A Master Class with Marjory Barlow [video]

May 8, 2015 admin

by Witold Fitz-Simon This master Class with first-generation teacher, Marjory Barlow, was filmed in 1986 at the first International Alexander Technique Congress. Here she goes through the finer points of giving a table turn.

[author] [author_image timthumb='on']http://www.acatnyc.org/main/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/After-crop1.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]WITOLD FITZ-SIMON has been a student of the Alexander Technique since 2007. He is certified to teach the Technique as a graduate of the American Center for the Alexander Technique’s 1,600-hour, three year training program. A student of yoga since 1993 and a teacher of yoga since 2000, Witold combines his extensive knowledge of the body and its use into intelligent and practical instruction designed to help his students free themselves of ineffective and damaging habits of body, mind and being. <a href="www.mindbodyandbeing.com">www.mindbodyandbeing.com</a>[/author_info] [/author]

Marjory Barlow on the Alexander Technique: "Just think it. That's all you can do."

February 19, 2015 admin

By Witold Fitz-Simon

"Just think it. That's all you can do. Any thing extra you try and do... and we all do this. We all think, "It won't matter if I do just a little bit of doing." And the whole thing is ruined. Immediately. What you're doing, what you're changing, is the pattern... are the patterns in your brain and your nervous system. And that manifests in your body. So, in a sense, you're not working on the body, except very indirectly. Do remember that, because you have control to a certain extent over what you're thinking. You have very little control over what's happening in your body. If this were not so, if it wasn't a question of the brain and nervous system, F. M. could never have discovered the work. It was only because he was able, by thinking, to stop those wrong habits. Probably one of the biggest discoveries ever made by a human being." —Marjory Barlow

Marjory Barlow (1915-2006) was F. M. Alexander's niece, who trained with him to teach the Technique in 1933.

Thanks to Jeffrey Glazer for highlighting this clip.

Master Alexander Technique Teacher, Marjory Barlow (1915-2006)

June 5, 2014 admin

by Witold Fitz-Simon Marjory Barlow was F. M. Alexander’s niece, who took lessons from him and trained under him to become an Alexander Technique teacher in 1933. She was the first person outside of F. M.’s Ashely Place Training course to start her own teacher training program. As a teacher she combines a no-nonsense, straightforward approach to the work with light-heartedness and compassion. Here she is in an interview from 1986.

http://youtu.be/SjcY9S-bwIs

For more information about this wonderful teacher, there are some great resources out there:

An interview with her with Francis Oxford, reprinted from Direction Journal
Rough notes from a workshop with her in California, 1995, taken by Bob Britton
The Annual Memorial Lecture she gave to the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique (STAT) in the UK in 1958

There are also two books:

“An Examined Life: Marjory Barlow and the Alexander Technique” by Marjory Barlow in conversation with Trevor Allan Davies (available to ACAT members from the Library)
"The Alexander Technique: Ground Rules" by Marjory Barlow in conversation with Sean Carey

Of the two books, I've only read "An Examined Life," which I've read twice and thoroughly recommend for both its personal perspective on Alexander's life and her inspiring exposition of his work.