F.M.: The Life of Frederick Matthias Alexander: Founder of the Alexander Technique by Michael Bloch

Author:Michael Bloch [Bloch, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, General
ISBN: 9781405513616
Google: D9An_7wWFogC
Amazon: B005VO6ZSQ
Goodreads: 19150532
Publisher: Abacus
Published: 2004-05-31T21:00:00+00:00

The first training course started in February 1931 with eight students, all former pupils of F.M. Six were women: Margaret Goldie, who took time off from her work at the little school; Irene Stewart (1906–90), a schoolfriend of Goldie; Erika Schumann (born 1912), Ethel Webb’s German niece, whom F.M. had helped overcome her curvature of the spine; Jean MacInnes, a former pupil at the little school; and two Americans, Marjorie Barstow (1899–1995), a teacher of ballroom dancing, and Lulie Westfeldt (1895–1965), a tiny woman with a biting wit whom F.M. had saved from becoming seriously crippled. The two men were close friends who had recently come down from Cambridge – Gurney MacInnes, Jean’s asthmatic brother, and George Trevelyan (1906–1996), a handsome dilettante from a famous political dynasty whose father was then education minister in Ramsay Macdonald’s Labour government. During the next three years, they were joined on the course by five others: Kitty Merrick (1900–88), an American friend of Lulie, who was accepted by F.M. despite suffering from schizophrenia; Patrick Macdonald (1910–91), a Cambridge boxing blue and son of F.M.’s great medical ally Dr Peter Macdonald; Charles Neil (1917–58), an asthmatic teenager in whom F.M. took a fatherly interest; and two members of F.M.’s own family – his niece Marjory Mechin (born 1915), daughter of his sister Amy, and his nephew Max Alexander (1916–97), son of A.R. The three Americans were in their thirties; the rest were in their twenties or younger, Neil being a mere sixteen when he joined in 1933. Marjorie Barstow, the MacInneses, Macdonald and Trevelyan came from wealthy families; none of the rest was well off, and some had to struggle to pay their fees and make ends meet. Several of them were to leave interesting recollections of their years with F.M.34

The method of training was simple. From ten to twelve every morning, five days a week, forty weeks a year, the students would assemble in A.R.’s teaching room at Ashley Place, where each would receive in turn a short lesson from either F.M. or A.R. (or sometimes both together) while the rest watched and listened. During the afternoon, either in a small ‘students’ room’ at the back of Ashley Place or in their own lodgings, they would practise on themselves or each other, using such experience as they had gained. After studying for a year or so, they would also do some work on the children of the little school under the supervision of Irene Tasker. In the evening, F.M. would occasionally take a party of them to the theatre or cinema, commenting on the ‘use’ of the actors, or invite them to dinner at Penhill, after which he would nostalgically recite either Shakespeare monologues or the Australian ballads of his youth. On the whole, however, he maintained an attitude of detachment, not wishing to hear much about their lives outside the course.

At the outset, the students were fired with tremendous idealism: most of them had already been considerably helped by F.M., and they regarded themselves as pioneers in a great enterprise.

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