Conscious Control and the Action Coding System of François Delsarte

Foreword

The initial Alexander Technique (iAt) was presented for the first time in Galway in February 2016 by Jeando Masoero following an invitation by the Galway Alexander technique school director Richard Brennan.

I would like to thank Richard Brennan for organizing this week of exchange with his school and the workshop of Galway 2016–02. By making this visit possible, he gave us all the opportunity to exchange ideas and to reason in a constructive way, looking at our differences as ways to deepen our understanding of the Technique.

I also would like to thank all of you for your friendliness, approachability and desire of knowledge: you have made my intervention a pleasure.
Jeando Masoero
Teacher of the initial Alexander technique
Mail: jeandomasoero.iat@gmail.com
Galway, the 15th of February 2016

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Asking questions about our idea of conscious control

During the Limerick Congress in 2015, I heard a “senior” teacher of the ’Modern’ Alexander technique instruct an other (younger) teacher to repeat to herself the following sentence: “check all the time whether your Neck is free”. She was delighted by the advice about what she should think.

To say the truth, I was not.

Is such a thought as “Check that your neck is free” conducive to the exercise of ‘Conscious Control’? In order to answer this question, I could not help but ask myself a second question: How is the lady teacher to check “if her neck is free”? The senior teacher never gave the lady any instruction as to how she should check, as if checking the freedom of the neck was something rather simple that the lady could do with mathematical precision.

You have to understand that the instruction is not framed clearly. The problem is not that many interpretations are possible, but that the lady does not know this. She is bound to interpret the sentence according to her preconceived ideas. She will feel her neck or feel to see if her neck is moving with the right amount of tension. As a result, she will rely even more on the feeling guidance –subconscious guidance.

It is a different thing to place your hands on someone else’s neck to check if there is any undue tension or undue lack of tension between the different parts of the organism and to check your own neck with your own means or your sensory appreciation alone. If the lady is not given any intellectual means to consciously control the movement of her neck, then she has to rely on sensory appreciation alone.

Therefore, the injonction of the senior teacher would result in the lady teacher thinking all day about what she feels in the specific region of her neck. Her self-speech will be busy with her impressions and judgement about her sensations. This is what we call ‘subconscious control’, engulfing thinking into the ‘primitive mind of sense’ as John Dewey calls it.

To say the truth, even if your hands-on practice is impeccable, your hands are no scanner and cannot investigate the deep physiological and motor working of the body. Modern Alexander teachers may be trained to notice with feeling-touch the lack of relationship between parts of the body, they may become quite skilled at it, but there are many cases where “highly trained hands” do not succeed as investigatory tools.

During a workshop, there was this lady who did not stop complaining about the base of her neck. Not one of the teachers present (including myself –it was a time I used the hands to teach) noticed anything untoward and we became slightly annoyed at her complains. Two month later, she was diagnosed with a sort of aggressive muscular lymphoma at the base of the neck.
These moments make the ‘fantastic power of touch’ a little less impressive.

At the same time, I have heard some teachers boasting that their ‘brains is in their hands’, or that ’ their hands are telling them what to do’. I have also studied Alexander’s short video in which he gives two short lessons. Each time, before he puts his hands on the pupil, he stays away from the pupil, out of arm reach, for a considerable amount of time. He is looking intently at the pupil from the side (sagittal view).

Delsarte asked why the painter is staying away from the canvas to assess the painting. It is because each new stroke of paint is related to the picture as a whole, something you cannot see if you are too close, if you are not detached from the immediateness of touch.

You can only see geometry from a distance.

My explanation for Alexander’s behavior during the lesson is that he is checking the geometrical relationships between the different parts of the torso of each pupil. You could say that he is checking whether the conditions of the torso of the pupil are contributive to a free neck.

The way he raises his hands when he starts the manipulations declares that he already knows what he wants his hands to do. There is no exploratory contact. I conclude that he has seen what he wanted to make up his mind. He has already formed a conception of the necessary readjustments. He has prepared for the activity of readjustments. His reason is commanding his moves, and not the reverse.

