Embodied cognition is the well-founded theory that explains how bodily sensations and experiences are essential to forming our understanding of the world, the construction of conceptual knowledge, and meaning-formation.  It accounts for the role of sensation and movement in perception, social and emotional judgements, language comprehension, emotions, abstraction and metaphor. It asserts that even our higher-level mental skills and cognitive judgement emerge from our ability to abstract from embodied experiences.

This workshop explores how Embodied Cognition theory can support our Alexander Technique work, then shares practices from our work bringing embodiment practices to support whole person  teaching and learning in Chicago Public Schools, to give teachers and teaching artists tools to consider learners’ bodies AND minds together as critical and valuable to learning.

We’ll review embodied cognition studies that are relevant to the Alexander Technique, and share embodiment practices developed through our research to enhance learning. Together, we’ll explore and consider how scientific findings from this well-founded theory might support our own AT practice and communication about our work.