Tag Archive | #alexandertechnique
July 18, 2013  

Patrick Macdonald: #2, “Yes! That’s it! That’s right!”, London 1983

Patrick J Macdonald was the son of Dr Peter Macdonald, one of a number of medical doctors who strongly supported Alexander.

The young Patrick was sent to Alexander by his father when he was about twelve years old because he was, as he said himself in later years,  “rather poorly co-ordinated”.

Soon after graduating from Cambridge he joined the first training course, which was already up and running at Ashley Place.

My work with him was intermittent over a period of eight or nine years.

He was certainly extraordinary. The awe and respect he commanded in his students – some of whom who had been with him since the late fifties – forewarned one of what one might expect, but the experience of a lesson with him could not really be imagined. His touch transformed you; you became a field of energy which, only incidentally, caused the physical body to move. This approach, the flow of energy – particularly along the spine – seems to me to have been uniquely Mr. Macdonald’s.

His 1963 Annual Memorial Lecture repays careful study, as does his book “The Alexander Technique as I See It”.

Key passages are:

“He (Alexander) found that the body was a fluid thing, its various parts held in their proper relationship by a continuous flow of impulses”

“These impulses, which are analogous to electrical currents, are small, but their effect over years is very large”

“It is possible to demonstrate two forces, or sets of forces, acting in the human body, and, in particular, along the spine”

“Force “A” has a tendency to contract and distort”

“Force” B” has an expansionary or elongatory tendency. It is often referred to, in a general way, as “life”. It produces a “lightness” in the body, which I take to be the natural, though not any longer the normal, condition. This lightness is …. not that of avoirdupois. It has an anti-gravitational direction. I presume that the natural interplay of these two forces brings about the integrity of the body, which sets the stage for proper health.”1

I recall a very early experience in my second or third lesson.

I asked Mr Macdonald if I could work on him. His back, though deformed from some condition he had, struck me as having an unusual quality of ‘aliveness’ – like an animal.

At first I was only aware of the force of gravity acting through him, very strongly, but when I stopped trying to ‘do’ he moved lightly in and out of the chair.

I carried on, rather like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice – not quite knowing how to stop, until he got fed up and said, rather sharply, “Do something else now!”

I put him in a monkey and did one or two other ‘procedures’, which I cannot recall. He did not have a negative word to say. This surprised me as I had heard such stories about him and how tough he was. He just muttered, “Yes! That’s it! That’s right!”

I learnt a day or two later, from colleagues who were training with him, that when he went back into his class he was full of praise for this “student from another course who knows something about the Alexander Technique”, almost using me as a stick to beat his students for their ‘general indifference and uselessness’.

I do not recount this story out of pride. I had little idea at the time of what was really going on in my lesson. Mr Macdonald had, in working on me, brought something to life in my body; he had transmitted a certain energy. I was, for a few moments, able to let that energy flow in me without getting in the way. However, I was not at that time able on my own to ’embody’ that energy; it soon wore off. But the experience did confirm what we were working on daily with Misha Magidov, with whom I was then training; that it is possible to be animated by, and to animate in another, a different quality of energy.

1. The Alexander Technique As I See It, Patrick MacDonald. Chapter 3: Why We Learn the Technique. Published by Rahula Books, 1989.  (back to text).

© 2013 John S Hunter

July 16, 2013  

Dr Wilfred Barlow: #2, Deep Tissue Work, London 1979

I began having lessons, three times a week, with one of the teachers at Dr and Mrs Barlow’s “Alexander Institute”, behind the Albert Hall, in April 1978.

Dr Barlow would try, at the first consultation, to match a new pupil to a teacher he thought would be suitable, and for me he chose Alan Rowlands (who sadly died last year).

Alan was a pianist and a professor of piano at the Royal College of Music, just across the road from the Institute. He had a deep interest in the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti and was involved in the education programme at Krishnamurti’s Centre in the UK at Brockwood Park.

Although Alan had been a pupil of the Technique for many years, he had only been teaching for about a year when I began having lessons. After several months, because he was having some difficulties with me, Alan asked Dr Barlow to come into my lesson one day and have a look at my shoulders.  Working on the table, he was able to very quickly bring about a release of muscular tension in my neck and shoulders, which in turn spread into my arms.

One really had the impression that he understood how the body fitted together and how particular muscle groups worked.

When I got home I could enjoy for many hours the new freedom in my shoulders, and then I got a very deep and intense pain in the lower right side of my abdomen. I knew straight away what it was, as the pain was very localised around the scar from the appendectomy I had some fifteen years earlier, but deep in the tissue. The pain lasted for quite some time, then I felt something let go.

Over the years Dr Barlow helped a lot of people with some very serious difficulties.  At one time he was the ‘go to’ person for many of the rich and famous who wanted to try the Alexander Technique, but he also helped many young teachers and trainees who were struggling with various physical problems and low incomes.