If you understand the geometry of mechanical advantage the state of the neck is for all to ‘see’.

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How is a student to check if her neck is free?

If there is any undue muscular pull in any part of the neck, it is almost certain to be due to the defective co-ordination in the use of the muscles of the spine, back, and torso generally, the correction of which means the eradication of the real cause of the trouble.
This principle applies to the attempted eradication of all defects or imperfect uses of the mental and physical mechanisms in all the acts of daily life and in such games as cricket, football, billiards, baseball, golf, etc., and in the physical manipulation of the piano, violin, harp, and all such instruments. (Alexander, F.M., “Man’s supreme inheritance”, Chaterson Ltd 1910, reprinted 1946, p. 127)

Do you think that the “senior” teacher in Limerick knew the lady well and considered that she had developed perfect sensory appreciation, so that she could feel if her coordination in the use of the muscle of the spine, back, and torso generally –the real cause of a stiff neck– was good or not? I certainly cannot follow him on that track.

In the Limerick Conference, I observed 800 teachers, and none of them had ‘developed anything near perfect sensory appreciation’ and a consequent correct subconscious guidance of the mechanism of the torso; this is strange as they were all supposed to have received the training recommended to teach how to improve sensory appreciation and that they all more or less were of the opinion that the mechanism of the torso should improve if you receive enough manipulations from a qualified practitioner of hands-on.

And what if the lady teacher feels that her neck is free? According to F.M. Alexander, the stiffness of the neck is a consequence of improper conditions in the back, torso and spine (see the quote above). Would the lady link in her mind the conditions in her back, torso and spine with the “status” of her neck, if she was to feel that her neck is free or not free? We can very much doubt it for two reasons:

1. it seemed that the senior teacher had totally reversed the function described by Alexander in his writings; for this senior teacher, to make sure and to just think that the neck is free should somehow sort the conditions in her back and torso; therefore the lady teacher would not have to realize a proper linking between her ideas of torso coordination and neck freedom as she has been told that the link would sort itself out according to the old aphorism “stop doing the wrong thing, and the right thing will do itself”. Have we forgotten that the correction of the defective coordination in the use of the muscles of the spine, back and torso is the principle of all attempts at all defects and imperfect uses?
2. the senior teacher never mentioned the reasoned link established by Alexander between the movements of the different parts of the torso and the freedom of the neck. The “magic” of ‘aphorisms’ is that this way of using speech is completely devoid of reasoning of cause and effect, for the simple reason that aphorism general truths are so general that they are totally ‘out of context’, out of a reasoned system of ideas: when the student thinks in aphorism, the strong appearance of thinking hide the vacuity of tested relationships.

Why would the lady teacher inquire into the means whereby the mechanism of the torso can be corrected? Thinking-the-END is apparently enough and “her body should know how to sort itself out”.

To come back to the serious matter at hand, i.e. understanding the concept of conscious control, I propose we you start to think about the following idea: the control of a function is the counterpart of one’s consciousness of that function (Vygotsky, L.S.[1]).

And we are not talking about a sensory consciousness –the primitive mind of sense– but of consciousness as real understanding of cause and effect. According to F.M. Alexander, the freedom of the neck is FUNCTION of the proper co-ordination in the use of the muscles of the spine, back and torso generally.

In iAt teaching, the freedom or stiffness of the neck is a symptom, a consequence and no amount of thinking about it will ever eradicate the real cause of the trouble.

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Action-bound speech and thinking

To understand the concept of conscious control it is mandatory to address the problem of language – of self-speech as a cognitive tool.

There are different ways to speak to yourself. The intention behind your speech makes all the difference between conscious guidance and subconscious guidance. Let’s see how we explain this.

