“Breathing is reflexive; you never have to take a breath. It has a quiet presence and is in perpetual motion. It is inspiring to know that our breath responds naturally and spontaneously to our every thought and feeling”
Jessica Wolf
Artofbreathing.eu is a collective of experienced Alexander Technique teachers based in Spain, the UK and Ireland, who also teach Jessica Wolf’s Art of Breathing. We additionally offer Jessica’s postgraduate certificate training for Alexander Technique teachers.
“Jessica Wolf’s Art of Breathing” dissolves rigidity and restores mobility during the breathing cycle, helping us tap into our natural capacity for easy, efficient breathing and the vitality that comes with it.
New York-based Jessica Wolf developed her approach over fifty years of teaching the Alexander Technique, including half that time working with actors at Yale School of Drama. Her method is based on the work of breathing pioneers F.M. Alexander and Carl Stough and may be learnt from Alexander Technique teachers who have completed her postgraduate certificate training course.
Nuria Vera
I graduated in Physiotherapy from the University of Murcia in 1996 and worked as a physiotherapist for several years. However, a desire to help people address the underlying causes of excessive tension and back pain rather than just manage symptoms led me to the Alexander Technique.
I trained full-time for three years at the Alexander Techniek Centrum in Amsterdam with Paul Versteeg and Tessa Marwick, qualifying as an Alexander Technique teacher in 2002.
Since 2004, I have lived and worked in my home city of Murcia, teaching individuals and groups. My teaching includes regular classes at the Higher Music Conservatory in Murcia.
In 2014, I began studying with Jessica Wolf and completed her postgraduate diploma for Alexander Technique teachers in 2018. Her work helped me reconnect with the natural rhythm and continuous movement of my breathing, and it has since become an essential part of my teaching practice. In 2024, Jessica qualified me to offer her diploma to others.
My interest in movement that combines fluidity, awareness and breathing also led me to train in Tai Chi Qigong Shibashi. I became a certified instructor under Sifu Wing Cheung in 2024.
Through these complementary approaches, I continue to explore how greater awareness of movement and breathing can help us find more ease, balance and freedom in everyday life.
Joe Searby
From the age of 18 I worked as a professional actor in theatre, film, television and radio, eventually becoming something of a specialist in accents and dialects for television and radio commercials.
Having not gone to drama school, I was looking for something that would complement my work as an actor, while also satisfying my curiosity about some of the deeper aspects of human experience. I came across the Alexander Technique in 1983, at the age of 20, and was immediately hooked. After several years of private lessons, I trained as a teacher with Walter and Dilys Carrington, qualifying in April 1995.
Since then I have maintained a private practice in the Cotswolds, while also teaching extensively on Alexander Technique teacher-training courses in London, Oxford and Manchester. I have worked with actors at The Actors Centre and The Oxford School of Drama, and taught for several years at Associated Newspapers.
In 2007 I wrote a well-received introductory book on the Technique, Alexander Technique: Skills and Inspirations for Well-Being.
I first worked with Jessica Wolf in 2017 and immediately recognised the importance of her work. Since then I have taken every opportunity to study with her, and in 2024 qualified to teach the Art of Breathing to other Alexander Technique teachers.
I continue to teach privately from my rooms in Windrush, near Burford.
Colin Beattie
My work is grounded in the belief that greater awareness of how we think, move and breathe can help us develop a more harmonious relationship with ourselves.
I discovered the Alexander Technique in 1995, when I was a competitive swimmer for Ireland. Its transformative effect on the back pain I had experienced since childhood led me to train with Walter and Dilys Carrington at The Constructive Teaching Centre in London, where I qualified as a teacher in 2001.
My interest in the relationship between breath, posture and movement eventually led me to Jessica Wolf’s Art of Breathing. Her work opened another door for me, highlighting the importance of remembering to let the breath out so that thoughts, actions and emotions can flow freely in concert. In 2017, I completed Jessica’s postgraduate diploma for Alexander Technique teachers, and in 2024 qualified to offer this training to other teachers.
