Awareness · Ease · Connection

Move with greater freedom and choice.

Alexander Technique lessons with Jay Foote help students become more present, reduce unnecessary tension, and discover more natural ways of moving.

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Jay Foote receiving Alexander Technique guidance during a lesson
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Overview

Move with greater ease, reduce pain, and understand the habits that shape how you think, move, sing, dance, and walk.

The Alexander Technique is a practical process for becoming more present and aware of how you move. Through guided observation and experimentation, students discover more balanced ways to move and rest—supporting better posture, greater fluidity, and less unnecessary tension.

What you will explore

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Recognize your patterns

Notice the habits and internal resistance that influence your posture.

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Connect thought and movement

Explore how the way you think affects how you move and feel.

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Move with less pain

Experiment with more efficient choices during everyday activity.

Portrait of F. M. Alexander

“You translate everything, whether physical, mental or spiritual, into muscular tension.”

F. M. Alexander
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Contact & mailing list

Stay connected or ask about lessons

Join the occasional ATDSM mailing list, request information about lessons or workshops, or send Jay a question.

What are you interested in?
Would you like to join the ATDSM mailing list?

Your information is sent to Jay and saved in the ATDSM contact spreadsheet.

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What is the Alexander Technique?

What is the Alexander Technique?

Alexander Technique is an awareness-building process that cultivates an internal flow by creating space to integrate body and mind by studying "the how" of any activity.

The Alexander Technique is a practice that seeks balance, flow, and coordination in our mind and body. Increased awareness creates an opportunity for choice. Embodied, intentional choice (start slowly, increase tempo as you stay connected, easy) creates new thinking and movement patterns that rewire the brain, diminish the grip of old habits, and allow for ease and connection inside and outside our bodies.

Alexander Technique helps with:

  • increasing mindfulness practices
  • managing chronic pain
  • improving posture
  • walking with ease
  • learning to run more efficiently
  • ending bad habits
  • finding more body awareness
  • cultivating freedom onstage
  • breathing more easily
  • awareness of body in space
  • finding increased ease in movement
  • developing a free and easy practice routine
  • resonating in singing or speaking
  • exploring efficient sleeping techniques
  • fixing TMJ
  • reducing stress in body
  • easing migraines and jaw tension
  • gaining balance in life and body
  • overcoming stage fright

Interactive interconnected definitions

Explore the space between the ideas.

Move through the dots and select one to read its definition and discover its connections.

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Jay Foote (M.M., M.AmSAT) is an Alexander Technique teacher, musician, and mental health therapist based in Des Moines. Certified in 2013, he spent seven years teaching and assisting with teacher training at New York City’s Balance Arts Center and served on the AmSAT Board of Directors. His teaching helps students develop awareness, move with greater ease, and find more efficient ways to approach performance, daily activity, and pain.

Read the full biography
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Lessons & workshops

One-on-One Lessons

What do lessons look like?

Lessons are 60 minutes in length.

The lesson begins with a check-in about what has been happening in the mind/body with the student sitting in a chair. We talk about what brought you to the Alexander Technique, what has changed recently, and what you noticed in your body in the past week.

The student can choose an activity or an activity will be suggested by the teacher. We will slow down to allow more time to become aware of how you initiate, embody, and/or complete the action. You may notice extra tension in parts, passivity in other places, or become aware of an unconscious understanding of how the body evolved to move. Using the new understanding, the student advances to another activity to apply what was learned.

The lesson typically ends with the student lying face-up on a massage table, and the teacher invites the student to release into connection. After gently inviting the student to allow a little more length, width, and depth in their whole body and doing a little less holding, the teacher invited the student to check in with how they feel. After the table work, the lesson ends with a summary of what was covered, addresses any additional questions, and formulates a plan (or homework) to continue cultivating more awareness of how we move, think, or feel.

Small Groups, Workshops, and Classes

Classes provide general information about the body and how it moves efficiently. Each workshop is unique to the individual group and their interests.

Everyone in the group will have an experience of the Alexander Technique principles. A few individuals may receive a mini-lesson with direct contact with verbal feedback.

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Testimonials