The Teacher

Updated on Sep 21, at 18:42

Kevin Wooding trained with Elisabeth Walker, one of the first-generation teachers personally trained by F. M. Alexander. With over 25 years of teaching experience, he offers private lessons in London, close to Richmond, as well as at his studio in Jericho, Oxford.

Coming from a background in classical and jazz piano, he found the Alexander Technique to be a vital tool for bringing greater efficiency and expressiveness to performance – though he originally came to the work seeking help with a persistent sports-related knee injury:

There was a period of about four years when I couldn’t ride a bike, couldn’t sit down without pain and certainly couldn’t kneel. I had lessons with Rob MacDonald in 1988–1990 and through these lessons the easy use of my knee returned. I tell a bit more about this story in the Case History section.

I trained with Elisabeth Walker, who was trained directly by F. M. Alexander, and I qualified in 1998. Elisabeth remained an inspiring advertisement for the Technique throughout her life. When I saw her in 2010, she told me she had ‘just done her last international workshop’, having recently returned to the UK from the United States – at the age of ninety-six. She continued teaching even then, and I was fortunate to have a lesson with her only three months before she passed away in 2013, aged almost ninety-nine.

I always remember that the freedom and ease she embodied to that grand stage of her life is available to all.