Liberating the Natural Breath: An Online, Small-Group Journey
An experiential program designed especially for those experiencing air hunger or breathing tension and drawing on transformative development and principles of the Alexander Technique.
Please Note: This program previously ran in 2018 and early 2019.
A new and expanded, self-guided version of Liberating the Natural Breath is now available. Please click here to explore the new and expanded Liberating the Natural Breath.
Breathing is perhaps the most natural thing a human being can do. Why, then, do many people suffer from breathing tension, air hunger, and discomfort? Why is there so much confusion surrounding how to respond to such problems? Liberating the Natural Breath addresses these questions and the struggle we experience when the natural dynamics of our breathing are disrupted. Rather than trying to respond to unconscious tension with even more tension by imposing some conception of “correct” breathing from the outside, Liberating the Natural Breath goes to the core of the dysfunction using principles of the Alexander Technique and inner development. Through physiological understanding, experiential exercises, self-knowledge, and the progressive unwinding of habitual interference, participants are shown the way toward the liberated breath—the easeful, natural, comfortable breath that the body innately knows how to re-establish, if given the opportunity.
Facilitators Simon Spire and Amira Glaser will introduce participants to the elegance and physiological intricacies of the breathing mechanism and the relationships that exist between psychological growth and easeful breathing. They will orient participants to the profound understandings of habit and embodied ease developed by F. M. Alexander (1869-1955), the founder of the Alexander Technique, while also integrating knowledge from Jessica Wolf’s Art of Breathing. And they will guide participants in their journey toward the deep relief of being at home in one’s own easeful breathing, a process that is rich with newfound freedom, insight, and self-discovery.
This course is designed to be a potent and very specific addition to in-person Alexander Technique instruction whenever possible.
Included in this class:
4 live group classes, each including facilitation and class content; guided experiences; possible paired or small-group activities; group discussion; and individual reflection and exploration. (Each class will run between 90 minutes and 120 minutes.)
A 50-minute, private, one-on-one session with Simon.
Suggested weekly activities between classes.
Class size limited to a maximum of 8 participants to ensure individual attention and space for discussion.
Live sessions will be held via video conferencing using Zoom and will take place Sundays, 1pm-3pm Eastern Time. The first three classes will be held on December 2, 9, and 16. The final group class will be held on January 13 so that participants can all share their progress since the December classes and have further questions addressed.
Guidance in finding an Alexander Technique teacher in your local area for continuing to deepen the work in-person.
More about this course:
The lead-up to this course offering has a long history. Simon began experiencing pronounced air hunger and breathing difficulties in 2001. After a long journey, he eventually discovered the way back to the natural breath largely through the Alexander Technique. When he wrote about the process in the article Discovering the Liberated Breath, he was surprised to learn how many people experienced both the same struggles and the same near-absence of solutions from health care professionals. Over the years of conversing with people who contacted him after reading the article, he started to realize the need for a more structured delivery of information, explorations, and practices that could support this community. One-on-one sessions can be great, but a class allows for a broader communication of essential information at a lower cost, while also providing a forum for us to learn from the experience of others dealing with similar challenges.
Amira has been teaching the Alexander Technique since 2005. She has also studied extensively with Jessica Wolf, the founder of the Art of Breathing technique based on the work of F. M. Alexander and Carl Stough. Amira is a certified Art of Breathing teacher, a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique, and a licensed acupuncturist. Lucky for Simon, he found Amira in 2008 after moving to New York and began the awesome journey of embodied freedom invited by the AT.
About your facilitators:
Amira Glaser is a Wellbeing Partner for those on a journey of healing and self-discovery. Amira creates her practice from a deep respect and love for human nature and our innate ease and capacity for healing. In her own journey with artistic expression, back & neck pain, auto-immune dis-ease, and a love for nature and organic self-expression, Amira found her way to becoming first a teacher of the Alexander Technique, then an Acupuncturist and Chinese Medicine practitioner. She bridges these Eastern & Western understandings of health, balance, and the power of non-doing, and draws on their transformative teachings for each individual’s unique needs.
Amira is a North Carolina Licensed Acupuncturist, a Diplomat of Oriental Medicine (Acupuncture & Herbology) with the NCCAOM, an AmSAT certified Alexander Technique teacher, she also holds certification in Jessica Wolf’s Art of Breathing, and in Jeffery Yuen’s Classical Chinese Dietary Therapy.
Simon is a contemplative, depth-oriented, and somatic practitioner and teacher. He brings to his facilitation years of exploration of self-inquiry, non-dual wisdom traditions, and embodied meditative practices; the perspectives of depth psychology; and his long experience with artistry and the creative process. Simon holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and finance from the University of Auckland and a master’s degree in clinical and counseling psychology from Columbia University; is a Certified Trainer of Focusing, a mindfulness-based, somatic approach to psychological healing and development; and has completed a yearlong nature-based Soulcraft and vision quest immersion with Bill Plotkin and Animas Valley Institute while also certifying as a Purpose Guide through Purpose Guides Institute, where he has served on staff as a mentor, and studying in Thomas Hübl’s Academy of Inner Science. He has worked as a director with organizations active in international sustainable development and social entrepreneurship, leadership development, and mental health, and remains active with organizations involved in systems change, economic organization, and cultural-ecological innovation. He was led from his New Zealand homeland to the US by his career as a recording artist and songwriter.