2026 Sponsorship Election ApplicationsHello! Please read through our ATI Sponsor applications for re-election. Click through the table of contents below to read through the information from each applicant. If you would prefer to read the application in a different language, feel free to change the website into your preferred language using the Google Translate feature. ATI Sponsors up for Re-electionDelia RosenboomApplicants Sponsored in last 5 years:
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Number of lessons per week: 5 Number of workshops presented in the last 5 years: 30 Training apprenticeships or programs: I run the South East Alexander School and train AT teachers (currently training in individualised apprenticeship-style programs with individual students) Reason for re-qualifying as an ATI Sponsor: There are not so many sponsoring teachers in UK and I want to help enable new members to join ATI from UK as easily as possible. I also want to be able to sponsor my trainees. Describe how you evaluate candidates: General Description of Evaluation Process:
1. A letter from head of training, or from the AT teacher who has acted as the candidate's main trainer during the training period, confirming that the candidate is competent and ready to teach the AT. 2. A description of where and with who the candidate has trained and during which period of time. 3. A CV or resume of other skills, training or work outside of the AT. 4. A list of literature that has influenced the candidate's understanding of the AT. 5. A copy of a section of F.M's text to be discussed at the assessment meeting. 6. The ATI code of ethics, signed by the candidate. 7. A brief outline of how the candidate envisages life as an AT teacher / in what form teaching will happen (groups, private practice, in institutions…) and how this may be integrated with any other forms of work. 8. The candidate to state whether they will bring someone to the assessment meeting to briefly teach, or whether a pupil needs to be provided by the assessor. 9. If evaluation session is to be virtual, candidate to supply 3 video clips of teaching 1-1 lesson / group session is applicable. One of these to show work with a new pupil (1st lesson). Outline of Assessment meeting: Initial informal conversation (approximately 25 mins): This is a casual conversation to get to know the candidate, their character and mode of conduct. Conversation covers reasons for training / personal experience of training/ Important psychological, physical and emotional changes/ How training has changed their experience of life/ How they have come to understand and make sense of FM's principles of direction and inhibition both within themselves and in their daily life/ Which AT teachers have particularly influenced their AT development and why.This gives me a general sense of the candidate and of the depth with which they have entered into engaging with the AT. Teaching Assessment (approximately 55 mins):In-Person Evaluations:
1. Candidate to talk briefly about the possible implications when teaching pupils with various conditions (eg an arthritic hip/ hypermobility/ post-surgery/ inflammatory conditions etc etc)
2. Anatomy: Candidate to describe one of FM’s directions anatomically. (Anatomical models/ pictures provided to be used if necessary).
3. Literature: Candidate to discuss a pre-chosen passage of FM's text that has been of particular interest to them. Then to state which books they would recommend to pupils and why.
4. Ethics: Brief discussion about ATI's code of ethics. Candidate to be given a couple of scenarios to respond to, describing the ethics of the situation, as outlined in the ATI evaluating criteria.
Having spent this time with the candidate and having discussed all of the above, observed and experienced the candidate's 'hands on' qualities and teaching skills, I consider that I have gained a well-rounded general picture of the candidate's abilities and suitability to become an ATI teaching member. My aim is for the evaluation session to be relaxed, calm, informal, friendly, with a sense of sharing and exploring understandings and experiences within a supportive, accepting and 'safe' environment.
