Patrick Mellen
Teacher and Founder of Balance Lab
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Originally from Ohio, Patrick now lives with his husband in Brooklyn. He came to New York to be an actor and through that work met his teacher, Chloe Wing. Studying under Chloe, Patrick became a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique in 2011 through Alexander Technique International. Leaning into the meditation techniques also learned from Chloe, Patrick met MBSR and is soon to achieve his Certificate in teaching of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction through Brown University.
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His work at the intersection of the Alexander Technique (systematized body awareness) and mindfulness (non-judgmental awareness) experiments with the mind and body as the beginning (and end) of living with more ease.
As an actor, Patrick has appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Broad City. He still uses his headshot from 2011 and acknowledges that this is not best practice.
What some of the students
are saying
What really made me choose Balance Lab is Patrick and his presence: He just exudes this confidence in his teaching, but with comfort and a welcoming spirit. That all makes it very comfortable and approachable. It draws me in; I always want to be there.
Andrew
From the very start, it makes a huge difference to actually experience Patrick’s teachings, as opposed to talking or reading about meditation. What means the most to me is experiencing it.
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Wendy
Patrick has a great sense of humor. He puts himself on the same level as the people involved. It's very much a completely equal setting. I appreciate his ability to explain things.
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Elizabeth
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Blog
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As we continue to unpack Patrick MacDonald’s five fundamentals of the Alexander Technique (AT) I wanted to speak to how we are now using language differently here in 2022.
To “explain” Faulty Sensory Awareness though - I invite you to conduct the following self-experiment. You will need a mirror and you will need to be upright, either sitting or standing...
Inhibition: the pause that refreshes
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In the 20s, Coca-Cola had an ad campaign that named Coke as “the pause that refreshes.” Also, apparently, at one point Coke had what we now call cocaine in it - so times have really changed. Growing up Coke used “Coke is it!” as an ad campaign which is as direct while being as vague as can be...
My mother-in-law has a delightful penchant for gifting novelty T-shirts. These I end up wearing to the gym mostly. One of these shirts is black with white block lettering stating: I sometimes wonder what happened to all those people I gave directions to...
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The Alexander Technique (AT) is a “mind-body” modality. It is one of many, some very popular - yoga, mindfulness - some not as popular, but no less beneficial - Somatic Experiencing, Feldenkrais - but all of these and more address the “mind-body” connection...
We have moved through these short articles fleshing out the 5 “pillars” of the Alexander Technique (AT) as pointed to by Patrick MacDonald - one of Alexander’s direct students.
Not that any of this is a linear path, but I think finishing with Primary Control is fitting as it is also where it, and all life, begins...
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Writers of all stripes - be they poets, playwrights, songwriters, writers of Hallmark greeting cards, writers of Hallmark movies, novelists, memoirists and more - have written about love. They have written about being in love, about what it is like to fall in love...