Your guest has arrived.  And he’s hungry!

…if Alexander came to spend some time with you?

That’s F. Matthias Alexander, of course, developer of the Alexander Technique.

Country music lovers may recognize the question as a variant of the profound query – one I actually thought about a lot as a kid – posed in a classic Porter Wagoner narration song. More about that later.

So…what would you do if FM came a knocking at your door?

I assume at the very least you’d offer him a cup of tea.  Perhaps with some clotted cream and scones.

As for me, I’d want to hang out with him as much as possible, asking all sorts of questions about his life and his discoveries, and about what he makes of the current Alexander Technique scene.  I would be especially interested in his take on developments in Alexander Technique directions over the past few years.

I would try to arrange a podcast interview with him, and get him to write a guest blog.

And, given the current interest in Delsarte’s influence on him, I’d ask him about that as well.

I’d politely ask if he’d like to do a teaching exchange but I’d be totally understanding if he didn’t.

If time and money were available, I love to take him on a world tour of Alexander teacher training courses and sit quietly in a corner watching the interplay between FM and the trainers  and students.

And if the timing worked, I’d suggest he give the Annual F. Matthias Memorial Lectures for STAT and AmSAT.

I bet he’d want to attend the 2015 Congress in Ireland, if he could get over it not being in England!

And I’m sure he’d like to see Melbourne and Sydney, two of his old 19th century stomping grounds, in their 21st century incarnations.  And while he was in Australia, we could take a short hop over to Tasmania to visit his hometown of Wynyard to see the bizarre statue of him in the local museum.

We could actually stay in his childhood home, now converted to a modern vacation rental  property with a flat-screen TV and Wi-Fi.  He could chat with descendants of his family, and their neighbors.

But enough about me. I think it could be a very useful exercise for you, dear reader, to think through just how you would feel if Alexander showed up on your doorstep.

I’d love to hear how you would react – by commenting below, or on Facebook.

***

Back to the original quote: There are at least two Alexander Technique teachers who also professionally sing and play country music, and several others who love the genre.

You know who you are!

Wouldn’t it be fun to write an Alexander version of Porter’s song?  And perform it live at Alexander Technique functions?

OK here’s the song – time to get to work!