My teaching aims to encourage curiosity rather than impose a particular way of breathing or moving, offering tools that help each individual to discover their own path to greater ease, vitality and freedom. I work with individuals and groups near Belfast, Northern Ireland, and offer workshops and retreats.
Belén Cobos
I fell in love with Jessica’s work in 2011 when I joined her workshop at the Alexander Congress in Lugano, Switzerland. One of the “love-at-first-sight” signs was Jessica’s coherence: what she was teaching was perfectly integrated in the way she used herself and her voice: her breathing seemed so fully present and yet effortless. After all these years of exploration and deepening in the Art of Breathing, I have finally understood that the less one interferes with the innate wisdom of the diaphragm, the fuller and freer the movement of your breathing becomes. Because breathing is movement and movement is life!
Belén lives and works in Granada, Spain
Who is……
Jessica Wolf
Jessica Wolf is an internationally-recognized teacher of the Alexander Technique and Professor Emerita in the Practice of Acting at David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, where she established its first Alexander Training curriculum in 1998. Jessica’s teaching career spans five decades.
Jessica is the creator of Jessica Wolf’s Art of Breathing, a technique that integrates principles and procedures developed from her work in respiratory science and education. She established a postgraduate certification training program offered to qualified Alexander Technique teachers. In 2026, Jessica published the definitive guide to her technique and teaching methodology: Jessica Wolf’s Art of Breathing: Guidebook for Certification.
Jessica also published Art of Breathing: Collected Articles and created the first three‐dimensional animated film of the respiratory system, which has since been translated into Spanish, Chinese, and German. She is distinguished as a Designated Practitioner by the Carl Stough Institute of Breathing Coordination, a Certified Laban Movement Analyst, and the founder and former Chair of the Judith Leibowitz Scholarship Fund.
Jessica coaches performing artists who appear on‐ and off‐Broadway, and in films and television, including Oscar, Tony, and Emmy Award winners. She maintains a private teaching practice in New York City and frequently teaches at The Actors Center. She travels worldwide giving workshops to performers, teachers, and healthcare providers.
Additional faculty appointments include The Actors Center, Aspen Music Festival, The Juilliard School, SUNY Purchase, Circle in the Square Theater School, Hunter College, Sarah Lawrence College and the Verbier Music Festival.
F. M. Alexander
Frederick Matthias Alexander (1869–1955) was an Australian actor and teacher who developed what became known as the Alexander Technique.
He was a man far ahead of his time and his discoveries are still revolutionary today, 70 years after he died.
In the 1890s, as a successful actor, F.M. realised that his career prospects were threatened by recurring hoarseness. He visited numerous specialists, but doctors were unable to diagnose a medical cause for his loss of voice.
Through a painstaking process of self-observation and experimentation, he found that when he spoke, and especially when he performed, he habitually used not just his voice, but his whole self in ways that led to extreme and debilitating tension. Alexander gradually learned to consciously inhibit these unconstructive patterns and to consciously direct himself toward a new, better use of himself.
As a result, not only did Alexander’s vocal and breathing problems disappear, but his entire health and functioning improved. He soon began teaching his method to others and became known as “The Breathing Man” because of the profound effect his work had on the breath. In 1904, seeking recognition for his work, he came to London, where he lived until his death in 1955.
Carl Stough
Carl Stough (1926 – 2000) was an American choral conductor who developed a method to re-educate a person’s individual breathing pattern through an extremely subtle, indirect approach.
He called this system “Breathing Coordination” and taught it with great success to many people ranging from sufferers of extreme breathing disorders (chronic emphysema) to the American track and field team at the high-altitude Mexico Olympics (still one of the most successful post-war Olympic teams, setting 7 world and 6 Olympic records).
Although he never directly trained anyone in his method, Jessica Wolf and a few others worked closely with him for many years and were named by Carl to pass on his work.
“Like the waves of an ocean, breathing is ongoing and no two breaths are alike. Breathing is
individual: no two respiratory systems are identical, despite similar histories, habits, or
diagnoses. Yet, it is the singularity of our relationship to our breath that makes it universal.
Breathing is a shared part of our life experience and continued existence. Our breath is ours.”