Teaching approach/philosophy: My approach to AT work and to evaluating potential ATI members is to be open, present, positive, encouraging...to listen and to tune in...to meet the pupil/ candidate 'where they are at' and to draw out the best in them wherever possible. To be flexible and able to adapt and to draw upon many different styles of teaching and ways of presenting or explaining material, or sharing knowledge. I work more with an approach involving 'prolonged inhibition' and use my hands to listen to the pupil at a cellular level, being open to the non-verbal messages that are waiting to reveal themselves as part of the change process. Debi AdamsApplicants Sponsored in last 5 years:
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Number of lessons per week: 25 Number of workshops presented in the last 5 years: 50 Training apprenticeships or programs: I run a teacher-training program at Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Reason for re-qualifying as an ATI Sponsor: As the head of a training program, I believe it is important for me to be able to sponsor my trainees. I also think I hold to a high standard regarding the evaluation of teacher candidates and I want to see every ATI certified teacher reaching that standard. Describe how you evaluate candidates: Since the adoption of the Demonstration of Knowledge (DoK), my process has changed slightly. I always had my own questionnaire that I would send in advance of our meeting. But now I am able to receive, more reliably, the written (or recorded) materials ahead of the sponsorship meeting. I do still have my own questions that I send to the candidate. These include general background information i.e. what brought the candidate to the technique? I find that the candidate's teaching and concept of teaching is often related to why they became interested in AT in the first place.I also ask about their teaching philosophy and I am interested in the strengths and weaknesses they see in their teaching. When I meet with them in person, we discuss their answers to my questions. I also offer feedback on their DoK. I do spend some time on the Code of Ethics and we also discuss how they see the role of anatomy in AT teaching. The rest of our time together is spent with me observing them teach a lesson, after which I discuss with them the observations I made and ask for their own evaluation of the lesson. Then I ask them to give me a lesson. And then I give them one. I see my role as a mentor as well as an evaluator. This means that I offer whatever support I feel they may need as they move forward into their AT career. Teaching approach/philosophy: Safety is at the center of my AT teaching. I do my best to make the candidate feel safe throughout the sponsorship process. And I look for the ways they do the same in their teaching. A teacher is a guide, a gentle facilitator. We learn to ask the questions that lead our students toward self-discovery. When our students make their own discoveries, the learning is permanent. I have a list of 11 Commandments of Alexander Technique teaching that I use in my training course. Here they are: 1.Your hands are a reference point for your students. Your hands help your students to know more about themselves (where they are, their quality of movement). 2.In order for your hands to have meaning, they must be connected to your good coordination. Hands Last ensures that your coordination comes first. 3.Greet your students with open hands, an open heart, and open mind. 4.Withhold definition especially with students that you see repeatedly. 5.Direction happens; the result of removing interference from our system is expansive and open movement. When we experience this in relation to gravity, our sense of support allows our neck to free etc. 6.Don’t try to offer advice or solve your students’ problems. Offer them support –the connection to their own support – and the solutions will be revealed to them. 7.Stick to principle and teach the AT (inhibition and PC) 8. The BOW-- Tie a bow at the end of a lesson to remind the student of a significant bit of learning that took place. It's not quite a summary, but one kernel for them to remember. 9.There’s no place for ego or power in AT teaching. Your students cannot lose their power.1 0.Comfort versus familiarity: don’t be afraid to gently challenge a student’s experience of being comfortable in a familiar pattern. It may not really be so. 11.Less is more. Don’t try to cover too much in a lesson. Shawn CopelandApplicants Sponsored in last 5 years:
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Number of lessons per week: Ten Number of workshops presented in the last 5 years: 20 Training apprenticeships or programs: mBODYed, LLCInter-Mountain Alexander Technique Training Reason for re-qualifying as an ATI Sponsor: I wish to re-qualify as a Sponsor of Alexander Technique International because sponsoring teachers is central to how I understand my responsibility to the Technique, to ATI, and to the next generation of practitioners.That commitment did not begin with an application. It began in the teaching, the mentoring, and the sustained engagement with how the Alexander Technique actually develops in a person over time. My twenty-year career as a musician, university professor, and Alexander teacher gave me a practice ground for that understanding. I taught the Technique within clarinet instruction, within performance training, within work with musicians navigating tension, performance anxiety, and the particular pressures of professional artistic life.In 2024, an inoperable injury ended my career as a performing clarinetist. What that loss clarified was how