Alexander Technique
The Alexander Technique opens a doorway to something rare: a genuinely playful relationship between body and mind. At it’s core, it is a practice of re-learning how to learn — how to move, how to create, how to practice Pilates — so that unnecessary tension falls away and your natural ease and grace can come forward.
Email us to get started with Private Alexander sessions, and with any questions about Group Alexander Classes. We’ll help match you with an Instructor and purchase an introductory package. After your introductory package we’ll advise you on our sliding scale payment system.
Alexander Technique
Most of us have accumulated years of unconscious habits — in the way we sit, stand, move and react. The Alexander Technique gently brings these patterns into awareness and offers a path beyond them. The result? Movement that feels lighter and more natural, whether you’re practicing Pilates, playing an instrument, or simply going about your day.
Margi Douglas
Margi, co-owner and founder of the Pilates Garage, brings a rich, multi-layered background to her Alexander Technique teaching. She is certified under master ATI teacher Chloe Wing in New York City. She is currenlty deepening her practice through training with the renowned Ann Rodger at Balance Arts, also in NYC.
An MFA graduate of Columbia University’s acting program, Margi has lived inside the Alexander work for years — first as a performer, then as a movement educator. As a founding member of Magis Theatre Company, she as spent over 15 years weaving Alexander principles into the company’s vocal and physical practice, making it a cornerstone of the Magis actors train and prepare. The same depth of understanding now informs her work with Pilates clients at the Pilates Garage, where she has found the technique to be a quietly transformative tool for movers of all kinds.
Rachael Schefrin
Originally a college athlete (soccer), Rachael was first introduced to Alexander Technique (AT) when studying abroad at the London Dramatic Academy in 2007. After completing her MFA from the Actors Studio Drama School and 8 plus years in arts education, she returned to AT when she became a mother in July 2020. Looking to find relief from the physical aches and pains of motherhood, she pursued Alexander Technique as a way to combine her love of arts, movement and teaching.
Rachael loves body work of all kinds and is particularly interested in working with performers, athletes (runners), parents and office workers.
Description of an Alexander Session
In an Alexander session the teacher uses what is called "listening hands" a gentle, skilled touch designed to help your body find its natural ease. We typically begin with the relationship between the head and neck, since releasing tension there tends to create a ripple of freedom through the whole spine.
Part of the session may be spent lying on a table, where you practice something deceptively simple: allowing your body to be fully supported. Over time, this develops into a real skill — the ability to recognize and release unnecessary effort wherever it appears.
You’ll also work with body mapping: building a more accurate picture of how your skeleton is structured and balanced. Surprisingly often, chronic tension traces back to subtle misunderstandings about how the body is designed to move. Clearer maps lead to easier, more natural habits.
As the work deepens, we take it into movement — standing, sitting, walking, or the specific demands of your art of activity. Performers in particular often find significant breakthrough: not through effort, but through getting out of their own way.
The goal of every session is to leave you with not just a good feeling — but with genuine understanding and tools that travel with you into daily life.
