“All I want you to do is to give certain directions for me, and then inhibit the tremendous effort you are making to be right.”
F.M. Alexander (Articles and Lectures – Teaching Aphorisms p204)

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Introduction

PM: A large part of this audience will have been through the experiences which I am proposing to touch upon, but there will be others to whom giving directions is little more than a verbal concept and it is possible that this lecture may clarify their ideas and lead them to a more practical application of them.
If there are any here who have not been through a course of lessons in the Alexander Technique, I would tell them that “giving directions” has a particular significance to an Alexandrian, a significance of which, I hope, will be clearer to them at the end of the lecture. I would also like to say that I speak for myself. Different people interpret Alexander differently and I lay no claim to speak the only truth.
(On Giving Directions, Doing and Non-Doing – STAT Memorial Lecture 1963)

LW: One of the first things that needs to be made clear is that Alexander’s head, neck and back pattern was brought into operation by thought. At some time during the evolution of his technique he made the momentous change from “doing” to “thinking’. Originally, he wrote of “putting’ the head forward and up. Later, in his teaching and in his books he speaks of ‘directing’ or “ordering” the head forward and up. He uses the words “directing” and “ordering” synonymously with “thinking”.
(F. Matthias Alexander, The Man and His Work – chapter 13 p134)

PM: In the first place you must learn to think and not to do. After that you must learn to let the doing come about as a result of the thinking.
(The Alexander Technique As I See It, Notebook Jottings p19)

WC: Put simply, direction means not pulling the head back, but rather directing it in the opposite direction to backwards and down. And, of course, the concept of direction is a familiar one even to people who walk down the street, drive a car or ride a bicycle. It’s all a matter of deciding where you intend to go and then seeing that you get there. You simply monitor the situation to make sure it works out alright.
(Personally Speaking – part 3 Teaching p110)

PM: It is possible to direct one’s body or part of it towards a certain point and yet to withhold movement. Similarly, it is possible to direct one’s body towards a certain point and to move it in space towards that point or to any other point of the compass. The Alexander Technique is interested in the orientation of the body as a prerequisite to the movement in space. As regards orientation, it may help you to consider a piece of steel in proximity to a magnet. We are told that even though the piece of steel does not move in space towards the magnet, every particle of the steel will be orientated towards it. Also, while keeping the orientation of the particles towards the magnet it is possible to move both magnet and steel in any direction, including the opposite direction in which the particles are orientated; the particles can be said to be pointing two ways at once.
Similarly, one can orientate the head and body “forward and up” and yet, by bending at the hip and knee, one can bring them nearer the ground while still continuing the forward and upward orientation. In this sense one can and ought to go in two directions at once. If one does not, the free action of the joints will be impaired.
(The Alexander Technique As I See It – Notebook Jottings p5)

WC: Direction is a word we use particularly in relation to movement. As I’ve said before, direction can be taken in the sense of the directions on the package or telling somebody to do something. But the basic meaning of direction is its meaning in connection with movement, and that is to say where to or where from and the whole matter of relativity. That’s even the basic meaning for directions on a packet of jelly because you can’t make jelly without following the directions in the sense of movement. Now, once this is recognized and acknowledged, you can see that direction has important physical aspects.
But much more important than any of the physical aspects are the two, shall we say, psychological aspects. One is the awareness or recognition of how things are, where they are. And the second, and most important thing, is really rather difficult to define. Having determined the direction you want to go, you’ve got to determine that you’re going that way, that you have the wish and the will to go in that direction, that you’re going to cover the distance without counting the cost.
It’s all very well standing at the crossroads and seeing the signposts saying umpteen thousand miles to Peking and thinking, “ Yes, I don’t know, it would be rather fun and I suppose if I went, that is the way I’d go.” You’ve stopped, you’ve inhibited, and now you’ve thought and you’ve got the direction. But you see you still haven’t gone anywhere.
It’s nice to reflect that at least you haven’t gone in all the possible wrong directions. You can congratulate yourself that you are here and not in a whole lot of other places that you might be. But the fact of the matter is that you still haven’t got going. And it’s the getting going, and the continuing to go, that is the real problem in the Alexander Technique, as in life.
(Thinking Aloud – Wishing, Willing and Fairy Tales p17)

