About

The Alexander Technique Congress Association (ATCA) is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation registered in England and Wales.

Our mission is to provide a dynamic platform for the enrichment, advancement, and deeper understanding of the F. M. Alexander Technique.

Through the Alexander Technique International Congress we promote respect for the different branches of Alexander practice. ATCA also safeguards valuable assets such as trademarks, website domain names, content, and other intellectual property associated with organising International Congresses. Our evolution from ad hoc committees to a charitable organisation in Switzerland, and subsequently as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation based in England, reflects our commitment to effective governance and transparency. The entire ATCA Board consists of 11 members who are experienced Alexander Teachers and some of whom are former Congress Directors, draws upon a diverse range of skills and expertise. With representation across the USA, the UK, and Europe, we strive to serve as a central hub for the contemporary Alexander Technique community.

Regulated by the Charity Commission of England and Wales (registration number 1192471), the ATCA Trustees comprise four members of the Board.

Below you can read about us: click a name for a short bio.

The Trustees

The Board

Michael Frederick

Jessica Santascoy

Benjamin Mitchell

Andreas Dirscherl

Andreas has been teaching and continues to teach the Alexander Technique in and around Munich since 2005. In 2009, he became Assistant Teacher with a training course in Munich, where he taught until 2015. In this time, Andreas repeatedly substituted for the Head of Training – repeatedly running the training course for a period of several months.

For over 20 years, Andreas has also been a well-known radio presenter and newscaster with the Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bavarian public radio) where he regularly presents the news and can be heard in various radio features and radio plays.

He offers regular introductory AT workshops, is a visiting teacher in several German-speaking AT schools, and gives Alexander Technique Workshops throughout Europe. Combining his practical experiences in front of the microphone with AT principles, he developed a series of voice-oriented workshops. Other specialized workshop formats include Practical Everyday Anatomy, The Power of Doing it Wrong, and AT in the Digital Age.

Andreas was part of the Congress team for the 2011 AT Congress in Lugano, where he was in charge of designing and maintaining the website.

As Co-Director of the 2022 Berlin Congress with Rossella Buono, he planned, co-organised and ran the Congress under the theme “Nurturing Our Work – NOW”.

Rossella Buono

Rossella, born in Italy in 1975, lives and works between her adoptive home in the UK, Italy, and Australia, where she trained with David Moore in Melbourne.

As well as running a successful practice as an Alexander Technique teacher in Canterbury, UK, and online, Rossella also teaches the technique at the School for FM Alexander Studies in Australia.

Rossella is the author of For the Love of Games with Anne Mallen, with beautiful illustrations by Melbourne artist Isobel Knowles. This collection of games and activities, part original and part collected over the years, offers a resource for AT teachers to begin working with groups, or add depth and variety to an existing group-based practice.

Rossella is also the co-creator and co-curator of Authors – not your Usual Book Club with Jana Boronova, and assistant to David Moore’s Smart Yoga and AT training courses in Melbourne. A keen proponent of collaboration, she has worked with Luke Hockley to offer the workshop Learning How to Learn, Jeremy Chance’s AT Success course and many more.

Her interest in training courses has taken her to New York, Germany, Ireland and all over the UK, to share work and present on the topics of marketing, activities, anatomy, working with groups and social media.

Rossella has a gift for organising, a dynamic personality and a down to earth approach to things, allowing her to join the dots leading to new content and collaborative projects. She sees the Alexander Technique as an effective and sustainable model of personal and social development. Bringing an inclusive and practical spirit to all her activities, Rossella aims to realise the Technique’s value as a resource to as many people as possible.

Lucia Walker

Lucia Walker qualified in 1987 after three years training with her parents Dick and Elisabeth Walker at the Alexander Teacher Training Centre Oxford. She teaches the technique to individuals, groups and on teacher training programmes and holiday workshops in England, France, Germany, US, and Japan. After qualification, she also assisted on her training school in Oxford for many years. Working with performers is a particular interest and she works regularly with classical musicians, singers, actors, and dancers.

Fascination with the relationship of vision to use and movement led to ongoing study and teaching with ALTEVI (Alexander Technique and Vision) with whom she led holiday study retreats and workshops. She has also explored Nonviolent Communication (NVC) which like AT supports the ability to change habitual responses and facilitates listening more deeply to oneself and others.

She continues to work as a movement artist, specializing in Contact Improvisation and Instant Composition, teaching, directing and performing.

Lucia was one of the three Directors of the International Alexander Congress held in Oxford in August 2004 and has presented at 6 of the other International Congresses.

Since 2014 she has been co-director of Alexander Technique Learning and Teaching Programmes, Johannesburg, running a teacher training programme and introducing the work in a variety of contexts.

