I will no doubt have to offer a good reason why I have
written about her, for she wished for no words, books or “workshops” to record
her life or work. Nor would she allow herself to be photographed, though
several of her students wished to record her image. Her life followed the old
Arabic adage: “Let us live happily, let us live in hiding.” She sought neither
fame, publicity, nor pupils.
“Not you doing your old thing, but allowing for the
new, for the unknown. Not even in your wildest dreams can you imagine what it
will be like.” How often throughout the years under her tutelage I heard Miss
Goldie utter these words. But how strong is the force drawing us back to the
familiar?
I heard of her through friends in the early months of
my training. She was then teaching in a little room on the top floor of number
7 Soho Square. I was poor; she realised this and offered to take me on board
for a small sum. Nonetheless, I endeavoured to pay her an amount just outside
the range of financial comfort. Later, when I could, I paid more; nonetheless,
I realised that I could never fully compensate for what was offered through
her.
She was a very private person, and in her public
teaching she was a representative of the “old school”. Her method was borne out
of exploring life experience and an understanding of what is required for the
transmission of a teaching.
She was tough, and sometimes very robust in her
demolition of the falsifying “I”.([1])
Once, about ten minutes into a lesson, she guided me into a deep settlement of
the body with my knees bent. Leaving me there, she stepped off to one side and
slightly behind me. From this vantage point she launched a sharpened, forceful
verbal assault. “Who do you think you are? What are you doing here? My time now
is precious and I can’t be wasting it on curiosity seekers”.([2])
The frosted atmosphere outside the window seemed warm by comparison.
As the verbal strikes continued I was brought to a
stage within myself, dramatised in two parts. The first condemned her as a
silly old bitch, and proposed that I didn’t have to put up with this and that I
should depart. The second came, calmly, more watchful, and counseled: whatever
you do, do not leave the room.
The tension grew and although my legs were beginning
to shake, the back extending and widening gave support. A gradual easing became
possible through waiting, and the carriage of reconciling enabled consent to be
given to remain and engage.
After a long fifteen minutes she drew me back,
upright, then went directly, cat-like, to her chair; the lesson was over. I
asked to make another appointment. Her reply came, “Certainly my dear.” I was
in front of someone real.
Years later, I was visited by a woman who resented
Miss Goldie. She had had one lesson with her and in her own opinion had been
treated despicably. “That old woman should not be allowed to teach,” and so
forth. I listened and felt keenly for this visitor - a lost opportunity.
“Become quiet, be still”. Miss Goldie’s voice, her
strong hands gentle upon me. “Not you doing your old thing, but allowing for
It, the unknown.” She stressed the need to practice giving and withholding
consent and the need for change to occur at “brain-thought” level.
In time, she moved her teaching practice to Holborn
and in the last months of her life continued from her home in Richmond. It is
not my intention here to give detailed descriptions of my lessons with her.
Suffice to write that they shifted and deepened over the years.([3])
Sometimes many months would go by and except for our greetings, arrangement for
the next appointment and farewell there would be a silence between us. In other
periods, and particularly in my early years with her, she spoke more
frequently. Sometimes the lessons were Socratic - she would have a question
ready for me about some aspect of the Technique, and I would have to search for
a place from which to give (as best as I could) a response.
She encouraged me to pursue my research of ancient
Egypt and early Christian Ireland, and brought to my notice the enigmatic life
of Dorothy Eady.([4])
Our last meetings were filled with flowers and warmth.
She asked me one day, “How do you receive your pupils?” “Through word of
mouth,” I replied. She gazed upon me, and silhouetted against the window smiled
and said, “Whatever that means?” I shared in the wonder of her observation. Her
last words of direction were, “Even if you have only one pupil, even if you
have none, go on working on yourself.”
Towards the end of her long life, Miss Goldie said to
me, “It would be best if all the Alexander schools in the world closed down and
all the Alexander Teachers stopped teaching so that at least one may return to
the source and discover what this work is about.” A part of me said no, for
this demands too much; it is too harsh and naked. But as the years have passed
I have felt the resonance of these words from a new, yet older place, and can
no longer deny feeling something of the fire of that call, a call that beckons
us to question.
