KADERMO / HANKO — 7 days — May 28 - June 4, 2010

Teaching on a Yoga Retreat on a beautiful Finnish island in the ocean

Open to anyone

These seven days (Friday evening to Friday morning) take place in The Midnight Sun Ashtanga Yoga Retreat, lead by yoga master, Stefan Engström. The retreats normally take only a small group of students to be able to create a nice close-knit group and a family atmosphere. The retreat is located on the island of Kadermo about 10 km north east of Hanko (see map here) — a beautiful and almost untouched island with no shops or cars and hardly any other people.

This is a unique opportunity to experience yoga in untouched and idyllic surroundings far away from city lights where sunrise is at 4 am and sunset at 11 pm. Where else can one listen to such silence, broken only by the sound of an owl hooting in the night, a woodpecker hacking away at a pine tree, seagulls squalling, a deer crying in the morning mist?  This is the place where you can re-establish contact with nature and your true self. Come and move into stillness with us.

David will be teaching each day on this retreat and will:

  — help you understand your marvellous human design and function,
  — guide you to gain a more centred balance and flexible support,
  — work with you to improve the freedom, ease and safety of your yoga work, 
  — show you how to go about your yoga to gain strength and stamina without hard work,
  — help you to become more present and free of distracting thoughts and judgement,
  — show you how wholeness and grace is a consequence of clarity of intention,
  — and whatever else comes up from each of you in the course of the retreat...

See complete description of the course and enrolment details here

 

ABOUT THE TEACHER

David Gorman has become widely known for his innovative and unique approach to making our human functioning understandable, relevant and fascinating. In 1980 he published a 600-page illustrated text on human structure and function called The Body Moveable, now in its 5th edition, and in 1995 a collection of articles and essays, Looking At Ourselves (available as a print book or as an e-book).

David has been helping people make sense of and improve how they function as well as recover from injury since the mid-70s. He has taught the Alexander Technique since the late 70's and trained Alexander teachers until 1997 when his new LearningMethods work began to evolve from his discoveries.

He teaches private workshops, and at numerous universities, conservatories, circus schools, yoga and fitness centres, etc. where he helps faculty and students alike learn how to use the work for themselves and how to teach others. He is training a growing number of teachers in the LearningMethods work, many of whom are also teaching the LearningMethods work at conservatories and universities.

David is now writing another book covering the material of this workshop, parts of which will soon be available in e-book and print format.

More information about the retreat is on the Midnight Sun Ashtanga Yoga Retreat web site
 

Contact for more information and registration:
        Stefan Engström     
        Tel: +358-(0)40-5029811
        The Midnight Sun Ashtanga Yoga Retreat, Sandö Ström, 10900 Hanko, Finland
 

 
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HELSINKI — 5-7 June 2010 — A 3 day workshop Alexander Technique in the 21st century     Living and teaching the Alexander work in today's world

 

WHO IS IT FOR?

Open to any Alexander Technique teachers and trainees, or long-time Alexander students.
** If you cannot make all 3 days, you will get a lot from the first 2 weekend days
The workshop will be in English

WHAT IS IT ABOUT?

The Alexander Technique is an amazingly deep and profound work, but Alexander himself was clear that, while he had made a solid beginning, he did not have all the answers. He hoped that others would come after him, and help the work grow and become even more effective.

I can guarantee that you will come away from these 3 days
inspired, excited, and even more enthusiastic about your work !!
In fact, I feel so confident of this that I will give you your money back
if you don't agree after the second day   (full time participants only)

The principles of the Alexander Technique are true to the extent that they do actually match our human nature — our underlying wholeness, our tendency to get stuck in unconstructive habits, and our capabilities for change and getting back in touch with ourselves. 

Of course, our underlying human nature has not changed in the last hundred years since Alexander developed his work, but our understanding of ourselves sure has changed, becoming clearer and more useful. The ways we get this profound learning across to others has also evolved, becoming more effective as well as easier and quicker to learn.

This is not about getting better at the past,
but about keeping up with the present and getting ready for the future !

David Gorman brings over 38 years of his experience, innovative teaching and research to these 3 days.

"I have been playing around with your work for a couple of years now but it really came
together on the course, I feel more confident in explaining the Alexander Technique
(not such a mystery now!) and my clients are loving this new approach with some
remarkable results. What a relief not to worry about bits of us and just deal with the whole..."
                                         Alexander Teacher, after recent London workshop

THIS WORKSHOP IS FOR YOU IF YOU:

— have questions or confusions about the Alexander work you haven't been able to clear up?

— want to have more effective and quicker ways to help people that you can use right away in your teaching?

— use the work to release yourself from certain habits over and over and wonder what it would take to completely rid yourself of these habits forever?

— know your students have lots of unconstructive ideas and reactions to their feelings but don't know how to get at them and help them change?

— find your students become dependent on the experiences you facilitate and can't seem to learn on their own?

— find your students are not understanding what you are teaching them the way you'd like them to, but you aren't sure what else to do?

