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“My goal, and my only one, is to help you adjust your inner tempo, so that you do not lose pace with time.”
About the Book . From the Author . Review . The Authors
An Examined Life
From the Author
When my husband Bill and I started our first training course over 50 years ago, it was to satisfy the need of three of our private pupils who wished (and in my estimation, needed) to train. The training course continued for many years, always on that basis-to serve those who needed and wanted it.
This book had a similar genesis. Trevor Allan Davies is a pupil and friend of mine, and this book was his idea. He felt that my particular experience of the Technique and my memories of the early days with F.M. and A.R. (my teachers and my uncles) might be of value to present and future generations of Alexander teachers, separated from their historical roots by an ever widening gap of time.
As this gap widens there is a danger that the Work will be misrepresented to the people who really matter, the members of the public who come to us for assistance. I hope that in giving you my memories of F.M.'s words and practices (as I remember them) I may encourage you to be true to the principles of his work and to continue to delve into his books for guidance and inspiration.
Everyone had their own F.M.-he was a rich and complex character. As with many other great men whose mastery embraces the human as a whole being, our opinions, memories, assessments and criticisms of him may reveal more about ourselves than about him. One of the most valuable functions of such people is to be our mirror. This book represents my F.M.-but mine wasn't the only one, and what I have to say here about my experience of him is not intended to deny or cast doubt on others' experience of him.
F.M. said that he had "only scratched the surface of the egg" in his lifetime of work in this new field of investigation. It is up to us, and particularly now to new teachers, to scratch deeper. I would like to suggest that this further development-the real future of the Work-be sought first and foremost in the first person singular. Having read the manuscript, I can happily say that through his many hours of interviewing, transcribing, arranging and editing of the original conversations into their present form, Trevor has served me well. Many of the things he drew from me with his questions were things which I didn't know I had in me. He knew how to push the right buttons. So this book is a dialogue, not a monologue.
I have been a pupil, then teacher and trainer of the Alexander Work for 69 years. What I can express about it in words, is here. I offer it to you in all humility, in the hope that it may be of some use to you. My sincere wish is that you will continue to inhibit and direct in order to be happy.
Marjory Barlow