In the beginning, the word and the deed were inseparable; the word was only the beginning of the action, the leader’s shout when starting an act was devised to render imitation easier. After a time, it became a parlor game. We have entered a period in which language says just about anything, without movement, without any action following. We have called this the inconsistent language*. (Janet, P. Cours au College de France, 1913–14 sur les tendances réalistes, I, P. 215, Trad. Masoero, J.D.)

I will define ‘subconscious guidance’ as a form of self-speech based on ‘inconsistent language’, a language which does not define explicit characteristics of actions/movements.

The failure of the causal relationship between verbal statement and action has become the norm, particularly regarding the use of the self (postural habits, postural reaction, construction of equilibrium…).

Take for instance self-speech about what the subject feels, or does not feel like, or about the memory of a feeling bestowed to the subject by a ‘correct’ experience communicated by the hands of a teacher. All this self-speech is not anticipating the ‘how’ of actions, or planning relations between simultaneous actions of the parts, or orchestrating when actions have to be or not to be performed: in the views of the modern Alexander technique, the subconscious self or embodied cognition is supposed to sort all that.

Self-speech orientated toward sensation, feelings, impressions does nothing to help improve the capacity to organize different movements of the parts of the torso simultaneously, in explicit and properly structured form. This self-speech about sensations, feelings and impressions comes after actions and its accuracy is not checked by conscious evaluation of the actions intended.

When a person starts her lessons of iAt, as a rule her self-speech is not ‘coherent’ or ‘consistent’, because she has not been trained in this way. Her self-speech does not represent the means whereby lengthening or widening the torso, and, as a result, she cannot guide rationally her movements of the different parts of her torso. She has never heard that she could intent these movements with precise self-instructions. There is no clear relation between her words and the actions in the mirror of any part of her anatomical structure.

The conflict between words and actions does not cease to grow. When the subject receives instructions that do not make any clear sense, but refer to some hazy constructions (like NON-DOING, MINDFULNESS (of sensation), BEING in the HERE and NOW (in sensation)) it is difficult to see how the subject could think clearly how to consciously organize the different parts of the torso in view of directing her mind and will to make the words command the different actions (movements).

Saying that the subconscious self (the body wisdom) will effect the desired change, that the memory of the feeling transmitted by the teacher will suddenly change the habits of mind and body of the pupil is verging on mysticism and is can certainly not pass for its opposite: conscious guidance and control of the mind.

Self-talk about sensations and impressions does not help to strengthen the bond between speech and action. This is characteristic of a pedagogy in which there is no effort to change speech in view of improving actions.

The incoherence between speech and actions has reached a summit with the ’Somatic body-mind techniques". It is advisable to confront these ideas because:

1. many teachers of the Alexander technique believe that they do owe allegiance to these champions of subconscious control and because,
2. it is possible to refine our understanding of conscious guidance and control by studying its opposite.

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A quick study of Somatics

In Somatics (body-mind techniques),

1. words are a tool to describe the body as perceived from within by first person perception, a sensory perception that is proprioceptive self-sensing of the ‘body’ by the ‘mind’[2]. In somatic, speech does not configure the movement in advance, it comes afterwards and invent a tale of feelings (very inventive sometimes),
2. it is customary, in the somatic group to condemn verbal instructions of an action-bound nature as a form of dictatorship of ‘mind over matter’.

In Somatics, the pupil’s higher functions based on speech are not taught to consciously use descriptive and explanatory speech in advance to guide the movements of the different parts of the torso according to a geometrical model (the unknown). The conception of learning that stems from this philosophical approach is that learning supposedly happens by exploring the sensations produced by movements [performed vicariously by a teacher] so that it is “the body [that] learns as a system how to improve upon its own movement patterns”[3].

In somatic thinking , "The body improves itself; the body knows what is good for it as long as you speak all the time about what you feel to shut ‘the little rational voice within’.

