An Embarrassing Confession 

At times, people tell me I am really annoying – because I come off as too knowing and arrogant. That kind of feedback always surprises me, as I certainly don’t feel so ‘knowing’ inside myself.

In fact, for my first 10 years as an Alexander teacher – back in the early 80s before I met Marj (Marjorie Barstow) - I used to suffer from sciatic pain down my left leg. And it got worse when I was teaching a large group. What kind of teacher gets worse when they teach?

Certainly not an ‘all knowing’ one.

I finally began to change one day when Marj’s huge, flat hand appeared above me and then thumped me three times on the chest with her words ringing in my ears:

“What are doing THAT for!?”

“THAT” – I slowly discovered – was lifting up my chest. That action felt right to me – with my chest in that location I had the feeling of being a “proper and upright” Alexander teacher.* I was doing what I wrote about more technically yesterday – using my feelings to guide my coordination, rather than being guided by thinking and decisions.

Of course, all this got clear over the next few decades – it did not fall into place so quickly at the time. However, the easing of my chest by Marj’s delicate encouraging touch led me into an emotional roller coaster of wistful regret and sadness.

I had a girlfriend at this time who just loved me when I was in my sadness, a kind of melancholic state recalling painful times past…

“Oh,” she used to gush, “You’re so exquisite when you’re depressed like this.”

My chest-raising was not just a physical quirk - it was part and parcel of my attempt to gloss over the self-hatred and empty heart that drove me. I discovered that my uprightness was a way of proving to my father I was worth loving. When he died, so did my urge to be an Alexander teacher. This was all happening around 1988 as I was organising for Marj to teach in London and Europe around the International Brighton Congress.

At that time I also had a frozen shoulder – a 50-year-old shoulder - the Japanese call it. My father had died 3 months before, and I had dislocated my arm for the 13th time while rock climbing in Sweden just two weeks before coming to London. At the time, I could barely lift a coffee cup. I remember Marj working with me in a chair for 40 minutes. 

“I’m no arm fixer!” she declared to me, then proceeded to fix my arm. 

A few hours after our session, my shoulder exploded into a cacophony of sensation – gone was the suffocating and impenetrable dull ache; in its place a myriad of delightful tinglings. After Marj’s session I never dislocated my arm again.

Thank you Marj – not just for fixing my arm, but for leading me to understand the most subtle and enduring of all of Alexander's Discoveries – how to think.

As Henry Ford was once so famously reputed to say:

“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it."