The Head Leads and the Body Follows
by Rafaele Joudry

1996     Video               VHS PAL + NTSC            25 minutes

This Video introduction to the Technique, also available on DVD, was produced in Australia in collaboration with the Alexander Technique community between 1993 and 1996, by Alexander teacher Rafaele Joudry and filmmaker Christine Eade.  It features several well-known teachers of the Technique - Marjory Barlow, Andrea Beesley, Rosemary Brenner, Peter Fisher, Misha Migadov, Jeremy Chance and others.  Case histories are provided by a singer, a bricklayer, a draftsman and a clarinet soloist (Deborah de Graaf).  The physiologist Archie MacIntyre talks on inhibition, and G. E. Coghill’s discoveries of the universal principle of all vertebral movement are explained.  Schematic drawings of spine and head-neck positions and amusing cartoons are used to illustrate basic principles of the Technique.  It also contains some good footage of young children moving.

Making a film about the Technique is not an easy task and some will have criticisms, but the film-makers are to be congratulated on their efforts.  This will be a useful tool particularly for anyone who has to do a presentation on the Technique for a popular audience.