Missy Vineyard

Do All Alexander Minds Inhibit and Direct Alike?

What do we mean by inhibiting and directing? What insights can we glean from current research in neuroscience to help us better understand these cognitive skills? How can we get inside the “black box” of the mind to learn to think more effectively? How can we better identify the difference between thinking and feeling, and learn to feel this in others? How can we better teach inhibiting and directing to our students?

In this Continuous Learning workshop you will practice specific skills designed to enable you to inhibit and direct more consistently and effectively. You will learn to quiet the chatter in your mind, make good use of your pre-frontal cortex, and summon the meaning of your words to allow your thoughts to affect you, psychophysically. You will also explore the skill of spatial thinking, the fundamental element of good directing.

Applying these skills in action, you will experience how they enhance your coordination and hands-on work.

Missy Vineyard trained with Judith Leibowitz at the American Center for the Alexander Technique, and received her teacher certification in 1975. She has been the training director of the Alexander Technique School New England for the past twenty years. She helped to found AmSAT in1986, and has since served two terms as AmSAT chairman. Her book, How You Stand, How You Move, How You Live was published by Avalon Publishing Group in 2007 and is currently available at bookstores and through Amazon. In addition to teacher training, Missy’s special areas of emphasis include: applying the technique to sports for teens; assisting performing artists in dealing with anxiety; using the technique to enhance creative writing skill; and drawing from neuroscience to better understand the physiological basis of inhibiting and directing, and the link between emotion and locomotion.

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