Spatial Relationships as a key to Working on Pupils

Alexander’s Little School was a hub of development for the technique long before the first training course. Irene Tasker, Miss Goldie, Erika Whittaker, Marjory Barlow and Marjorie Barstow were all involved. The work was about quietening reactivity, and connection, integration and application. During the first training course, MacDonald, Barlow and others developed the teaching method still taught today, which is more about the body in isolation. But real expansion can only come when we expand beyond the body, to include our surroundings and our focus, whether a task or a person.

Miss Goldie was always fully present with her pupil, wherever she was in the room, and yet always separate, never invading their space. We will explore this mystery of being fully connected, yet fully separate and unattached, and the subtle power this can bring to our work. Putting hands ceases to be a matter of remembering learnt moves, and more an intuitive flow with the pupil, where their whole being calls what they need from you.