Michael Frederick

Michael D. Frederick is an internationally recognized teacher in the field of psychophysical re-education. He trained as an Alexander Teacher in England with Walter and Dilys Carrington and in America with Marjorie Barstow (all master teachers trained by F.M. Alexander in the 1930s).

He studied in the U.S. and Israel as a Feldenkrais Practitioner with Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais and has extensive training in the Yoga tradition of T.K.V. Desikachar from Madras, India. Michael also trained as an actor at The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Bristol, England and completed a two-year training in the work of Sanford Meisner at the Baron-Brown Studio in Los Angeles. He has a B.Sc. Degree in Speech & Theater from the University of Wisconsin- Whitewater ’68.

As founding director of the first three International Congresses on the Alexander Technique, he has organized and taught over 250 workshops in the U.S. and Europe since 1978. He is Director of Alexander Technique Retreats-International.

Michael worked for two years at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute and taught for over a decade in The Old Globe Theatre’s MFA Acting Program at the University of San Diego.

From 1994 to 2000 Michael organized Alexander Technique Master Classes with Marjory Barlow (F.M. Alexander’s niece) and Elisabeth Walker in San Francisco, Basel and Paris.

Michael is a member of the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique (STAT), the American Society of the Alexander Technique (AmSAT), and Alexander Technique International (ATI). He is former Chairman of the American Society for the Alexander Technique and is now Co-Director and on the Board of Directors of the Alexander Training Institute-LA. Currently, Michael teaches in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, California.

Carol Prentice

Carol P. Prentice is a senior teacher of the Alexander Technique specializing in somatic education and health for 37 years. Carol trained with master teachers Frank Ottiwell and Rome Robert Earle at the Alexander Training Institute in San Francisco. She graduated in 1986. Since graduating, Carol has furthered her training with first generation Alexander Teachers here in the U.S. and in Europe.

Carol graduated from the California College of Ayurveda (CCA) as a Clinical Ayurvedic Specialist (CAS) She taught at CCA and was the Internship Director from 2008 to 2016. Carol is also a certified 500-RYT Yoga Teacher in the tradition of Sri T. Krishnamacharya from the Healing Yoga Foundation in San Francisco. Carol is also a Certified End of Life Doula and Care Consultant. She believes that no one should die alone and educates people on the importance of Advance Directives and having a Health Care Proxy at any age.

Carol was a Co-Director for the 13th International Alexander Technique Congress in Chicago in 2018.

Jamie McDowell

Jamie McDowell is Chair of ATCA. He has been teaching the Alexander Technique since 1984 and is currently Head of Training at Cumbria Alexander Training in the north of England. Originally Jamie became certified under the direction of Don Burton in London and has lived and worked in England and throughout Europe. He is active with other European Alexander Teachers organizing events throughout Europe and attending annual gatherings.

In 2015, he gave the FM Alexander Memorial Lecture at the STAT Conference in London. Jamie was previously a Congress Director at the 9th International Congress in Lugano, Switzerland and the 11th in Chicago, USA. Currently, as the Editor of STAT news (the newsletter of the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique) and Co-Editor of The Alexander Journal, Jamie has ongoing contact with a wide range of opinion-makers in the Alexander world and supports coherence and community in the Alexander Technique profession.

Robert Britton

Robert Britton had his first lessons in the Alexander Technique with Frank Ottiwell in
1974. He began training to be an Alexander Technique Teacher with Frank Ottiwell and
Giora Pinkas in 1975 at the American Center for the Alexander Technique – San
Francisco, and graduated in 1978. In addition to his private practice in San Francisco, he
has been a professor of the Alexander Technique at the San Francisco Conservatory of
Music since 1984.

He has helped train Alexander Technique Teachers since 1989. He regularly teaches at
Alexander Technique teacher training schools in Berlin and Hamburg. He served as
chairman of the American Society for the Alexander Technique from 1997 to 1999, and
he also was a long-time faculty member of the Bay Area Summer Opera Training
Institute.

Bob was one of the directors of the 2011 9th International Congress of the Alexander
Technique in Lugano Switzerland, and continues to serve on the Board of the Alexander
Technique Congress Association. He was awarded the George S. Sarlo award for
Excellence in Teaching in Colleges and Universities in Northern California in 2012, and
served as the Department Chairman of “The Complete Musician” Department at the San
Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Lolita Brinkley

Lolita Brinkley is a movement coach specializing in postural re-education, performance enhancement and movement using a process called unleashed biodynamics, which she developed based on the principles of the Alexander Technique.

In the spirit of the Alexander Technique, she teaches students to coordinate thinking and movement so that the thinking leads the movement. This mind-body connection eliminates unconscious inefficient uses of the self which often introduce unnecessary stress and downward compression on the body. Lolita is interested in personal growth and assisting others in achieving optimum health and well-being.