Learning How to Consciously and Continously Live deeply within your Body, Joining with your Psyche, Emotions, Soul, Instincts, Spirit and Libido where they have always lived, Using F.M. Alexander's Technique and C.G. Jung's Depth Psychology

My philosophy of living and teaching - to date

We are all one

Everything is in relativity with everything 

Everything is synchronistic

Proprioception of Self extends to and into everything

Our wholeness exists within every part of us and every part of us reflects our wholeness

All of life's energies and processes are libido 

If you cannot find it in your own body, where will you go in search of it?

The Upanishads

A  description of my teaching

For many centuries, we humans have known that the pursuit of our wholeness is necessary for the education, healing, and strengthening of ourselves.

 The primary purpose of my work as an educator and teacher is to help educate, heal, and strengthen the whole person in our striving for our wholeness in our lives. Alexander called this the use of the Self. Jung called this the individuation of the Self.

My approach in teaching this work is by helping students learn and experience how the Alexander Technique provides a necessary ingredient of Jung's idea and goal of individuation -  of seeking our wholeness and becoming our Self. This ingredient is the gaining of a deep knowledge and experience of consciously living within our wholeiness and its parts. 

 Both Aleander and Jung believed we are able to successfuly pursue wholeness, individuation and self by conscioiusly living with and within all parts of our wholeness.  They beleived that our wholenss exists within our parts and ourparts reflect our wholeness.  

.  Jung believed that nature wants us to be simply human, a human who is conscious of who she is and what she is doing. Alexander's Technique focuses on these goals; primarily by learning how to allow consciousness to live within in our body, joining our libido (all life's energies and processes), psyche, emotions, instincts, soul and spirit, all of which already live there. His work provides a long-proven means of learning how we can allow the wisdom and natural creativity of our body to reconnect us with all of these as one, all working together in the pursuit of our wholeness and Self.  it is this work that is essential in our seeking these goals - the most important goals of our lifetime.

Alexander and Jung believed that by allowing this unity of body, libido, psyche, emotion, instinct, soul, and spirit we can learn how to live and function in health and healing across our lifespan, as nature wants us to.

My teaching also includes my understanding of the quantum physics of David Bohm wherein he speaks of the functioning of wholeness in thought, language, choice, action, movement and proprioception. Bohm's ideas of  proprioception include our perception, not only of our Self living within our body, but also within our environment and society.

My own growing understanding of my wholeness, my Self, includes my libido, heart, soul, spirit, body, movement, feeling, psyche, self-knowledge, self-healing, values (e.g. morality, ethics, integrity, character), oneness with others (Thou Art That), nature, God (I use the word “God” because it satisfies me), and the Unknown.  My concept of wholeness includes everything in relativity with everything 

 In these lessons I use my touch, words and our dialogue.

       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

 

 ( Larry: Feeling cellular movement is not a metaphor. It is the experience of the reality of movement within our body.)

“ 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 taught a series of classes on this integration at the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco over the past two years. 

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 track runner. My track running has been a major means of my learning and experiencing Alexander's technique and Jung's psychology.

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, harassment and retaliation 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.