© 2013 John S Hunter

July 12, 2013  

Dr Wilfred Barlow: #1, “You’ll have to come three times a week!”, London 1978

My contact with Dr Barlow was limited but significant. It was undoubtedly because of his book The Alexander Principle that I began to have lessons.

I’d come across several references to the Alexander Technique in various books and magazines I was reading in the 1970’s, but had no real sense of what it was. Being at that time unable to walk past a bookshop without browsing (yes, people did ‘browse’ before Internet Explorer or Firefox had been dreamt of), I wandered into one in Muswell Hill, North London, and came across Dr Barlow’s book. I was impressed with the detail about the head, neck, back relationship and believed there was something of real significance there.

However, reading voraciously as I did back then, my attention was soon taken with something else and I did not pursue my interest until, perhaps a year or two later, I saw Dr Barlow on a TV ‘magazine-style’ programme talking about the Technique.

“Oh! That’s that ‘thing’ I read about and am really interested in,” I said to myself. “Why aren’t I doing anything about it?”

Fortunately for me, my Guardian Angel – or some unknown force – impelled me to not put it off any longer and to go and phone Dr Barlow right there and then. I made an appointment to see him in Albert Court, just behind the Albert Hall in South West London.

Dr. Barlow, I later learned, was the first person to conduct any research into the practical benefits of the Alexander Technique – both during his time in the Army and later at the Royal College of Music.  The former was, perhaps not surprisingly, to lead nowhere, but the latter was almost certainly the precursor of the widespread interest today in Colleges of Music and Drama throughout the world.

When Alexander decided to sue the South African Government for libel, it was Dr. Wilfred Barlow who went to Johannesburg to give evidence.  This was, according to his own account in “More Talk of Alexander”, to cost him dearly:

“I myself had seen a medical career totally destroyed by the South African case, even though in every respect our evidence had been vindicated.

……it was clear that orthodox medicine wished to have nothing to do with me because of the part I had played in Alexander’s ‘victory’.”1

Towards the end of Alexander’s life Dr Barlow was instrumental in preparing the ground for a Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique (STAT).  Alexander himself, however, was not ready to hand over the reins to a democratic society, and STAT was not formally constituted until after the originator’s death.

Dr. Barlow’s book The Alexander Principle brought about a revival of interest in the work after a period of relative quiet.

But none of this I knew in April 1978 as I waited to see him in the large basement apartment in Kensington Gore; home to Dr and Mrs Barlow, to a busy practice with some dozen or so assistant teachers, and to the office and secretary of STAT.

His approach to new pupils, whom he rather treated as patients with the manner of a medical consultant, was to put them – stripped to the waist – in front of a mirrored grid of horizontal and vertical lines.  He would then proceed to point out all the various mal-alignments in the body and the places where there was collapse or excessive tension.

While attending a conference in Australia on proprioception, organised by the late Dr David Garlick, Dr Barlow confessed to my colleague Terry Fitzgerald, that his method was basically to ‘frighten’ the pupils into having lessons.

After I had been suitably ‘frightened’, Dr Barlow reassured me that ” … it will all come loose in time, but you’ll have to come three times a week you know”.

By then, I was ready to sign in blood.

1. More Talk of Alexander, Edited by Dr Wilfred Barlow. Research at the Royal College of Music, by Dr Wilfred Barlow, p191, Victor Gollancz Limited, London 1978.  (back to text).

© 2013 John S Hunter

July 6, 2013  

Tips4Pupils – End-gaining

“This end-gaining business has got to such a point – it’s worse than a drug” 1

FM Alexander

One of the biggest, though not always most apparent, obstacles to applying the twin forces of inhibition and direction in our everyday activities is “end-gaining”. What is “end-gaining”? Is there an underlying metaphysical assumption that predicates it?

At a very fundamental level, end-gaining (i.e. going directly for an end without consideration of or attention to the processes, or the means, whereby such an end can be brought about) is dependent upon a conviction,  either conscious or unconscious, that the centre of gravity of one’s life is somewhere else or some “when” else and not in the here and now. It is not a question of speed, or even of tempo. End-gaining cannot be said to be a mental, physical or emotional activity, although it affects all three.  End-gaining is a ‘state’. Like a drug, or as FM said “…worse than a drug“, it seems to permeate us at a cellular level.

When I am end-gaining I am “out of sync” with my life.

Unless there is an ontological acceptance that one’s life is happening here and now, and that it cannot be otherwise, we become very susceptible, as is a host to a pathogen when resistance is low, to either end-gaining or, arguably even worse, a kind of dreamy lassitude (see Aimless and Purposeful).

The pull to gain an end is part of the human condition; it is always waiting to reclaim us and our energies. It takes us away from “process”, and consequently away from a real sense of self.

Our “use” – in particular the disposition of our mental, physical and emotional energies – is axiomatically part of any process, whether we are aware of it or not. When we are attending to process – even if only externally – we are open to possibilities which are not there when we are in a state of end-gaining or of lassitude.

