EXPERIENCING AND LEARNING A DYNAMIC INTEGRATED SYSTEM OF  BODY, INSTINCTS, PSYCHE, SPIRIT AND LIFE'S ENERGIES ACROSS YOUR LIFESPAN THROUGH THE INTEGRATION OF THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF C.G. JUNG - WITH THE ADDED HELP OF DAVID BOHM'S INSIGHTS IN PHYSICS

1. A description of my study, practice and teaching

2. Comments on my teaching

3. Biography

        A  description of my study, practice and teaching

F.M. Alexander and C.G. Jung believed that, by nature, we strive to become what we have it in us to become – our Wholeness, our Self.  They each believed that nature wants us to be simply human, a human who is conscious of who she is and what she is doing. They each developed ways of how to accomplish this. 

Through lessons you will explore and experience the integration of Jung’s Psychology and Alexander’s Technique to better know and experience your Self. This integration allows you to experience the indivisible unity of your body, instincts, psyche, spirit and life energies by learning how you can allow the wisdom and natural creativity of your body to reconnect you with all of these as one.   

Consciously experiencing these as one from within your body, where they each already live, allows you to experience your wholeness, your Self  - here and now. Alexander and Jung believed that by allowing this conscious unity of body, instinct, psyche, spirit and life energies, we can learn to live and function in health and healing across our lifespan, as nature wants us to.

 I am including the physics of David Bohm where he speaks to the fuctioning of wholeness in thought, language, choice, action, movement and proprioception. Bohm integrates proprioception with our living within nature and society.

 This work brings a deeper knowledge of yourself and what your are doing. It provides joy, creativity, healing, strength, clarity of choice and decision, and all of life’s other gifts, known and unknown.  Through your Greater Personality - one of Jung's synonyms for the Self - you learn to allow your Self to be expressed as you live within nature and society, across your lifespan.

Using my touch and words  I help you in this exploration and experiencing. I believe that touch deeply opens our conciousness to our experience of our wholeness .  I believe thought and language deeply open our consciousness to the understanding of our wholeness. I believe movement (spatial and non-spatial, observed and non-observed) deeply opens our consciousness to the meaning and import of our thinking, choices activities and so on.

Jung called the wholeness that transcends consciousness the Self”. He wrote that the goal of the individuation process is the entelechy of the Self – that which turns our potential into reality. For Jung, the Self is both the individuating process and the goal towards which the individual is striving. 

Alexander’s meaning  of the Self is our wholeness. Alexander’s Technique is founded on the belief that we function as a whole and can only be fundamentally changed as a whole; that wholeness is our goal and changing as a whole is the means by which we seek our goal.  This is another entelechy.

Our individual wholeness, Self and Greater Personality is within us, just as the butterfly is within the catepillar and the oak tree is within the acorn. Thus, we each are the entelechy of our Self. We each have the task and goal of turning our potential into our wholeness- our Self.

 My own growing understanding of my wholeness, my Self, my Greater Personality, requires that I work with my life energies (divine, universal, psychic, spiritual,instinctual, physical, and others unknown to me), heart, soul, spirit, sacred body, movement, feeling, psyche, self-knowledge, self-healing, values (e.g. morality, ethics, integrity, character), oneness with others (Thou Art That), nature, and God. (I use the word “God” because it satisfies me). And since the concept of wholeness is all inclusive – it includes everything in relativity with everything -  there is much more of my potential that remains unknown to me. Through study, practice, experience, and maturation much of this unknown becomes known.

As such, we each are our own entelechy.

        Comments on my teaching 

 “As a student of movement for over 25 years, I have accumulated countless concepts, tips, and exercises that are meant to help me move and function better.  But all of those things go out the window when working with Larry.  He cuts through the fog and helps me see and experience that I already have everything I need to be free and whole right here, right now. 