It is amazing that the Alexander technique, with its insistence on ‘Conscious guidance and control’ and on the idea that subjective mental habits are the cause of faulty habits of body[4], could go down the drain of Somatics. But it is a fact, and many teachers of the ‘modern’ Alexander technique, not knowing or not understanding Alexander’s books, believe their job to be somatic body-work intended to focus the mind of their student on a first-person sensory perception.

iAt represents an effort to reaffirm the original idea that our work is NOT to create a sensory experience for the pupil, but to teach him/her how to use language (how to speak to oneself) to construct a verbal conception capable of guiding and controlling the movements of the different parts of the torso.

Contrary to Somatics, we experiment with the idea that self-speech (structured instructions) is the tool of self-regulation of behavior.

This is why the pupil’s self-speech must be trained:

• to reason with principles, rules and laws in order to direct his verbal and practical will in a rational way and,
• to subject the anatomical structure to willed “positions of mechanical advantage”, transforming everyday the limits of the habitual sensory appreciation, combating and defeating thereby the hold sensory appreciation maintains on his mind (when the pupils sees his reflection in the mirror after commanding the position of mechanical advantage, the falsity of the sensations he perceives internally is so obvious that the concept of guidance through feeling self-speech loses its appeal).

Some times, Somaticiens or teachers of the ‘modern’ Alexander technique seduced by the call of a gregarious instinct will set forth the fact that Alexander himself promotes the idea of the necessary re-education of the kinesthetic sense.

the first principle in all training, from the earliest years of child life, must be on a conscious plane of co-ordination, re-education, and readjustment, which will establish a normal kinaesthesia. ( FM Alexander, “Man’s supreme inheritance”, “Applied Conscious Control”, p. 42).

In this quote, the training proposed is on a conscious plane of co-ordination, re-education and readjustment and it is this training based on instructions, principles, and procedures organized with various form of verbal commands –orders of inhibition and orders of movement. The outcome of this training (when the student learns to use the technique for himself), is to establish a ‘normal kinesthesia’. Alexander does not say that by establishing a normal kinesthesia from outside (thanks to the manipulations of a teacher) or by concentrating the mind on the sensation of movement the pupil will obtain a new coordination, reeducation and a readjustment of the different parts of the torso. Focusing the mind on sensations -right or wrong- has never helped anybody reason better.

It is true that Alexander in his time, and some teachers nowadays boast Miracles through their manipulations. Do not get impressed. Manipulating a willing student momentarily in a better shape is no [true] miracle as the coordination never last more than a minute. When the student is left to his own means, with all the fantastic impression of well-being that he is lead to expect:

1. he has learned nothing of value to relate his speech in a rational way to the various actions performed by the teacher to coordinate his torso; he has not made one inch in the direction of autonomy in order to help himself, and,
2. his dependence on sensory guidance is stronger than ever,
3. he has not learned to think, to memorize and to reason better, that is, to reason with more mental objects, tested geometrical relations and verified logic.

It is quite interesting that, when Alexander boasted that he was able to “give it to them whether they wanted it or not”, it was also the time when the students in his training course started to complain about the fact that he did not know how to teach them.

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The Alexander technique was never meant to become body-mind or body-work.

In the end, you have to realize that the desired change is to be made by the pupil, not by the teacher. The fundamental change of guidance that Alexander is asking for will not be bestowed magically to the pupil at the end of the lesson. It is by working with himself with the technique that the student will develop conscious guidance and control of his mental and physical behavior.

To make the point crystal clear, a teacher is not a miracle worker: the idea of teaching is to empower the student to become autonomous and use the technique for himself to make the desired changes. Of course, a teacher of Math should be able to solve the problem he proposes to his students; but a good Math teacher should enable any of his student to use his/her mind to solve the problem on his own.

