Day Fourteen - What’s The Advantage of Group Teaching To Me?

Suddenly Bessie blurts out: “But how will I help all the people around me in such tension?! How can they bear it? What can I do?” Bessie is tightening up worse than the people she is talking about! What to do? Welcome to group teaching, where my response to Bessie is being witnessed by 10 other people. It is no longer just Bessie than I am responding to, I need to include 10 other listeners… “Bessie,” I say, “Just remember how lucky you are that you know something that they don’t know…” …and I can look at everyone while I say that, because they all benefit from that idea. “Yes,” says Bessie more happily, “I know something that they don’t know…” …and now she is moving her head and whole self into more harmony. *** Group teaching involves developing another layer of skills which surprisingly serve to deepen your 121 (one to one) work. The skills to teach groups are nascent in 121 teaching, but the demands of group teaching tend to amplify developmental challenges that you previously were only dimly aware of. That’s the skill benefit. On the other side, to build your business you must find more time to work on your business, instead of only in your business. The reality of upscaling your income is this: you need to spend less time on teaching, more time on attracting new students. If your heart fills with dismay at that thought - less time directly with students! - then first question the way you are perceiving it? The extra work is about “going verbal”. It is about developing your skills communicating over long distances i.e. through your website, emails, twitter, articles etc. This is “marketing” but the precise term for it is “content marketing”: what you write about is what you teach, and this attracts people to you. You preview your entire workshop by blog and emails. Content marketing involves teaching skill development. Content marketing has the added bonus of increasing your income. You work less hours teaching 121, more hours content marketing/teaching over a long distance. You reach more people by developing your effectiveness in explaining how you can help. You gradually increase the amount of money you earn, while overcoming any guilt you have about doing less of “Alexander-is-a-feeling” (the vaulted “hands-on-all-the-time” 121 approach) and more “Alexander-is-constructive-thinking” (an alternative “hands-on-hands-off-and-question” group version). All this hinges on your ability to articulate your approach in words. Leading a group involves you explaining what you do; what better way to develop that, than to first write a series of emails that explain in detail what you can do for your niche? You need the ability to verbally communicate once you start your group, so writing is simply a way to prepare for your class. However, it serves another purpose: it markets what you are doing to your niche. Your content serves as a means of attraction. So write about the content of your group teaching for… (your niche). How much of that have you done? How To Write An Email Series On Your Group Teaching - Part II [NOTE: This second half of my blog is a paid area describing practical ways to implement what has been described above in a Facebook group with 47 other teachers and students. You can join anytime to be part of their discussions.] Previously, I asked members in ATCS to write down the list of what keeps their niche awake at night. Now I will show you how to work with that list to build a series of emails that both design and attract people to your content…

Noëlle Keruzoré shared this list from her actors niche:

What keeps them awake at night is: 1/ fear not to work or not to work again (however successful they may be) 2/ fear of not being loved (by the public, but mainly by directors or casting directors because they're the ones who will give them work) 3/ fear of not being good enough at what they do 4/ fear of not being in the moment when they next audition/go on stage 5/ want to be freer in their body 6/ bewilderment or anger to see that what they think is them does not correspond to their outer image (e.g. they will be told "You can't have that part because you are not the character" when they are sure they could do it) 7/ need to be reassured 8/ yearning to be recognized

So looking at that list, the first thing I did is come up with a series of headlines that might attract actors to read my emails. When I let them know about my Email seminar, I could show test some of these titles… 1st Email: Why Every Actor Can’t Succeed, But How You Can… 2nd Email: Who Is The First Love of Every Actor? 3rd Email: Dream and Nightmares of An Actor - Am I Good Enough? 4th Email: Can I Control What The Director Thinks of Me? 5th Email: How You Transform Stress Into Freedom To Act Brilliantly 6th Email: How You Become The Character Your Casting Agent Wants 7th Email: 3 Ways To Be Safe On Stage 8th Email: 5 Ways To Stand Out In A Performance Next I would figure out a logical sequence to build this. I did not write this list, but if I did I would start from what currently occupies the actor's mind most at the moment. At BCLA for example, we advertised three intros with these titles: How to Deal with Fear/Stage Fright at Auditions (Emails 1 - 3) How to Transform Your Body into the Character You Want (Emails 4 -6) How to Use Your Voice so Directors Will Love What They Hear (Emails 7 - 8) These titles were generated by another actor, not Noëlle, but I can see clear parallels. This shows you how to start developing the materials in a way to appeal to your niche Once you have this list, how do you join Alexander's discovery meaningfully into copy under these headings? I think anyone in our group could put together an interesting AT class using those three headings above as content guides. That is the challenge that faces you as a teacher - can you really help them? Do you believe you can? If you can, then tell us how that is done in your niche… https://www.facebook.com/groups/ATCSProMembers/