11/02/2025
Michael's Thoughts on 20+ years at the Serra Retreat..
For more than 20 years, the Serra Retreat has been part of my life. What began as a simple idea—to bring together some of my dearest Alexander Technique colleagues in a beautiful place—has become a tradition that shaped not only my teaching, but also my friendships and my sense of community.
Each year, teachers and participants gathered at the Serra Retreat Center, high above the Pacific Ocean. The setting alone felt transformative: the ocean stretching out to the horizon, the mountains at our back, the silence and beauty of the land. Within those six days, something remarkable always happened. People arrived tired, stressed, sometimes carrying the weight of the year—and slowly, with the help of the Alexander Technique, Breath-Centered Yoga, and being together, they softened, opened, and rediscovered a lighter way of moving and living.
I’ve watched people come back year after year, some for more than two decades. I’ve seen long-lasting friendships form, marriages begin, and even careers reshaped as a result of what they experienced here. And I’ve had the privilege of teaching alongside extraordinary colleagues—friends who have carried this Work for more than forty years each. Together, we’ve learned as much from one another as from our students.
It’s hard to say goodbye to such a place. The Serra Retreat Center has been a kind of sanctuary, a container where the Alexander work could unfold in its purest form. As I write this, I know this final retreat will be both a celebration and a farewell—a chance to honor what we’ve built together, and to carry it forward into whatever comes next.
This last gathering will not be about endings so much as completions. We’ll mark the circle that began more than twenty years ago, and in closing it, we’ll open space for new beginnings—new retreats in other places, new friendships, new discoveries.
If you’ve ever thought of joining us, this is the time. One last chance to stand on that terrace at sunset, to breathe with the ocean, to share in this living tradition of transformation and community.
