April 10, 2023  

Our Link with Alexander: A Legacy Project*

While visiting a UK training course recently, the subject of the short films of Alexander came up. “Why on earth”, said the Head of Training, Ron Colyer, “did no one think of putting a microphone in front of him?”

Good question! Then, later in the morning, Ron and I were remembering our lessons with first generation teachers when one of his students said, “I want to put a microphone in front of you two”. I could see how interested the students were in hearing about these teachers through whom came all our direct knowledge of Alexander’s work. Many of us who did train or have lessons with that first generation are no longer young ourselves and if we wish to record our experiences for future generations, the time is now.

The Trustees of the Charity for the F Matthias Alexander Technique (aka AT Friends: www.fmatcharity.org) propose to hold a series of panel discussions on Zoom, each one dedicated to a teacher trained by FM Alexander. The panel will be made up of people who were students or pupils of that teacher and audience members will be able to pose questions. The event will also be recorded so that people unable to attend are able to view it.

The subject of the first such event, to be held in 2023, will be Margaret Goldie (14/12/1905 to 25/01/1997).

Did you have lessons with Margaret Goldie? If so, would you be willing to share some of your experiences with the world-wide Alexander community? Please contact me by email and let me know: john.s.hunter@gmail.com

* First published in STATNews, January 2023

March 15, 2023  

Lessons with Miss G: #11, Now I’m a Believer

“Now you are doing it again!” she said, with more than a little exasperation in her voice. She stepped back so that she could look at me and pronounce her verdict. “John, you are such an unbeliever!”

Well, that was not what I was expecting to hear. All sorts of reasons had been flooding through my head as to why it just wasn’t working: it was because I was doing or not doing this or that, or that she was doing or not doing this or that, but the idea that it could have anything at all to do with my beliefs – or lack of them – had never occurred to me …

And yet, she was absolutely right. Because I didn’t feel what I expected – had even been ‘trained’ – to feel when getting out of the chair, I didn’t believe it was possible. I was used to “keeping my back back”, but this was brought about with the help of a strong stimulus from the teacher who provided the opposition, thereby stimulating the “anti-gravity response”. But Goldie didn’t do that; she was not going to make it work for you, and if the usual signals and sensations were not there, then I didn’t believe something could happen.

So Alexander was right: “Belief is a matter of customary muscle tension”.1 I didn’t see this all at once: it was a gradual realisation, but one that was set in motion by that remark of Goldie’s.

Of all the “master teachers” I worked with, it was only with Goldie that I did not always feel wonderful during or after the lessons. Far from it! Sometimes it all felt very static and pointless. On more than one occasion I could not wait for the lesson to end, swearing to myself that this would definitely be the last time I would put myself through such an excruciating experience. She was, of course, picking up this “resistance” and would sometimes comment that I should not concern myself with whether or not I felt it was working, or give way to an inner criticism that she was “not up to scratch today”, but I should “just go on with the brain-work”. Then, perhaps several hours later the same day – and quite unexpectedly – some new discovery would emerge; a clarity of thought, a more vivid perception, or an unknown part of my spine would suddenly wake up. I was coming to understand that what she called “brain-work” was bringing about changes from the inside rather than through muscles or nerves. Another of Alexander’s aphorisms began to make sense:

“When the time comes that you can trust your feeling, you won’t want to use it.” 2

1 Some references to belief and muscle tension.

  • “Do you know what we have found that belief is? A certain standard of muscle tension. That is all”. (The Bedford Lecture, in Articles and Lectures, p.174, Mouritz (1995))
  • I remember one morning his coming briskly into our classroom, looking very pleased with himself, and saying, ‘Belief is a matter of customary muscle tension.’
    ‘F.M.,’ I said, ‘don’t you mean that belief about what you can do with the body is a matter of customary muscle tension?’ The discussion was on. He kept talking while he worked. Finally at the end of the morning’s work F.M. said, ‘Yes, belief about what you can do with the body is a matter of customary muscle tension.’ Lulie Westfeldt, F. Matthias Alexander, The Man and his Work, Mouritz 1998, p.68
  • Was FM’ s aphorism that belief is a matter of muscle tension simply designed to shock people, or was there a more serious element behind it? He was perfectly serious about it, because he equated belief with fixation. In his experience a rigidity of mind corresponded to a rigidity of body. (Walter Carrington on the Alexander Technique in discussion with Sean Carey, 1986, p.45f)

2 Teaching Aphorisms: The Alexander Journal No 7, 1972, published by the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique. Also published in Articles and Lectures by Mouritz (1995).

