Quotes 130 - A Difficulty with Computers
“I also believe that with powerful modern computers which possess elaborate and sophisticated colour displays...it's all too easy to enter into a ‘virtual reality’. Instead of using your eyes and sensors to monitor your actual whereabouts in space, you get sucked into the ‘reality’ of the screen where, of course, gravitation isn’t active.”
Walter Carrington (1915-2005) trained with F.M. Alexander from 1936 to 1939. He taught and ran a training course in London in Holland Park with his wife, Dilys.
(Taken from “Explaining the Alexander Technique” with Sean Carey - p149)
Bradley Newman Alexander Technique
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"Everyone is always teaching one what to do, leaving us still doing the things we shouldn’t do."
13/03/2026
AT Quote - A Still Point
"There's a 'still point' as Elliot would say, where, I don't say it's unaffected, but it's not pushed off its perch - you're able to keep something going whatever happens to you outwardly. And that's the secret of life really. You don't have any say in what happens to you, but you do have a say in how you react and that's what this work is all about - never mind good use and all that. That's what this work is about."
Marjory Barlow (1915-2006) was F.M. Alexander's niece. She trained with him from 1933 to 1936 and ran a training course with her husband (Wilfred) until 1982.
(Taken from Direction Magazine Vol 2, No 2 - “The Barlows” p22)
Alexander Technique in Ashfield, Sydney with Bradley Newman Bradley Newman has been teaching Alexander Technique since 2000. He is also a professional pianist who recovered from RSI after studying AT.
Alexander Technique Quote - Walking
"Then first thing in the morning when you wake up, don't leap out of bed otherwise it will be 11 o'clock before you even think about freeing your neck. Stay there for a while with the knees drawn up and give your orders. Then get out of bed slowly don't rush it. It's not good for you to go from lying on your back for hours and then to spring out of bed. Then you can work out the times in the day when it's easy for you to think about inhibiting and directing. I don't expect you to think about it all day long - nobody can. But if you link up thinking about inhibiting and directing, say, when you stop for a meal and you're not under any time pressure then you're on your way - you're off to a good start. Gradually you can expand your repertoire to other times during the day." [Marjory Barlow quoting Alexander.]
Marjory Barlow (1915-2006) was F.M. Alexander's niece. She trained with him from 1933 to 1936 and ran a training course with her husband (Wilfred) until 1982.
(Taken from "Alexander Technique: the Ground Rules", Part 1 p64)
Quotes 129 - One Important Thing
“FM said one very important thing in class. Never to do anything that lowers the standard of your manner of use. It is no good doing something that puts you wrong and then trying to put yourself right in the process. The thing to do is to stop and only to do what you can do without interfering.”
Walter Carrington (1915-2005) trained with F.M. Alexander from 1936 to 1939. He taught and ran a training course in London in Holland Park with his wife, Dilys.
(Taken from “A Time to Remember” - p39)
Quotes 128 - Clear Wishes
“People imagine that their bodies are disobedient and unreliable in carrying out their wishes, whereas nothing could be further from the truth. Our bodies get terribly confused because of the conflicting demands that we make of them all the time in our muddled, confused, contradictory wishes. And that is certainly what this technique is really about.”
Walter Carrington (1915-2005) trained with F.M. Alexander from 1936 to 1939. He taught and ran a training course in London in Holland Park with his wife, Dilys.
(Taken from “Thinking Aloud” – Wishing, Willing and Fairy Tales p17)
Quotes 127 - Trees and Legs
“Trees have roots” she suddenly announced in one lesson, “which connect them with the ground.”
I had heard lots of teachers speak about ‘rooting to the ground’ – but never Miss Goldie. I was surprised, but somehow felt on more familiar ground. “Trees… roots…. yes, I know about all that…”
Then, as if to shock me out of my complacency, she stood back a foot or so and added, “But we are not trees. Legs are not for support; they are for movement.”
Margaret Goldie (1905-1997) trained with F.M. Alexander from 1931 to 1934.
(Taken from “Remembering Margaret Goldie – Recollections of a Grateful Pupil”, by John Hunter. First published in STAT News January 2023)
Quotes 126 - Posture and Movement
Q: How will students know when they are right?
A: There isn’t anything either right or wrong when dealing with co-ordination. There are degrees of movement. Life is really moving from one position to another. We never stop and say, “This is right – this is my posture, this is the way I ought to be”. If we do that we’re stiff trying to hold that posture. It isn’t natural for our bodies to be held in positions.
Marjorie Barstow (1899-1995) trained with F.M. Alexander from 1931 to 1934. She was assistant to Alexander’s brother in Boston and taught mostly in the United States.
(Taken from AUSTAT Journal 1986-7, Summer/Autumn, p31)
Quotes 125 - The Condition of “Knowing”
“When a man reaches the point where he concludes that he ‘knows’ his subject, he decides, consciously or subconsciously, that he has nothing more to learn, and he promptly begins to lose what he does know; when he becomes aware that he has ‘grown up’, he has reached a stage where he has already begun to stultify those potentialities for growth which once were his, and which might have been his to the end. Boredom, monotony, and discontent follow swift upon the establishment of this condition.”
F.M. Alexander (1869-1955)
(Taken from “Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual” published 1923 – p193)
Quotes 124 - The Change is Up to Them
“I don’t think teachers can change people: the change is up to them. I think if teachers try to make people change they will revolt eventually. People have various ways of resisting.”
Walter Carrington (1915-2005) trained with F.M. Alexander from 1936 to 1939. He taught and ran a training course in London in Holland Park with his wife, Dilys.
(Taken from a “Personally Speaking” Part 3 p 120)
Quotes 123 - Understanding and Experience
“No verbal description can do justice to a technique which involves the changing...of an individual’s sensory experiences. One cannot describe the experience of seeing the colour, red. Similarly one cannot describe the much more complex experience of improved physical coordination. A verbal description would mean something only to a person who had actually had the experience described... Complete understanding of the system can come only with the practice of it.”
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) was an English essayist and novelist who had lessons with Alexander between 1935 and 1960. Huxley referenced Alexander and his technique in some of his writings.
(Taken from “Ends and Means” p223)
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