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The first thing to be said about Patricia Norris, with admiration, exasperation or affection, is that she has always been an innovator.  The combination of curiosity, energy, the fierce drive to find answers and the courage to present them to an often indifferent or hostile audience - which marks the true, unable-to-be-other originator - was evident from an early age.

The direction in which her gifts were developed was influenced, both negatively and positively, by the nature of her childhood world.  Her mother's venturesome, successful entrepreneurship began with the development of a ballet school on Long Island.  Patricia grew up in a world intensely concerned with the human body and a highly specialised and disciplined way in which it could be used.  She was also teaching at a young age unthinkable in later more bureaucratic years.  And that is another very clear gift - she has always been a teacher.

She went on from the familial business to train in classical ballet in the USA, England and France, and became a professional dancer in a then well known American ballet company.  Later she worked for the Drama Department of Princeton University and introduced a dance programme, as choreographer and director.

Her vocation had its true beginning, however, when she worked with doctors in a convalescent hospital, teaching remedial movement to physically disabled children.  There she learned precisely how muscles and joints worked (and something of the limitations of the medical profession's focus on specific problem areas of bodies at the expense of 'whole person' awareness).

She began then to devise a practical method of teaching people how to change the way they used their bodies.  This was the genesis of study and experiment through a wide range of disciplines (Hatha and Raga yoga, Bioenergetics, Alexander, Pilates - with the man himself, Feldenkreis, etc, etc).  She developed her own exact technique - simplified again and again over the years so that it could be quickly understood and put into practice.

For a time she managed and taught the technique at the famed Golden Door health spa in Escondido, California.

In the UK she lectured and taught the now fully developed technique and wrote the book 'Getting It Straight', published by Bantam/Corgi as one of Bantam's first four hardbacks in the UK.

Since then she has adapted the technique to specific corporate requirements (international hairdressing schools and cosmetic companies; hospitals; a High Street bank, etc.) and refined individual and group tuition practices. Because of the increased demands for more Norris Technique workshops, a Teacher Training programme has been in effect since 2006.