In trying to sum up what I have said this evening, I would like to say that I consider ‘non-doing’ and ‘direction sending’ the lifeblood of the Alexander Technique, though they are not, of course, the whole of it. I think it might be useful, before I stop, to list the items that, taken together I believe make the Alexander Technique into one unlike any other:
– recognition of the force of habit.
– inhibition and non-doing.
– recognition of faulty sensory awareness.
– sending directions.
– the primary control.
If one meets a technique that has some similarity to the Alexander Technique, run these five simple rules over it and see what is missing.
Patrick MacDonald (“On Giving Directions, Doing and Non-Doing” – STAT Memorial Lecture, 1963)