“We don’t teach people to walk, any more than we teach people to breathe. What we teach in connection with breathing are the particular snags and traps that you’ve got to look out for, the particular things you’ve got to avoid, so the breathing mechanism is free to look after itself. It is exactly the same with walking.”(Taken from “Thinking Aloud” – Walking p151)
At the end [of my lesson] I was left with feet apart – rather forward. FM said “Pick up your feet and walk.” I hesitated as with feet so far apart it felt quite impossible. FM said “No. Don’t change back to [the] old position of [the] feet. Take the plunge and do what you don’t know.”Irene Tasker (“Irene Tasker: Her Life and Work with the Alexander Technique” – Notebooks p 262)
FM would sometimes walk a pupil at the end of the lesson. He’d say, “Up to put the foot down because we all think down to put the foot down.” That was his shorthand version of what was involved.Marjory Barlow (“Alexander Technique: the Ground Rules” – part 3 p103)
Irene Tasker had some nice advice about walking. When I was working with her at Ashley Place before I went on the training course she told me that as you walk forward, you should think that your whole back is going in the direction from which you have come. It’s a preventative, and it stops you throwing the body forward. It’s wonderful – I think everyone should try it!Marjory Barlow (“Alexander Technique: the Ground Rules” p103)