In my view, Miss Goldie was a remarkable,
compassionate woman who transmitted through embodiment the essence of the
Alexander Technique. Since her death the years that have passed have apparently
grown, when measured through the practice of remembering, paradoxically less.
For many years I had felt that she was, in the
manifestation of her work, closest of all to the expression of her friend and
teacher, Mr F. M. Alexander. This revelation received a degree of confirmation
when Walter Carrington once stated to me, “You know, of all of us, she was
closest to him.” This is not to negate the fact that others who studied under
Alexander went forth uplifted from within his transmission, and like the images
portrayed beneath the Rose Windows in some of the great Gothic Cathedrals, the
young prophets sitting upon the shoulders of the old, they honoured him and his
legacy through their inner effort to make the work their own. Not least among
those in my experience were Walter Carrington and Patrick John Macdonald.
[1] The feeling stemming from this acquired false sense
of “I” is misleading and manifests in our self-admiration, self-importance, self-love,
and negative emotion.
[2] “…do not be faithless, but believing, and not
inquisitive.” The Acts of John, New
Testament Apocrypha. St. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote, “The first degree of pride is
inquisitiveness.” The Steps of Humility part 11 The Degrees of Pride Ch 10. Miss Goldie had little time for
curiosity seekers or for those who sought a lesson with her solely out of
inquisitiveness.
[3] I journeyed to her fortnightly over a fifteen year
period however to put that in context, the time I was actually in her presence
amounts to less than nine earth revolutions i.e. nine days.
[4] For a record of the life of Dorothy Louise Eady see The
Search For Omm Sety, A Story of Eternal Love by Johathan Cott in collaboration with Hanny El Zeini. A Rider book
published in 1988 by Century Hutchinson Ltd., London. What ever one may feel about the haunting story of
Dorothy Eady, she followed a calling to her “real home” The Temple of Sety I at
Abydos, Upper Egypt and lived as a result a remarkable life.
Dear Ted,
I had many lessons with Margaret Goldie, mostly during the 1980s.
I too had some experience of how harsh she could be with her pupils, although from what I both saw and heard, women generally received the worst of it.
At the time I thought, like you, that she was just telling me straight what I needed to know. However now, as an experienced teacher in my own right (of 30 years) I am inclined to agree with Walter Carrington's view that, since our work is principally to assist our pupils towards an experience of greater freedom and expansion, anything that causes them to stiffen and shorten should be avoided in almost any situation. And all the modern research on teaching and learning supports this approach.
One could say that she was an "old school" type of teacher, cruel to be kind. However, my observation was that at least some of her harshness was her response to her own frustrations in achieving the desired effect in her pupils. To say this is not take away from her many obvious qualities and, indeed, charms.
Regarding Miss Goldie's view of training courses for teachers, I have an interesting story: after several years of lessons, I was offered a place at the Carrington's training course in London in 1984. I was very excited about this and, at my next lesson with Miss Goldie, I told her that I would be starting my training within weeks. There was a long silence and eventually I plucked up the courage to say; "Do you not think that I would be able to become a worthwhile teacher?" "It's not that", she said, "no one but Mr Alexander is qualified to train people to teach his Technique". "But", I replied, "surely Walter Carrington is qualified?" (see note below*) "He surely wouldn't offer to train teachers if he thought he couldn't do it...why would he do that?" Another pause, longer still, and she said in the lightest and most ironic tone that she could muster, "ego"!
Miss Goldie had been Alexander's most loyal champion during his lifetime and it seemed to me that she was generally not pleased with the authenticity of his legacy as reflected in the work of newer teachers.
*Margaret Goldie was well aware that Walter had assisted Alexander on his training course from 1945 to 1955 and had, by all accounts, been the lead teacher on the course, with Alexander himself coming in with less and less frequency in his final years. I heard this myself from Peggy Williams, Tony Spawforth and Goddard Binkley, all of whom were students during this period. And Marjorie Barlow wrote that the fact that Walter, who had trained later that they had, was actually running Alexander's training course was the reason that she and Bill felt it perfectly reasonable to start their own training course at that time.
Peter Bloch
Posted by: Peter Bloch | 18 December 2017 at 08:34 PM