 Matt Stevens, Linguist and Alexander Technique Teacher

 “Larry was one of my teachers at the Alexander Training Institute - SF. After graduating in 2003, I went to him for continued training for two intensive periods of study. Larry offers a very unique philosophical perspective on the Alexander Technique, which I believe guides his teaching.  But I didn’t go to him for philosophy; I went to him for the experience of his touch. Under his hands, I felt harmony, the mystery of my body’s own potential to heal itself, and a sense of intrinsic movement and vitality. It would be an exaggeration to say that I could feel cellular movement, but that’s the type of metaphor that rises to mind when working with Larry. His quiet touch provides deep wells of space that were particularly important to me during times of distress. Studying with Larry will not give you simple answers. You will instead experience the mystery of life in the body. As a teacher, I often reference his work.

  Elyse Shafarman, Alexander Technique Teacher

 

 

“ I can’t thank Larry enough for the inspiration his lessons have given me. I have been trying to resolve the contradiction between doing and non-doing for years, ever since my earliest workshop with Marjorie Barstow more than 30 years ago.  The shift of verbal emphasis Larry teaches in the words “let the universe do it” just dissolves the problem.  A miracle really.  And what is even more fantastic is that in lessons Larry stays with the sensitivity of touch that allows ‘it’ to do itself. Wow.”

 Marion Miller, Alexander Technique Teacher

 

 

 “Larry was my teacher at the San Francisco Alexander teacher's training school. Today he is my mentor. Larry's work opens a corridor of enlightenment that can only be found when one truly surrenders to the energy and balance of natural things.”

 Alan Bolton, Alexander Technique Teacher

 

  “My lessons with Larry have been deeply healing and revealing for me and I've appreciated them enormously.”

 

 Rosie Powell. Alexander Technique Teacher     

 

 " As I write this I feel the echo of working with Larry just a few hours ago.  And I feel re-opened in a new way - to my self and to my surroundings. Better not to say too much. Only to know that the direct experience is what matters and the quality of the vibration is much subtler than my ordinary materialistic experience. Right now I feel l like a buoy in calm gentle waters.  This is in large part of just having worked with Larry."

 David Page, Alexander Technique Teacher 

 

 

      My Biography

I am a member of the American Society for the Alexander Technique. I graduated from the Alexander Training Institute of San Francisco in 1979. In those years the directors were Frank Ottiwell Giora Pinkus. I was one of the teachers assisting Frank Ottiwell at the school from 1981 until its closure in 2004.  I also studied with Patrick McDonald and Walter and Dilys Carrington during their periodic workshops given at the San Francisco school. For 10 years I studied extensively with Marjorie Barstow in San Francisco and Lincoln, Nebraska. Marjorie and Frank are my mentors. I have been exploring, studying/writing and practicing Alexander's work since 1976. I have been teaching since 1979.

 I  have been a serious student of the psychology of Carl Jung since 1976. Since the beginning of my Alexander studies I have sought to understand my Jungian work in integration  with my Alexander work. Monica Norcia, my wife and also an Alexander teacher and long-time student of Jung's work, and I have recently completed teaching a series of classes on this integration at the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. 

I have certifications in Reiki I and II (2007-2008) and a certification iin Sha manic Healing Practices (2014).

For 46 years I have been a serious track runner. My track running has been a major means of my working with my wholeness and Alexander's technique.

Concurrent with my Alexander teaching, from 1981 to 2014 I practiced law as a civil rights litigator in private practice in San Francisco in the field of employment discrimination and harassment, representing employees. At the time I retired from law in 2014, I had been elected a "Super Lawyer" (top 5%) by my peers in my field in San Francisco and the Bay area for 10 straight years.

My Bachelor of Arts degree is from the University of California at Berkeley (1969). My Juris Doctor degree is from U.C. Berkeley’s School of Law (1974).  In 1974-75 I worked as a Vista Volunteer lawyer (Vista was the U.S. domestic version of the Peace Corp) in the Mission District of San Francisco for the San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation.

I live and teach in San Rafael.