much my professional identity had already shifted. My work had been moving steadily toward the development of the field, toward training practitioners, toward the expansion of what Alexander Technique instruction can do and who it can reach. The injury did not create that direction. It removed what had made it possible to postpone it.My work now lives at the intersection of Alexander Technique, Body Mapping, somatic education, and professional formation. Through mBODYed, LLC, I train practitioners to apply Alexander principles with accuracy, ethical responsibility, respect for lineage, and responsiveness to the actual conditions in which people teach, perform, lead, and learn.I also bring to this role a sustained commitment to examining how embodiment, safety, consent, and authority function in teaching relationships. A teaching interaction does not happen in an abstract body. It happens between people with histories, assumptions, roles, vulnerabilities, and varying degrees of access to agency and choice. These are not incidental conditions. They shape whether the work is possible.For this reason, I believe Alexander training and sponsorship must ask not only whether a candidate understands the principles of the Technique, but also how that candidate creates the conditions in which those principles can be received, explored, questioned, and embodied by another person. Access to ease, coordination, safety, and choice is not equally distributed as a social condition. A teacher's skill must include awareness of power, respect for timing, and the capacity to teach without overriding a pupil's consent or self-knowledge.I wish to re-qualify because ATI needs sponsors who can steward the Technique with rigor while helping it remain relevant to the contemporary conditions in which people actually perform, teach, and learn. That is where my work lives. Re-qualifying as a Sponsor allows me to continue that work within ATI's structure, with accountability and commitment to the integrity of the process. Describe how you evaluate candidates: My process for evaluating an ATI teaching candidate begins by confirming the candidate's training background and readiness to enter the sponsorship process. I also clarify from the outset that endorsement is not automatic. Sponsorship is a process of discernment, and my responsibility is to evaluate whether the candidate demonstrates sufficient knowledge, embodied understanding, teaching skill, ethical awareness, and professional judgment to be endorsed within ATI's sponsorship process. I review the candidate's Demonstration of Knowledge materials, including their responses related to Alexander's writings, anatomy, and ethics. I look for evidence that the candidate can do more than repeat terminology. I want to understand how they make meaning of Alexander's ideas, how those ideas have influenced their own development, how they understand anatomy in relation to use and movement, and how they reason through ethical responsibilities in teaching. I then meet with the candidate for a knowledge conversation. This conversation allows me to ask clarifying questions, hear how the candidate speaks about the work in real time, and assess whether their understanding is integrated enough to be useful in teaching. I am especially interested in whether the candidate can connect Alexander principles to actual teaching situations without becoming vague, overly technical, dogmatic, or disconnected from the person in front of them. I also evaluate the candidate's teaching skill. This includes observing the candidate teach, preferably in a context that reflects their actual teaching life. When appropriate, I may also receive a lesson from the candidate myself. I observe how the candidate communicates, how they use language, how they use their hands when hands-on work is part of their teaching, how they respond to the pupil's learning in the moment, and whether their teaching supports a constructive change in the pupil's coordination, awareness, and choice.In this process, I am attentive not only to what the candidate teaches but to the relational conditions their teaching creates. A teaching interaction does not happen in an abstract body. It happens between people with histories, roles, and varying degrees of access to agency and choice. I evaluate how the candidate invites participation, how they handle touch, how they respond to hesitation or discomfort, and whether they can support a pupil's learning without overriding the pupil's agency, consent, or timing.I do not expect every candidate to use my language or share my exact pedagogical approach. I do expect them to demonstrate that their teaching creates conditions in which the pupil's dignity, agency, and safety are actively respected. For me, this is not separate from Alexander Technique teaching. It is part of what makes the work ethical, teachable, and available to the range of people who need it. Finally, I assess the candidate's reflective capacity. After the teaching demonstration, I ask the candidate to reflect on the lesson. I am interested in what they noticed, what choices they made, what alternatives they considered, how they understood the pupil's response, and where they see room for continued growth. A teacher's readiness is not shown only by what happens during a lesson. It is also shown by their capacity to observe themselves, learn from their choices, and continue developing responsibly. If the candidate demonstrates sufficient knowledge, embodied understanding, teaching skill, ethical awareness, and reflective capacity, I may endorse them. If I do not believe the candidate is ready, I withhold endorsement and, when