— want to reinvigorate your practice and bring new interest and excitement about the work to your students?

There is certainly much more we can explore, and this is where you come in. This workshop is for you, so your interests and questions will be the main driver of what we get into. 

"Thank you again for your inspirational teaching!  I was left with a new sense
of confidence in the work from this new understanding and I feel a lot
of my confusion around the AT as I used to see it has been cleared up!"
                                         Alexander Teacher, after recent workshop

HERE ARE JUST SOME OF THE THINGS YOU'LL LEARN ABOUT:

— how reliable sensory appreciation is actually reachable and it doesn't even take that long once you understand what it is,

— how to teach people to be able to stand, sit, bend in monkey, walk, run, climb stairs with ease and centred support, all far faster than you thought possible,

— understand the huge implications for the Alexander work of the latest neuroscience about learning,

— how being clearer about the "Anatomy of Wholeness" will enable your students (and you) to live in wholeness and presentness now, rather than always be trying to get there,

— showing your students how to think for themselves and become independent learners so they do more learning outside your lessons with them,

— helping your students uncover the ideas and misconceptions that keep them trapped in habit and reaction, and how easy it is to be free once they see through them,

— how your hands-on work can be powerful and reinforce learning without seducing the student into yummy experiences they just want to try to repeat.

— and. of course, much, much more...

"I have been playing around with new ideas from your workshop with my students
and I must say it's fun, and they seem to be able to take it in — I can visually see
more coordination and more movement in the way they use themselves!"
                                         Alexander Teacher, after recent Irish workshop

WHO IS THE TEACHER?...

David Gorman has been studying the Alexander Technique since 1972. He trained in London with Walter Carrington, becoming an Alexander teacher in 1980, the same year his 600-page illustrated text on our marvellous human structure, The Body Moveable, was published.

With his background of anatomical knowledge he had the good fortune to be invited to teach in a wide range of Alexander training courses around the world as well in trainings for Feldenkrais, osteopathy, chiropractic, massage, for doctors in hospitals and rehabilitation clinics, and in lots of performing arts colleges, orchestras and conservatories.

He gave the STAT F.M. Alexander Memorial Lecture in 1984, titled Thinking About Thinking About Ourselves, and was director of a Training Program to train teachers of the Alexander Technique in London, England in the '80s and 90's. He has been the Assistant Editor of the Alexander Review, a member of the STAT Council, a founding member of CanSTAT, NASTAT (now AmSAT) as well as the main architect of the framework of the Affiliated Societies, and ATI's sponsorship certification process. He is also the author of Looking at Ourselves, a collection of essays on the Alexander Technique.

Over the years, his changing understanding about the root causes of people's problems led him to continually evolve his Alexander Technique teaching to find more and more powerful ways to help people change and especially to become independent in their learning.

It also became clear that a lot of people's difficulties did not just hinge on their physical use but had to do with their ideas, beliefs and thinking, so David developed a new complimentary approach, LearningMethods (and an offshoot, Anatomy of Wholeness about our human design), to help people explore and make changes in these areas too. This multi-faceted work is now being integrated into the curricula of performance schools in Europe, Canada and the United States by a growing number of LearningMethods Teachers.

David is writing a new book, parts of which will soon be available in e-book and/or print format, and he is about to start a new modular training in LearningMethods, the Alexander Technique, and Anatomy of Wholeness.
 

Dates/Times:

Saturday 5 June to Monday 7 June 2010 (you can also attend for the weekend only)
Each day will run from 10am - 5pm with a one-hour lunch break.

Location:

The location in Helsinki is undecided at this moment. Participants will be notified and a map will be posted here when available.

Cost: (see also discount for full-time students below — all fees must be paid at registration)

Attending this 3 day workshop:
The fee is €240 (€140 deposit) for the 3 days (you must pay the deposit or full fee at the time of registration)..

Full-time student discount:
If you are a student in full-time training/study you are eligible for a €50 discount. The student fee is €190 (€140 deposit) for the 3 days (you must pay the deposit or full fee at the time of registration).

Attending Part-time:
If you cannot attend the full 3 days, you can attend the weekend or other days. The part-time fee is for whole days only and is €90 per day (you must pay all part time days at the time of registration).

Concessions are available:
If you cannot afford the full fee, but really want to attend, we would rather have you there than not be there just for financial reasons, so contact the organizer for further details.

Registration and Payment:

Register on-line now and pay by credit card or Paypal via secure servers, making sure you include your phone numbers and address in the note section.

All fees or deposits must be paid at the time of registration

Contact:   for more details:

David Gorman    E-mail: 
  Tel: +1 416-519-5470

Fine print – cancellations and refunds:  If we cancel the workshop for any reason you will be refunded in full any tuition or deposit money paid. If you cancel for any reason up to two weeks before the workshop starts you will be refunded any fees paid minus a €50 processing fee. No refunds will be made for any reason later than one week before the workshop start time.