I then explain to him that his own will (not mine or some higher will) is to effect the desired change, but that it must first be directed in a rational way to bring about a physical manifestation, and must be aided by a simple mechanical principle and a proper manipulation. (Alexander, F.M., “Man’s supreme inheritance”, Chaterson Ltd 1910, reprinted 1946, p. 129)

Speech alone, but a very regulated form of speech, can help to direct the will in a rational way. No sensation or complex of sensations can apprehend a mechanical principle and help us to decide which counter-intuitive actions to take at the right time (a proper self-manipulation). Some of you will be certainly surprised by my interpretation of the adjective ‘proper’ because it seems that because the adjective ‘proper’ is qualifying the word ‘manipulation’ in the above quote, then it must be a reference to the manipulations (with plural) of a competent teacher. In his first article[5], Alexander is talking about a ‘manipulation’ (without plural) that the pupil must perfect and refers clearly to actions that he direct himself on himself. When the pupil is working on himself with the technique, the teacher is not at hand!

The teacher of iAt does not teach how to keep the adjustments performed by the teacher as long as possible by focusing the mind on feelings.
The pupil of iAt learns how to relate his speech to simultaneous actions (all together) to self-create and self-organize the necessary adjustments. He learns to direct his own will with structured self-speech.

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Delsarte and action-bound speech

A lot of light has been projected on the early principles of the technique by the study of Delsarte’s manuscripts. Here is an example to help our understanding of the concept of conscious guidance and control.

Delsarte considered that the larynx (in the neck) is the thermometer of the coordination of the torso,

1. because the larynx will subconsciously move in accordance to the idea one entertains about the supposed difficulty of a task, (Delsarte explains how he found the preconceived idea in watching a man preparing to carry various heavy luggage. The bigger the charge, the more the man would pull his larynx up in advance of his effort. Delsarte found that he was as deluded as the worker he was watching: in his own case, he was fixing and depressing the larynx in proportion to the preconceived judgment of effort he imagined necessary to sing high notes: the more his impression of difficulty grew, the more depression of the larynx he would do to himself subconsciously.)
2. because the larynx ‘fixity’ is directly related to the poor capacity of movements between the parts of the torso.

He found that he could move his larynx to his will in proportion to the movements he was able to produce at the same time in the different parts of the torso. He was able to realize an action totally counter-intuitive –moving the larynx down when singing a high note– because he could formulate verbal instructions to guide his will rationally in order to create simultaneous movements of different parts of his torso.

He continues to say that such a counter intuitive move could not be achieved without instructions and mirrors.

He discovered:

1. that by employing structured language –what is now called an ‘action coding system’:
   • he was able to create movements between parts of the torso in-the-mirror where none existed before (no movements between some parts did not exist before because they felt totally wrong to his sensory appreciation),
   • and that the orders he was giving (repeating to himself) could also be employed to direct his practical will to coordinate these movements in order to achieve a virtuous geometry of the parts of the torso;
2. that it was necessary to consciously control the projected form in the mirror to make sure of its conformity with the verbal and spatial model intended.

It is by this procedure of creating movements (decomposition) and coordinating these movements (re-composition) that he freed the related movements of his larynx. It is this freedom in action of the larynx that improved its functioning to the point of being able to resume his career as a singer.

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Lets look at the words

First of all, we speak of ‘creating movements’ because the habitual coordination of the torso is EN-BLOC, the different parts rigidly adjusted to one another according to habit of feeling in different situations.

Most people think that the structural bad use of the torso –i.e. scoliosis, kyphosis, lordosis for example– are static deformations when they can be demonstrated to be poor coordinations of the movements of the parts of the torso.

When the pupil discovers that movements are ‘made’ possible by way of verbal instructions –I insist on the phrase ‘movements made possible’ because the pupil always felt that the torso cannot be articulated in a different way than his habits of movement commands– he/she discovers the meaning of conscious guidance.

Conscious guidance takes a whole new meaning here. Conscious guidance means that instead of subordinating his practical will to feelings, the pupils learns that it is possible to establish a causal relationship between his words and actions.

To cure his voice problems, Delsarte realized that talking to himself to command a direct effort or direct release of the neck was not producing any change, because these actions were based on his feelings and not on scientific bio-mechanical laws. He found that he had to subordinate his will to a much more precise language to control the movements of the parts of the torso in opposite directions to free the movements of his larynx: he was the one to really investigate the self-regulating function of verbal instructions.

