour. I use a combination of working with my hands and offering ideas and verbal guidance to take you through movements like standing, sitting and walking; we also do some work when you are lying down; and we can apply the Technique to any specific movement or activity that you may want help with, such as speaking, working at a computer, playing an instrument, and lots more.
In the beginning, lessons should be at least once a week, if possible. As the process is about re-educating our habits, the regularity and consistency of the new experiences will be helpful. How many lessons are needed will vary, depending on your individual needs.
£50 per lesson
Please ask for concessions
Learn More About Alexander Technique
"I came to Olivia with badly stiff shoulders and back after hours spent hunched over a computer every day. After that first session I slept so well. Our sessions have helped my body to soften and rest. On the weeks I couldn’t come I noticed that I was stiffer. Highly recommend Olivia too, she has a calm, open and warm presence"
- Marianne, Writer & Journalist
"Olivia is naturally empathic and intuitive and instilled a great calm in me from the beginning of our AT sessions. She was able to guide me to my own answers when I questioned certain methods or moves to help me evolve a greater understanding and awareness of my body. I feel lighter and less restricted when I play piano and violin and carry her guidance with me in everyday life. I can’t recommend her enough"
- Jordan Hunt, Musician
About Me
Hi, I'm Olivia. I was first introduced to the Alexander Technique as an oboe student at the Royal College of Music, twenty-six years ago. I quickly found improvement in my playing, particularly in my sound quality and control; I also stopped getting pain in my wrist when I played and found a general improvement in my mood and well-being. This was the beginning of a life-long journey for me. Even before training, I continued having lessons for many years, finding a never-ending fascination with the discovery and possibilities this work opened up in me.
I have always used the concepts in my oboe and piano teaching, and have found the ideas alone to be so beneficial in helping students to develop their playing. Although my path to the Technique was a musical one, I very much enjoy working with people who have come for a wide range of reasons. The Technique can help with a variety of issues and interests, helping us to improve balance, movement, co-ordination, reduce stress and pain and find more ease and enjoyment in daily activities.
I trained at the Constructive Teaching Centre, with teachers who were trained by Walter Carrington (who worked with Alexander himself).
I have assisted on the Alexander courses at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Royal College of Music, and Rose Bruford Drama School.
I run a private teaching practice in Acton, West London.
I am a registered member of The Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique.
About the Alexander Technique
F M Alexander (1869-1955) found he was losing his voice during public performances, where he was reciting/acting. Through an in-depth process of self-observation, he cured himself (when his Doctors had not been able to), and he developed the Alexander Technique.
Alexander found it was unhelpful (and unsuccessful) to try to directly change his habitual muscular and postural patterns. The emphasis is on learning to recognise and prevent, or ‘undo’, the old unhelpful patterns, to allow a more easeful, inherent poise or balance to be restored. If we stop interfering then something better will be able to happen.
We are also improving the reliability of our feeling sense of what it is we are doing with ourselves. The brain is designed to make us feel that the way we move or hold ourselves is ‘normal’. Our ‘normal’ is always shifting, and with the Technique we can help it to change for the better.
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