© John Hunter 2015

The Trustees of the Charity for the F Matthias Alexander Technique are piloting what we call a “legacy project” with the aim of recording and storing material about first-generation teachers trained by F M Alexander. The first subject of the project will be Margaret Goldie (1905-1997).Anyone who knew Miss Goldie, either in a personal capacity or as a pupil, is invited to contact the Charity with a view to participating in the project: https://www.fmatcharity.org/legacy-project.html
Email us on enquiries@atfriends.org

March 14, 2023  

Lessons with Miss G: #10, Some Meaningful Tittle-tattle

Stories about Miss G abound. They are interesting, often humorous and give some insight into her individuality. Sometimes they demonstrate her capacity to lay bare something in the person with whom she was interacting. Here are a few that I heard, first or second hand, over the years.

A newly qualified young teacher from Israel came to have a lesson with Miss G. As was her wont, she spoke throughout about the need to “stop and be quiet; pay particular attention to the head, neck and back”.

The young teacher, not knowing Miss Goldie’s ways and probably thinking that she was holding out on him, could only take so much of this before interrupting her and saying:

“Miss Goldie! You do realize that I have just completed three years of full-time teacher training, so I think I know the basics.”

“Oh!” said Miss Goldie. “Three years! I see. Well I have completed sixty-three years of training, and I still have to remind myself. So where does that put you and your three years?”

* * *

I heard one story from Marjory Barlow.

A pupil of Marjory’s said to her one day that, having benefited so much from his lessons, he felt a deep appreciation for Alexander and his work and he wanted to know where he was buried so that he could take some flowers to the grave as a token of his gratitude.

Marjory told him that Alexander had in fact been cremated and that she did not know what had happened to the ashes but, thinking that Margaret Goldie would certainly know, she would try and find out.

Another of Marjory’s pupils, an Alexander teacher, was also having lessons with Miss G, so Marjory asked this person if she would, next time she saw Goldie, ask her if she could shed any light on the fate of Alexander’s ashes – adding that it was best not to mention Marjory’s name.

Sure enough, the next time this person was having her lesson with Miss G, she said that “a friend” had been curious about Alexander’s ashes and  wanted to know what had happened to them.

“Well!” replied Miss G in a minimalist and dismissive manner, “There are lots of people who want to know all sorts of things!”

Several years later another of Miss G’s pupils was able to supply the missing end to this story. It seems that she had her lesson directly after the pupil who had asked about the ashes, and Miss G had made some comments to her about the incident. She, Miss Goldie, with one other person – most probably Irene Stewart – had scattered the ashes in a place which she said she would never reveal.

* * *

A friend of mine from Mexico would visit London regularly to have lessons with Miss G – sometimes seeing her twice a day. One year she was staying with me while Erika was visiting, and told us a lovely story when she got back from her lesson. By that time Miss Goldie had stopped teaching at the Bloomsbury Alexander Centre and was seeing just a few pupils at her home in Richmond.

I wanted to take her something nice as a treat and went into a delicatessen that was just round the corner from Goldie’s house. It seemed like such an intimate local area that I felt certain that the staff would know who Goldie was and what she liked, so I went in and asked a man who was serving what he could recommend for Miss Goldie.

“Miss Goldie?” he said. “You know Miss Goldie? Wait a minute!”