It is, in my experience, of great value to try and study for oneself – and in oneself – the phenomenon of ‘end-gaining’.

Here are some suggestions:

  • What triggers end-gaining in me? Is it something mental or emotional? For example, is my brain busy making lists of things to do? Am I worrying about getting everything done “in time” or of letting other people down?
  • What is the form of it? Does it make me speed up, be more tense, make mistakes? Do I feel as though I am pumped-up with caffeine?
  • Can I let it go? Is it possible for me to shift myself back into the here and now and attend to process? Or am I possessed by it? What resists letting go of end-gaining?
  • How do I experience myself when I am ‘attending to means-whereby’?

We cannot eliminate end-gaining, but we can certainly reduce its strength and duration.

“I always think the best test one can make on oneself is simply, in the middle of an activity, go away, walk away and maybe look out of the window or open the front door and look out. If you mind the interruption, it means you are end-gaining.”

Erika Whittaker 2

By addressing the universal tendency to end-gain, and developing a practical method of directing attention to means-whereby in activity, Alexander’s work has resonances with teachings from East and West, ancient and modern, about latent possibilities in human beings.

1. 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).
2. In correspondence with the author.

© 2013 John S Hunter

June 29, 2013  

Marj Barstow: #2, Moving Up, London 1988

The ‘Marj’ workshops took place in Rudolph Steiner House next to Regents Park in London. There were many things which were not so good about the organisation of the event, but in this series I want only to speak about my experiences of watching and working with Marjorie Barstow.

I learnt a great deal from observing the way she worked and interacted with people. Although she had a somewhat autocratic manner (Erika said that even at Ashley Place in the early 1930s, Marj had a touch of the ‘school ma’am’ about her), it was tempered by a good deal of humour – often at the expense of the pupil if he or she asked a stupid question, tried to ‘do’ it or let their attention wander. Her assistants were very evidently aware of her presence and of when they were in her field of attention; they visibly went ‘on the alert’ when she came into the room. It was amusing to watch one of them quickly uncrossing his legs and rearranging himself like a naughty schoolboy when Marj fixed her eye upon him.

Then what was her ‘method’? Bearing in mind that I can only speak of what I observed that week, here are some impressions.

She encouraged people to observe, with as much accuracy as they could muster, exactly what they were doing. This was always related to an activity. The group she was working with would usually be asked what they wanted to do. This in itself put the onus on the pupil of engaging; of making a decision; of having the courage to ‘speak up’ and say what they wanted. For some, this was already a ‘bridge too far’.

Someone might then say that he or she wished, for example, to recite a poem.  Marj would then invite the person to do so and she would watch. Afterwards, the person was invited to say what they were able to observe about themselves during the process. Other members of the group might be asked to say what they had observed. Marj would then use her hands to coordinate the person’s head, neck and back; then he or she was asked to repeat the poem.  There was, of course, a noticeable difference between before and after.  The moral was that in order to carry out any activity you need to put your head forward and up. That in itself was not new as an approach (for example Ethel Webb and Irene Tasker’s ‘application work’ in the Little School and Teacher Training Course). Marj used the ‘group dynamic’ to – as it were – reinforce the experience. This method of teaching can be a very powerful tool.  It encourages observation, attention to process, decision making and what Marj called ‘constructive thinking’.

I wanted to experience more directly the ‘energetic aspect’ of her work; the ‘inner content’, so to speak. Hoping that she would take my hands, I asked her to help me work on someone.  This ruse, however, did not work. I had expected that she would take my hands or my back and work with me on the pupil, but she just stepped back, fixed me with her eagle eyes and told me to get on with. I had not quite realised what I was letting myself in for.

Nevertheless, the experience gave me a helpful insight into what it was she was looking for. The pupil on whom I was working said that it ‘felt great’. Marj, however, was not interested in what the pupil did or didn’t feel. She was watching me. She said “I didn’t see you moving up as you put your hands on her”.

Afterwards one of the assistants came and gave me a reassuring ‘well done, brave try’ pat on the back, as though I had been through some kind of trial by fire. In a way I had, because, like trying to work on a pupil in front of Patrick MacDonald, you could feel her attention on you. She was ‘all there’. Nothing but the real counted, and you knew it.

Later in the week, however, I got my reward. While we were all working together Marj came over to me, placed one hand on my back and with her other hand placed my hand on a pupil’s neck. There it was! Crystal clear!  My back softly expanded, energy flowed along my arm and through my hand, the pupil’s neck softened, his head went forward and up, his back lengthened and widened and he went gliding across the room.  Then I could make the link. The actual experience of direction in the teacher, conveyed through the hands to the pupil, was essentially in no way at variance with what I had been learning for the past several years. Marj’s particular emphases – going into activity or movement, observation and ‘constructive thinking’ – were differences of form rather than content.

© 2013 John S Hunter

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