appropriate, identify areas for further study or development. Teaching approach/philosophy: My teaching is grounded in the belief that the Alexander Technique is not simply a set of procedures, corrections, or physical skills. It is a way of studying how a person organizes themselves in response to the demands, pressures, habits, relationships, and meanings of their life.I am a teacher first. Whether I am teaching the Alexander Technique, working with musicians and performers, or training future practitioners, I am interested in how learning becomes usable. I want students to understand not only what the principles are, but how those principles change perception, coordination, attention, choice, and behavior in real situations.My approach is direct, relational, and inquiry-based. I value clarity, but I do not believe clarity requires rigidity. I value lineage, but I do not believe lineage requires repetition without thought. I want students to understand Alexander's discoveries deeply enough that they can apply them responsibly in the contexts where people actually live, teach, perform, rehearse, lead, and recover.Because much of my work has been with musicians, performers, and educators, I am especially interested in behavior under pressure. In a practice room, rehearsal, studio lesson, audition, classroom, or performance, people often lose access to choice long before they lose skill. My teaching helps students recognize how effort, fear, urgency, self-judgment, or the desire to get it right can narrow coordination and perception. From there, we work toward more accurate awareness, more available response, and a wider field of choice.I also believe teaching must attend to power. The Alexander Technique often asks people to be seen, touched, guided, interrupted, and invited into unfamiliar experience. These are not neutral acts. My responsibility as a teacher is to create conditions where the student's dignity, agency, consent, and self-knowledge are actively protected. This does not make the work less rigorous. It makes rigor possible.My style is warm, precise, and demanding in the best sense of the word. I ask students to think clearly, observe honestly, and take responsibility for the quality of their attention. I also ask myself to remain teachable. Good teaching requires listening, adaptation, humility, and the willingness to notice when the lesson in front of me is not the lesson I expected to teach.The Alexander Technique helps restore access to choice. It gives people a way to meet themselves with more accuracy and less coercion. It teaches us that change does not have to begin with force. It can begin with attention, inhibition, direction, relationship, and the willingness to stop overriding ourselves. Catherine VernerieApplicants Sponsored in last 5 years:
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Number of lessons per week: 3 Number of workshops presented in the last 5 years: 10 Training apprenticeships or programs: Centre de formation à l'enseignement de F.M Alexander , Apt Reason for re-qualifying as an ATI Sponsor: Nous avons besoin de sponsors en France pour les étudiants en formation Describe how you evaluate candidates: Observation du candidat quand il donne une leçon individuelle.Questions concernant ses connaissances en anatomie appliquée à la technique AlexanderQuestions sur les points fondamentaux de la technique et sur les écrits d'AlexanderDiscussion sur comment le (la) candidat(e) envisage son métier de professeur et encouragements à adhérer à ATI Teaching approach/philosophy: J'enseigne la Technique Alexander depuis 1995. J'ai été attirée par la technique via la pratique de la danse contemporaine, donc à cause de problème physiques mais j'ai vite réalisé que cet enseignement concerne la personne dans sa globalité. C'est ce que j'enseigne aujourd'hui, en mettant l'accent sur l'unité psycho-physique, l'inhibition, l'attention et l'importance de la relation, relation aux autres, relation à l'espace... La Technique Alexander perd son influence en France, elle est moins connue que dans les années 1980/90. D'autres techniques ont pris plus de place. Nous en parlons souvent entre professeurs français, ne sachant comment changer cela. Pour ma part je pense qu'il est nécessaire de communiquer sur les bienfaits non seulement physiques de la technique mais aussi psychologiques et même sur sa dimension spirituelle. Corinne CassiniApplicants Sponsored in last 5 years:
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Number of lessons per week: 12 Number of workshops presented in the last 5 years: 15 Training apprenticeships or programs: Since 2022, my teacher training course is on pause. I live in a fairly isolated area (Western North Carolina), and besides ATI conferences, I don't have many chances to sponsor candidates. I speak French and travel there once a year, and I always make myself available to sponsor French-speaking candidates, but the timing doesn't always work out. I am disappointed that the pre-day isn't happening this year in Frankfurt. Reason for re-qualifying as an ATI Sponsor: I enjoy serving ATI as a Sponsor and hope to be asked to sponsor more candidates in the next 5 years. I would like the Pre-day to be reinstated, as this is an opportunity for me to sponsor candidates while living in a remote area. Describe how you evaluate candidates: Now that we have the DOK in place, I have received and read their responses beforehand. 1) Using my checklist, I go over specific points from that list when I want more information. We discuss their approach to teaching, what they like/love, and why they wish to do it, who they wish to teach... 