PM: I do not think that F. M. specifically stated that the knowledge of how to give directions – in our special sense – must change and grow, in the same way as our use of our selves must change and grow. I think, however, it was implicit in his teaching.
Giving directions, then, is not and cannot be the same for a new pupil as it is for one of a few weeks, months or years experience of the Technique.
(On Giving Directions, Doing and Non-Doing – STAT Memorial Lecture 1963)

WC: So the framework consists of four things to think about: the first one is the neck, the second one is the head, the third one is the body and the fourth one is the legs. After that it becomes more individual, in accordance with individual requirements.
Now, it is really important in your thinking to remember those four things and to remember the sequence, to remember them in that order: the neck first and then the head and then the back, or the body, and then the knees, because if you don’t take them in that order, if you get them out of sequence, you can get very muddled.
(Thinking Aloud – Directing the Neck and Head p59 )

WC: But the primary direction, F.M. once called it the “primary movement,” is the direction of up or the direction that is needed to ensure that the lengthening in stature takes place. You’ve got to lengthen in stature and we use the word “stature” because it’s so important to be quite comprehensive and not just think of the spine or the neck or the legs or whatever. You can get so involved in thinking about your breathing or thinking about your knees going forward and away, or some particular bit or piece that you forget about the overall requirement and the overall direction.
(Thinking Aloud – Directing p106)

Free the neck

LW: The first step in the pattern is neck free. This means that the neck becomes progressively freer with each thought that is given to it. Complete freedom of the neck, however, comes only when the condition and functioning of the back has improved.
(F. Matthias Alexander, The Man and His Work – chapter 2 p18)

PM: Let the neck be free. You will notice that the phrase starts with “let”. This is important. It means that the pupil should avoid stiffening the neck – not that he should do something to free it. I frequently find pupils going through all sorts of contortions in the belief that they are “freeing the neck”. They are usually, in fact, producing an extra stiffening by so doing.
(On Giving Directions, Doing and Non-Doing – STAT Memorial Lecture 1963)

WC: So when we say think about your neck being free, it isn’t a matter of trying to feel whether it’s free and then trying from there to free it. You don’t have to try to free it. Trying to free it implies making some sort of effort to free it, and freedom is not going to be brought about by effort; stiffening is brought about by effort. If your neck is stiff, it’s because you’re stiffening it. If you stop stiffening it, then it will be free. So it isn’t a matter of trying.
So you don’t try to free your neck and you don’t try to feel whether your neck is free, but in quite an objective and detached way, think, “I simply want my neck to be free, I’d like my neck to be free, wouldn’t it be nice if my neck were free.” I don’t need to search for a feeling to tell if my neck is free. I know perfectly well what it will mean if my neck’s free. It will mean that my head will move around and there will be no strain and there will be no effort and I definitely won’t be shortening the muscles of the back here and I won’t be pulling the head back.
(Thinking Aloud – Directing the Neck and Head p60)

LW: Another crucially important event that Alexander never mentioned or wrote about was his decision that thinking the neck free must be the first step – the initial step – in the process of setting the new head, neck and back pattern to work. Nor did he ever say what led him to this decision. The idea of thinking the neck free is extremely baffling to the pupil, and understandably so, because he finds that the neck is not freed simply by virtue of his thinking it free. It does, however, become freer; the head thus has a chance to tend to go forward in relation to it, and the right process can start. The real freedom of the neck is dependent upon the alignment and functioning of the back. But once the right process has started, the back will improve steadily, and with this improvement the complete freedom of the neck can be progressively attained. To think the neck free, therefore, is to set in motion a beneficient circle.
(F. Matthias Alexander, The Man and His Work – chapter 13 p135)