The shopkeeper then went to the door, put up the ‘closed’ sign, locked the door, pulled the blinds down and invited me into the back room for tea and biscuits. I was a bit worried but he seemed harmless so I agreed. He then interrogated me for half an hour about Miss Goldie, this mysterious woman who had been coming into his shop for years and about whom he knew nothing at all. I told him what I knew and then went off for my lesson. Of course, I told Miss Goldie all about the incident, and she roared with laughter.

When my friend got back to my apartment she could not wait to tell Erika and me this wonderful story.

“It was all so surrealistic!” she said. “I felt like I was back home in Mexico. I can’t believe that such a thing could happen in England.”

* * *

Miss G usually did not have a fixed fee and asked new pupils to consider how much they valued what they were learning before deciding what they wished to pay for their lessons. She had apparently been known to tell some people that they needed to pay more, whilst from others she would refuse to take any payment at all. The issue really was one of valuation rather than money. One story I heard examples a never-to-be-forgotten lesson given to a young man.

Young Mr X was asked, after his first lesson to give some thought to what he wanted to pay. He made the mistake of “trying it on”, however, and said he wanted to pay her her five pounds.

At his next lesson he was told, as soon as he arrived, to remove his shoes and lie on the table.

Miss Goldie arranged his head on some books and then left the room to go and have a cup of tea.

After half an hour she came back and told him to get up and go because the lesson was over.

“But you haven’t done anything” protested the young man.

“Well” she replied, “you wanted to pay five pounds, so you have had five pounds worth. Good day!”

* * *

© 2014 John S Hunter

The Trustees of the Charity for the F Matthias Alexander Technique are piloting what we call a “legacy project” with the aim of recording and storing material about first-generation teachers trained by F M Alexander. The first subject of the project will be Margaret Goldie (1905-1997).Anyone who knew Miss Goldie, either in a personal capacity or as a pupil, is invited to contact the Charity with a view to participating in the project: https://www.fmatcharity.org/legacy-project.html
Email us on enquiries@atfriends.org

March 14, 2023  

Marjory Barlow: #2, “The Only Freedom We Have”, London 1984

Some years after that first experience of ‘magic’ with Marjory, I began to see her regularly for lessons. It was during my last term of teacher training,

Her approach was very much to emphasise ‘saying no’, ‘giving orders’ and to work with the basic procedures. She talked of ‘orders’ rather than ‘directions’ and the ‘orders’ were given with the idea that they might bring about some change later. She once described the process as rather like laying telephone cable: no messages can get through until the cable reaches its destination; if you don’t feel anything happening, it doesn’t mean nothing is happening; just go on ‘laying cables’ and be patient; eventually the messages will get through.

Marjory would often say. “I’m doing exactly what F.M. did. I haven’t changed anything.”

In one lesson she said to me, “My use might be a bit better than yours; that’s only because I’ve been working at it for longer. But when it comes to saying ‘no’ to a stimulus, we are all in the same boat. That never becomes easy or automatic.”

She also said – and it was one of those moments that really stay with you “the space in between stimulus and response is the only freedom we have“.

© 2013 John S Hunter

March 14, 2023  

Marjory Barlow: #1, A Little Bit of Magic, London, 1979

Marjory Barlow, the daughter of FM’s sister, developed an interest in her Uncle’s work early in her life – largely through necessity. Like the young FM, she did not have a strong constitution and really needed what the Technique could offer. When she spoke about training, however, Alexander always told her that she was not strong enough and would never make a teacher. In later years she wondered whether that had been to spur her on, as she joined the first training course a year or two after it had started.

She came into one of my lessons with Alan Rowlands. I had seen her from time to time when I was sitting in the waiting room at the Alexander Institute in Albert Court, and knew who she was, but I had never spoken to her.

She was the first person to give me an experience clearly of another order. She put her hands, or rather the tips of her fingers, on my head and I felt it move up. I knew that she was not doing it, in the way that we understand ‘doing’, but that something quite new was happening – and in parts of my body I was hardly aware of.

It was then that I realised that there is a little bit of magic in the Alexander Technique.

© 2013 John S Hunter

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