teachers
All teachers at our school are members of the internationally recognized Alexander-Technik-Verband Deutschland (ATVD).
Jörg Aßhoff | director of training
- has been teaching since 1993 in his own private practice. Additionally, he has been teaching 15 years at the Universität der Künste (university of performing arts), community centers (Volkshochschule) and speech therapy schools.
In 2004 he founded the school „Alexander-Technik-Schule Berlin”. He is a moderator at teacher training courses in Germany and France.
Petra von Ondarza | teacher
began studying the AT in 1985 in Paris while training in contemporary dance and Contact Improvisation. She has been teaching mainly in private practice since 1991, in Hamburg and since 1997 in Berlin. From 1992-96 she studied Body-Mind Centering/Integrative Movement Therapy with Linda Hartley and completed an M.A. in religious studies at the FU Berlin in 2010.
- She has been assisting on the training course since it opened in 2004.
Ulrich Bitter | teacher, deputy head of the training course
- has been giving lessons in the AT since 1992 in his own studio. 1993-99 he worked with professional dancers (contemporary dance) in Braunschweig. 1999-2000 he was the assistant on the training course in Hannover.
Since 2004 he has been an assistant in the Alexander-Technik School Berlin. He was member of the board of ATVD (German society of Alexander teachers) for five years. He teaches single lessons, groups, gives workshops and has a teaching assignment at the Physiotherapy School Göttingen.
Teresa Wiesehöfer | assistant
- graduated from the Alexander-Technik-Schule Berlin in 2012. She teaches the Alexander-Technique in single lessons at her Studio in Berlin Südkreuz and gives courses at various institutes of adult education. Since 2015 she is an active part of the school. Additionally, she works in her former profession as an artist, having studied drawing and sculpturing from 2000 – 2007 at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach am Main. She discovered the Alexander Technique through her love of piano playing.
Nina Rotner | assistant
has been teaching the Alexander Technique since 2020. She first encountered the technique in 2010 while studying jazz singing in Berlin. In 2018, she founded “Alexander Tehnika Slovenija”, a forum where regular international exchanges, specialist courses and seminars on the Alexander Technique take place in Slovenia. Nina specializes in working with musicians.
Petra Pachaly | teacher
has been teaching Alexander Technique since 2021 in workshops, group courses (university, VHS, physiotherapy practice, fitness studio) and individually both online and in person. In 2014, she was looking for a key to solving her chronic back problems, which she found in Alexander Technique work. Since 2022, she has been a member of the board of the Alexander Technique Association Germany e.V., combining her interest in body and mind with business know-how.
Wilfried Hanefeld | moderator of training course
- has a university degree in pedagogy and qualified as a teacher of the Alexander Technique in 1983. He had the opportunity of studying with “first generation” teachers. In 1984 he was a founding member of the Gesellschaft der Lehrer für Alexander Technik e.V. (the German society of teachers of the Alexander Technique, now: ATVD), whose work he developed and supported actively as first resp. second chairman for ten years. In 1989 he set up a teacher training course in Freiburg, on which he continued to work as its director from 1992-2001. He has been a teacher and facilitator at the Alexander-Technik-Schule Berlin since 2004. Aside from the Alexander Technique he also works in complementary fields such as: Client-Centered Communication, Gestalt Therapy, Coaching and Systemic Work.
Aranka Fortwängler | deputy moderator
became acquainted with the Alexander Technique in 1974 while studying music in Freiburg, Germany. She has been an Alexander teacher for over 40 years and has been the director of the Alexander Technique Teacher Training course in Freiburg since 1989. She was a founding member of the German society of the Alexander Technique teachers (ATVD), and was lecturering for many years at the Music Academy of Karlsruhe. She travels all over Europe leading Alexander Technique workshops, many in Croatia – her country of birth.