Head forward and up

PM: Now the phrase “forward and up” has led to more confusion than any of the other ones used in teaching the Alexander Technique, and its explanation affords considerable difficulty. In the first place it must be remembered that Alexander coined the phrase in response to what he saw himself and others doing wrong. He noticed that he was pulling his head back and down, and he came to the conclusion that this was an interference with proper use. “Forward and up”, therefore, is primarily a preventive direction and indicates that the usual tensions that pull the head back must be inhibited. The point I want to make here is that it was these habitual tensions that Alexander was getting at, and not the position of the head in space. Those with experience of the Alexander Technique know that it is possible, though often difficult, to bring the head back in space and yet produce a phenomenon we called “forward and up”.
(On Giving Directions, Doing and Non-Doing – STAT Memorial Lecture 1963)

WC: When we come to the head, so often I find that pupils grasp the idea of up. They say, “Yes, of course we know we mustn’t pull down, we must lengthen, we must go up to the full height,” so they think they wish up, they wish the head to go up, and then they add the forward bit as a sort of afterthought. They say, “I want my head to go up and, well, I suppose I want it to go forward, so I want my head to go up and forward.” And lots and lots of pupils tell you that they order the head up and forward, and they do order the head up and forward, that’s exactly what they do do.
Associated with this wishing of the head up and forward is a muscular stiffening, a bracing, a positive attempt to push upward, and associated with the forward is a pull down in front, a pull for the head to go forward. So they push the head up and pull it forward. That’s really what happens. They wish the up to happen, but since they don’t really set much store on the wish, they will just do it a little bit, just to make sure, just to be on the safe side, they’ll introduce just a little bit of doing.
And I’ve heard Alexander teachers even say that of course when it really comes to it, in the end, it was just a tiny little bit of doing. Now, this is absolutely wrong, absolutely untrue –depending on what you understand by “doing”. What I understand by doing is making muscular effort, muscular contraction. And the doing, if you can call it doing that’s involved in this, is not a muscular contraction but muscular release.
(Thinking Aloud – Directing the Neck and Head p61)

MB: Pat Macdonald always used to say you’ve got to think of your head as if it was a football sitting on the top of the spine. Which means you’re thinking of the whole head, not just a part of it.
(Alexander Technque: the Ground Rules – part 3 p130)

PM: That is quite right.
(The Alexander Technique As I See It – Notebook Jottings p15)

LW: “Head forward” might have several meanings. Most people think of it as head forward in space. Alexander in using the words meant head forward in relation to the neck. It took a long time and hard work to find this out. One realized in time that his hands, which he used in demonstrating and teaching, were always tending to take the neck back and the head forward in relation to it. Once one had discovered this, one could ask him a direct question and get his confirmation that “head forward” meant “head forward in relation to the neck”. The head’s tending to go forward in relation to the neck causes the alignment of the head and neck to improve, in that the head is balanced on top of the neck instead of being retracted back upon it. Once this retraction or locking is done away with, the head will tend to go up whether any other thought is given or not, just as the plant will come up out of the ground if it is not prevented or interfered with. If in addition the head is thought up, however, it will go up more strongly.
(F. Matthias Alexander, The Man and His Work – chapter 13 p137)

PM: It is useful to consider the “forward” as an unlocking of the head at the atlanto-occipital joint by refraining from tightening and pulling it backwards in the accustomed way, and the “up” as a tiny extension of the spine which is achieved following this unlocking. The movement, if any, in an experienced pupil, is so small as to be hardly a movement at all. It is a directed flow of force or a kind of pulsation, no larger than a heart beat.
(On Giving Directions, Doing and Non-Doing – STAT Memorial Lecture 1963)

WC: Inhibition and direction, sensory appreciation, means whereby and end-gaining – all these things are terribly important and relevant – but the main focus of our concern and interest is on the head/neck relationship.
(Thinking Aloud – Primary Control p88)

(…continued in Directions and Directing – Part 2)