That’s a phrase the late Marjorie Barstow used so much.  When she was 90 years outdated, somebody she had by no means met known as and requested if she’d fly – by herself – throughout the nation, to a metropolis the place she’d by no means been, to show an Alexander Method workshop.  She agreed and once we talked about it later she advised me “Properly, I believed I’d simply take a playing probability and go.”

Her inclination was at all times to say “sure” to something new.  When she was solely in her 70s, she was requested to spend two months in Texas educating the Alexander Method to teams.  As she writes in her preface to the Centerline version of Use of the Self, “This (invitation) delighted me as I had questioned for a while if the Method might be taught efficiently to teams of scholars.  This gave me the possibility to discover this concept and I began off alone driving to Texas, desirous to be in a brand new scenario (italics mine). My firstclass in Texas and my subsequent educating have confirmed that the Method might be taught efficiently to teams of scholars and I’ve discovered my college students excited and pleased with their experiences with Alexander’s discovery.”

Truly F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the Alexander Method, had had an identical expertise almost eighty years earlier.  As he recounts in his Autobiographical Sketch (Printed in Articles and Letters), whereas in Melbourne, he was approached by the secretary of a theological school asking if he would take plenty of his college students at school.  He advised the secretary that he had “…by no means tried to show plenty of pupils collectively” and that he doubted in would show profitable.  “Nonetheless”, he wrote, “if he and the scholars had been ready to take a threat on this (italics mine) I used to be fairly ready to undertake the experiment.”

Reflecting again on the expertise he mentioned, “On the finish of a few months I had motive to be grateful that I had consented to take the scholars at school…”

After all, it could be mentioned that Alexander’s largest gamble was leaving Australia.  In 1904 he boarded an ocean liner certain for England to hunt fame and glory in London.  Fairly a leap of religion on his half and, fittingly, the journey was financed by a long-shot wager on a racehorse!

Clearly this willingness to “take a playing probability” appears to be a function of the Alexander Method group.

I’d even say that it’s an integral a part of the Alexander Method educating and studying course of.  At any time when college students experiment with an Alexander course, or academics with a brand new technique to convey Alexander’s discoveries to their college students, they’re “taking a playing probability”.

It would work.  It may not. Both method, one thing helpful might be realized.

I’d love to listen to about some “playing possibilities” you’ve taken in your Alexander Method journey.