“Nature institutes a movement, speech names this movement”. DELAUMOSNE, “ON DELSARTE”, 1893., p.33).

If you can name in geometrical language various precise movements of different parts of the torso to yourself or your pupil, it is amazing how quickly the human brain can employ these instructions to create a combination of movements that totally change the habitual geometry of the anatomical structure toward more length and width.

I have tested this and found that children from the age of five and elderly people up to ninety years of age (or more) will quickly learn how to consciously control the employment of the mechanism of the torso to improve their overall functioning.

In the initial Alexander technique, we define mechanical advantage as antagonistic movements of the parts of the mechanism of the torso directed in a precise geometry by verbal instructions. These instructions which direct the practical will to create antagonistic or opposite movements of the parts of the torso are the ‘means-whereby’ of both ‘neck free’ and ‘back to lengthen and widen’.

One last thing (for the moment) about Delsarte.
There was no direction for the neck in Delsarte’s work. The reason for that is the conception of the neck as a thermometer of coordination in the torso.

When unwell, do not try to influence the thermometer, it is just a consequence of the rise in temperature of your body and certainly not its cause. Even if you manage, by the power of your wishes, to feel that you have somehow lowered the temperature reading on the thermometer, all you have achieved is to loose a precious indicator of the real problem.

As long as the lady teacher of my opening story is not given the means:

1. to relate in explicit words the condition of her neck to her guidance of her torso (what Alexander calls a “new conception”) and,
2. to understand how the torso is articulated with words and mechanical drawings, and how the different parts can possibly move relative to one another,
3. to understand how she can guide these movements and check them in a mirror with proper structured ideas and words, and,
4. to correct the defective coordination of her torso though precise means-whereby,
   the concept of conscious control is irrelevant.

Have you ever heard a teacher of the Alexander technique DEFINE the concept of ‘conscious control’?
The problem we encounter here stems from the lack of efforts from our teachers –starting with F.M. Alexander– to explain the basic concepts we are using in our teaching and our work on ourselves. Without a precise definition, “Conscious Control” cannot be a tool that directs our mental operations, control their course and channel them toward the solution of the problem confronting us.

In the hands-on lesson and the counseling accompanying it, there is no structuring of what is said, perceived and remembered. The distinction between conscious guidance and control and subconscious guidance and control is never made.

To consciously control, that is to GOVERN the neck, the lady teacher would have, each time she worked on herself,:

1. to re-create the link between the state of the neck and the coordination of the torso &
2. to consider the means whereby her torso can be re-adjusted, i.e. consider using mental orders directing the correct movements between all the essential parts of the mechanism of her torso All-Together.

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In conclusion:

Does the simple formulation of the instruction to check some part of the body and the conscious order to control it fill the requirements of conscious control? Certainly not, as I have just shown.

Some may imagine that if the senior teacher had contrived to ‘make’ her experience (feel) what “neck free” is for her at that moment in time – by correcting momentarily the defective coordination in the muscles of the spine, back and torso generally– she would then possess a “correct sensory memory ” of the relationship between torso and neck against which she can evaluate the activity of her neck for the rest of her life.

Yet, these are unreasonable propositions that we cannot entertain for a moment. Here is why:

After a thousand hours of hands-on training, this lady teacher was still exhibiting faulty sensory appreciation and improper conditions in the back and torso, so that most of the time we can say that ‘her neck was not free’. The unreliable sensory appreciation did not disappear when she had the lesson with the senior teacher (therefore we can question her awareness of the experience of ‘free neck’) and, more importantly, it is obvious that the experience of ‘neck free’ she has recorded is not connected with the improved conditions in the coordination in the use of the muscles of the spine and back –otherwise her insistence on wishing a neck free would have re-educated her defective coordination of the back and torso – which was not the case for anyone who knows how to look.

