In this workshop Doris and her colleague Maaike Aarts, who is also training as a Taoist, will explore the similarities between Alexander Technique and Taoism.  Essentially, both AT and Taoism are aware that energy needs to – and can – be projected so that life and movement start flowing more lightly and easily. Both look at human beings as psychophysical unities, both are looking to understand our functioning in relation to use by expanding our consciousness. Both understand that this is a matter of (practical) training, and both are similar in their very practical and down to earth approach to all of this. In this workshop we will demonstrate how Taoist practices can be integrated in our lives and teaching.

The workshop will consist of two parts:

Part one: we will explain and practise some basic Taoist principles, like the Yi meditation, Chi Kung, an exercise on how to channel and regulate emotions and the concept of noticing and projecting ‘energy’. Participants will experience and learn to apply this directly to some of our Alexander work, such as active rest, head-nack-back and inhibition and direction.

Part two: How to incorporate these techniques into your teaching: a hands-on exploration. Here, participants will do hands-on work in small groups. We will take specific Taoist principles and put them into practice as teachers. We will touch upon subjects that often arise during teaching, like how to help our students to become calm so that they can stop; how to help those who have difficulty experiencing their body, how to help students who have difficulty releasing because of previous trauma and how to make pupils feel safe. The use of Taoist elements in our teaching can be of great value in those areas.

Of course there will also be room to ask questions and share experiences.