Tommy Thompson

Later, in 1972 when on the faculty of Tufts University in Boston as an Assistant Professor and Managing Director of Tufts Arena Theater, Tommy met Dr Frank Pierce Jones, a colleague at Tufts University who in his generation was the world’s foremost scientific authority on Mr. Alexander’s discoveries. As a Classics Professor at Tufts University Dr Jones also held a faculty position in the Applied Experimental Psychology Department conducting scientific research in the Alexander Technique. Dr Jones had trained to teach the Alexander work with the originator, F. Matthias Alexander and in addition with his bother A.R. Alexander.

Through Dr. Jones, Tommy began a three-year period of study in the Technique. In the spring of 1975, Dr. Jones, believing Tommy was ready to represent the work as a teacher arranged for him to bring the Alexander Technique to the U.S. National Rowing Team at Princeton University. At the time, the team—reigning world champions in the men’s heavyweight eight—was training for the World Championship in Mexico. They were coached by Alan Rosenberg, a gold medal–winning Olympic coach known for advancing elite performance in American rowing.

Rosenberg’s invitation to Tommy marked a breakthrough: it brought the Technique into the world of competitive sport. Tommy spent over a week working with the team, offering Alexander-based support during training.

The team successfully defended their world championship title, and many of the same athletes went on to compete in the 1976 Montreal Olympics.  So In 1976, Rosenberg invited Tommy again, this time to assist with Olympic training at Dartmouth College.

This pivotal experience—applying subtle, embodied awareness in elite sport—confirmed Tommy’s next step. Having Dr. Jones’ full support and blessing in believing he  was ready to represent the work teaching, the following year in 1976 Tommy resigned from Tufts University and began a new professional chapter: returning to the theater as a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, and stepping fully into his work as a full-time Alexander Technique teacher.

For the past 50 years Tommy has taught and applied the Alexander principles and concepts and has guided thousands towards a life well lived more to their satisfaction. This list includes Alexander teachers and trainees, professional and Olympic athletes, dressage riders, scientists, physicians, corporate and university professionals, musicians, dancers, actors, children, trauma victims the sexually abused, and those with life threatening disease and the disabled to a more fulfilling and meaningfully satisfying life He has enjoyed an active in-person and online teaching practice in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and has taught on 30 teacher training courses worldwide. He has given well over 1,000 workshops internationally for Alexander teachers, teacher trainees and the general public in 16 countries including Ireland, France, Israel, iSpain, Germany, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Spain, England, the USA, Japan, Korea, Switzerland, Canada and Slovenia.

Founder and Director of the Alexander Technique Center at Cambridge, the center was awarded The Best of Cambridge, Massachusetts in Alternative and Holistic Health by the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts. At the center, Tommy has been training Alexander teachers since 1983.

Tommy was on the faculty at Harvard University for 12 years where he taught the Alexander Technique to graduate students enrolled in the Institute for Advanced Theater Training, Harvard University/Moscow Art Theater and the American Repertory Theater. A former Assistant Professor of Drama and professional actor and director, Tommy has acted and directed over 200 theater productions with such notable artists as Tennessee Williams in a revival of Eccentricities of a Nightingale (1977), and Michael Douglas, actor/producer and two time Oscar award winner for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Wall Street.

Tommy is founder, charter member, and was first Chair of Alexander Technique International (ATI). His contributions to ATI earned him the ATI Lifetime Membership Award. He is also an Honorary Member of ATI France (ATIF), the Irish Society of Alexander Technique Teachers (ISATT), a teaching member of the Japan Alexander Technique Association (JATA), and was Associate Director of Body Chance’s Japanese Alexander Teacher Education Program in Tokyo and Osaka.

Along with Richard A Brown and Helen Rumsey Jones, wife of Frank Pierce Jones, Tommy founded the Alexander Technique Association of New England (ATA) in 1982 and the Frank Pierce Jones Archives and the F. Matthias Alexander Archives. He served as Director of ATA for 6 years.

He is author of Touching Presence (with Rachel Prabhakar) and co-author of Scientific and Humanistic Contributions of Frank Pierce Jones.  He has contributed numerous papers on the Alexander work, Tai Chi, and theater to Alexander and theater journals, periodicals, martial arts journals, and newsletters. Tommy is currently at work on a new book, An Awakened Life: Evolution of a Teacher and a revised edition of Touching Presence, currently translated in Japanese, French, German, Korean with Spanish and Dutch translations in-progress. 

The newest development has been a newly published Blog in English on Tommy’s teaching created by Ari Kim, an Alexander trainee in Tommy’s teacher training school in Boston. 

A year and a half in development Ms Kim launched ‘Resonance Flow’ with the blog link:

https://theresonanceflow.com/