Customer Reviews

The Act of Living: Talks on the Alexander Technique

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Mornum Time Press has once again brought out a new selection ofWalter Carrington's talks to teachers and trainees. As in the earlierbook, Thinking Aloud (1994), we are given a look at the AlexanderTechnique as a process of growth and development, with a past, a present, and, hopefully, a future. Mr. Carrington, of course, has participated in and witnessed a good deal of the first two time periods, and gives us all a fine example of the attitude and effort necessary to take us most fruitfully into the third. I have had only one personal encounter with Walter Carrington. It occurred nearly twenty-five years ago, when I was first having lessons in the Technique in Boston. The teacher with whom I was working arranged for Walter, who was visiting, to give a lecture/demonstration. There were probably less than twelve people present. Walter gave one of his judiciously rambling talks on the Technique at the same time as he gave individual turns to each of us. While he was working with me, I realized partway through that while continuing to talk to the group in general, he was also speaking to me about the very specific hands on work he and I were doing. The integration of skill and understanding involved impressed me deeply. I wondered how one could develop this level of practical wisdom and integrity. These continuing talks give us clues. It is clear in them that Mr. Carrington, after six decades as a teacher of F. M. Alexander's work, gets up every day ready to explore and reflect on whatever life presents to him that day. In his teaching, reading, speaking, and other "acts of living", he patiently and good-naturedly observes what goes on with himself and with those with whom he works, and considers what it means in light of his previous experience and knowledge. Any new connections he makes are then applied to his next experiments in teaching and living. The primary beneficiary of all this work is Walter himself, as it should be, since, as he points out, each person's primary responsibility is to his/her own self. But the rest of us, in reading and pondering Walter's musings, can find not only example but good, solid practical means to inform our own ongoing process of exploration of the inextricably fused principles and procedures of the Alexander Technique.

I'm from the Patrick MacDonald school of training, but I find much that I love in what Walter says. This is a worthwhile addition to the library of any AT teacher.