Screaming With A Lady

It is the first and last time I ever experienced such a thing.

I am sitting in our office with my biz-partner and her best friend, Dorette. We are so estranged that I tell Dorette what I want to say, and then Dorette repeats it to her while I listen. Then my biz-partner replies to Dorette while I listen, and then Dorette tells me what I just heard my biz-partner say.

Bizarre.

But it works.

If we don’t follow this rule – and try to talk directly to each other – within one sentence, we are both screaming.

My “nice-guy” image is seriously messed up by this situation.

Four years ago – back in London – we first met each other. I was already teaching in my mad Paris period, and she was about to qualify. We were both Australian, and she heard I had decided to head back to Sydney. Should we team up?

Without a second’s hesitation, I agreed.

Bad decision. Or was it a good one?

These days you read a lot about how the best leaders surround themselves with dissenters and opposing viewpoints – Abraham Lincoln and his “Team of Rivals” – but my experience suggests it’s a whole lot more fun to work with people who you like.

Except, together, we accomplished great things. 

My biz-partner was a genius at making great spaces, something I only vaguely appreciated at the time. She helped to carry the burden of opening a brand-new Alexander Centre in Sydney. SATA – Sydney Alexander Technique Centre – flourished over those years. It started with small groups and grew and grew until we had a teaching practise with 5 teachers giving individual lessons – and leading groups - and a teacher training school with 23 full-time students.

An official at Australia’s Department of Immigration once told me that they had an “Alexander file” several feet thick. During its life, SATA sponsored over 30 foreign teachers to come to our training school. Six of those were for Permanent Residency. (Duncan, Andrea, Christine, John, Lynn & Marion)

Oh, those were the glory days of Alexander in Sydney!

We didn’t have much competition then. 

There was a thing called Polarity Therapy, and Rolfing, Re-Birthing, and a few others had a made name by then. But back in 1981, the proliferation of methodologies of every kind had not yet started. Today, the noise of so many fascinating and diverse “techniques” have diffused the song of Alexander. 

For some, “Alexander” comes across as a little jaded and out-of-fashion.

Yet Alexander’s Discovery has persisted since 1894, and people are still in schools training, still taking lessons.

You have to wonder why?