“Change involves carrying out an activity against the habit of life.”
– Frederick Matthias Alexander
About the Alexander Technique
Chronic tension is like noise in our system. It often manifests from our attempts to protect ourselves from pain, whether that pain is physical or emotional.
Unconsciously held and habitual, it interferes with our innate drive towards balance, well-being, health, and poise.
Tension can interfere with all aspects of our lives. It can impact mood and motivation. It can lead to breathing difficulties, muscular and skeletal pain, and fatigue. For those in the athletic and performance arts, it can restrict movement and expressive potential.
The Alexander Technique is a holistic, mindful approach to postural stability that allows us to explore and experience what it means to move with ease, and recognize how and when unconscious habits of tension interfere with our optimal functioning in all aspects of our lives.
Good posture and ease in movement is fundamentally regulated by the quality of our relationship with gravity. As we engage with simple movement and activity explorations – such as sitting and standing, and walking – we learn to recognize an up-flow of energy that we all are born with, and which encourages good posture and ease in movement to happen naturally.
The Alexander Technique focuses on how each individual holds tension, especially along the central axis of the head, neck, and torso. Alexander Technique teachers use a combination of verbal instruction and gentle hands-on work to facilitate a letting go of the harmful tensions that can limit us in so many ways.
As we learn to recognize and free ourselves from harmful patterns of tensions, we begin to live our lives, and do the things we love, with more ease, and with a greater sense of freedom and self-awareness.
About Kosta Potamianos
Kosta Potamianos is an Alexander Technique teacher practicing in the greater Los Angeles area. After 3 years of intensive study at the Alexander Training Institute of Los Angeles (ATI-LA) and with over 2000 hours of hands-on graduate and post-graduate training, he received his certification from the American Society for the Alexander Technique (AmSAT) in 2009.
He has been in private and academic practice for over 14 years, working one-on-one with students from all walks of life; and he is faculty Alexander Technique lecturer in the School of Dramatic Arts at the University of Southern California (USC), faculty Alexander Technique Lecturer in the Fitwell Program at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and is an Alexander Technique teacher trainer at the Alexander Training Institute of Los Angeles (ATI-LA).
Kosta regularly teaches small group workshops and classes in private, academic, and corporate settings, past and present at CalArts, LMU, Baron Brown Acting Studio, and DreamWorks – and is especially experienced working with performers and artists: actors, musicians, dancers, and graphic designers, as well as creatives and professionals of all types.