Before starting a course of lessons, F. M. Alexander required his students to read at least one of the four books he wrote about his technique. Marjory Barlow, Alexander’s niece and a graduate of his first teacher training, relates an amusing anecdote about this required reading:
“Before the war I had a pupil who was home on leave from Army service in India. He had a course of lessons and went back to his unit. Two or more years later he returned to London for a refresher course of lessons. I congratulated him on the change in himself he brought about. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I have been working hard. One thing has helped me more than anything else. I keep Alexander's books on my bedside table and read a chapter every night.’
The following day I told [F. M.] Alexander this story while we were having a training class. He was silent for a long moment and then said thoughtfully, ‘Yes, and I would be a better man if I did the same.’”
From “The Teaching of F. Matthias Alexander” (1965)
The Annual F. M. Alexander Memorial Lecture
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