2) I watch them teach a short lesson in which I first observe their relationship to themselves and their ability to embody the principles while engaged in the activity of teaching: how does their own ease, inhibition, direction, observation skill show up towards themselves. I also look for how they are in relationship to their student: what are they noticing about their student, what decisions are they making moment to moment, how is the student responding? Are they responding and adapting to the student to meet the student where they are?Once the lesson with the student is complete, we have a conversation first w/o the student and then time permitting with the student or vice-versa. We debrief and I might ask questions about what I observed and ask the student about their experience: what went well for them; what didn't and why. I also look for shifts in their student. Were they able to give their student a new/different experience in about 20 minutes? 3) The candidate works with me a bit, perhaps on some of what was observed. I gauge their ability to adapt in real-time and take in new information; I experience firsthand the qualities and intention in their touch.We end with a conversation on any questions they may have. I ask them how they may wish or plan to be involved in service of ATI. Teaching approach/philosophy: My teaching vision:Teaching means awakening a person to their own potential by giving them the means to explore and discover themselves while creating and sustaining the container where all this can blossom. It is a constant process of exchange, experimentation, and discovery for all involved.My vision for the AT : An inherent ease and excellence in any activity arising from a recognition of our wholeness (mind, body, and spirit), and a capacity to maintain clarity of intention and awareness of attention while engaged in an activity relative to its environment and contributors (stage, audience, peers). Lucia WalkerApplicants Sponsored in last 5 years:
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Number of lessons per week: 10 Number of workshops presented in the last 5 years: 15 Training apprenticeships or programs: ATLTP, JohannesburgLCATT, London Reason for re-qualifying as an ATI Sponsor: I really value the process that has been developed and continue to develop for assessing someone' readiness to teach AT as a professional member of ATI . It is important that this process allows for many different 'modes' of training. And I value being one of three sponsors so that different perspectives can be allowed for. Describe how you evaluate candidates: I think of the sponsorship process as a learning opportunity for both applicant and sponsor. I am looking for clarity in the communication of what AT involves as well as sensitivity to the particular person or group being addressed. Ability to take of self while teaching and maintain a 'calm and lively ' presence even in relatively high stimulus situations. Observed lesson: 20-30 mins with a pupil. Ideally a member of the public that they are already working with or introducing to the work. If it needs to be another trainee, one with substantially less experience. Observed group lesson and/or introductory talk, or part of it. Video material acceptable. For students internationally I have asked to see a recording of an individual lesson and/or a group class. Interview with me: -40 mins of discussion; including observations of themselves and the student from the lesson, what the candidate feels is most important in teaching the work, areas of confidence and where they need more support, teaching issues relating to group and individual lessons etc. Also why you want to become a teacher and a member of ATI. Brief discussion of how relevant Alexander’s writings are to your teaching. -20 mins working with me with words and touch on an activity of my choice and/or a procedure of their choice. The following can be submitted before the meeting in written or voice recorded form:a biographical statement including a brief account of what brought you to AT and your previous experience including other areas of work, interest and qualification paragraph on what books of Alexander’s or about the Technique have been influential a discussion of one topic in the code of ethics any other written or presented materials (summaries of Alexander's books, projects, articles or videos) that add to the evidence of readiness to teach. This section is really replaced by the Demonstration of Knowledge so I only need to see that…a letter of recommendation from a teacher with whom the candidate had studied in depth and learnt to teach. Adaptations for online sponsorship process: 1.The lesson can be recorded and sent ahead of time. 2. A recording of an introductory workshop or group class can be used. Understanding this might not be possible a description with planned activities and learning objectives and evaluation of the workshop can be submitted instead (verbal or written). 3. The 20 minutes working with me can be replaced by a hands on lesson with a student/friend or family member conducted on zoom with me present. 4. Learning log or journal does not need to be sent. Teaching approach/philosophy: I think it is really important that whatever our individual experience of training, and approach to the technique that we can recognise different ways of sharing AT principles and tools through words and touch. That a new teacher is encouraged to develop their own 'way' of communicating while staying simple and clear with Alexander work as a learning process. For myself I want to share AT in a way that lets people use the ideas for themselves so that it doe not remain 'teacher- centred'. |