The ‘disconnection’ between torso and neck is obvious because the senior teacher never mentioned a word on that central subject. The lady’s [reasoning] consciousness of the function of coordination torso/neck was never enhanced by this lesson she received, and its counterpart, her conscious control of that function, never happened.

Intellectualization of a function and voluntary control of it are just two moments of one and the same process of the formation of higher mental functions. (Vygotskiĭ, L. S., Eugenia Hanfmann, Gertruda Vakar, and Alex Kozulin. Thought and Language. Rev. and expanded ed. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2012, p. 167).

Such an instruction as “check that your neck is free” participates to the blurry state of mind and hazy thinking state which characterize the practice and the theorizing of the modern Alexander technique.

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Toward a definition of Conscious Control of the Mind

Let’s say that instead of employing instructions (“Directions”) that are Ends and not Means[6] and that no one –and certainly no new student– can really evaluate with precision (what is ‘neck free’, what is ‘back to lengthen and widen’ and what is ‘head to go forward and up’?), it was possible to issue a series of verbal orders relating to the geometrical relationship between three or four essential bony parts of the torso, a verbal series of orders proposing to perform simultaneous movements of these three or four bony parts relative to one another and conducive to a new geometrical relationship between the bony structures: in other words the ‘MEANS’ of lengthening and widening the back. This would be a reasonable proposition to have the pupil achieve a “geometry of mechanical advantage”.

The geometrical Directions or verbal visuospatial instructions indicate movements between the different four parts following the principle of Antagonistic Actions (movements of the bones opposite to the direction of the shortening contractions of the muscles attached to the bones). The new geometry (between the bones or levers) applies new pulls to the muscles that are attached to them and realizes two fundamental change:

1. the creation of an efficient dynamic structure of bony support from the point(s) of contact –in Alexander’s terms: Coordinated Support;
2. the establishment of an elastic spring resistance “by means of which the moving parts are held to the mode in which their function is carried on”[7].

Let’s say that the the actual geometrical relationship (mechanical dis-advantage) between the three or four parts can be shown to the pupil in his reflection (in the mirror) as a specific articulation (the state of being joined together) of the parts, and that the desired relationship (mechanical advantage) can be drawn on a relational diagram (a new way to join the parts together) displaying the Essential Movements.

Then the pupil is explained in details how the essential movements between the bony parts are to be coded in visuospatial language, first from the point of view of each part:

• giving directions by rehearsing the verbal instructions without any attempt at performing each one or at feeling what they should feel like, and second,

from the perspective of the movements of the Four parts as a whole, using the working memory of the meaning of the instructions to guide our practical will rationally:

• projecting simultaneously the directions in practice to our reflection in the mirror or camera.

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Coding the movement of each essential part (of the torso)

1. the movements that we are coding will happen in space, but as they are all movements of the parts of the torso, the student is explained that the words relative to visuospatial directions “Forward”, “Back”, “Up”, “Down”, “Right” and “Left” are NOT to be conceived as ABSOLUTE (relative to the direction of a plumb line –direction of gravity), but relative to the frontal plane of the torso – defined by line of the 2 spots called Ribs

The most important relative direction to define is “Forward”: “Forward is any line perpendicular to the Frontal Plane {joining the Ribs & the front of the torso}”; after this, the student can calculate all the other relative directions.

By using this set of relative directions, the student can direct the parts of the torso, head and limbs no matter how his torso is orientated in space.

• then, the teacher explains, for each essential bony part of the torso (Delsarte’s lever) which movements dictate the geometry of his back and torso and how the pupil will construct in his mind and will the conception of the movement required. The teacher will tell the pupil:

• where he should mentally place the ‘point of action’, the handle of the lever, i.e. where he should think that the movement of the lever should originate,

1. which other lever constitutes the ‘bearing point’ of the movement of the lever considered –this is Delsarte’s fulcrum of the movement of the part,
2. what is the spatial direction (relative to the torso) of the desired movement of the lever (Delsarte’s Directing Force)

The set of “Anatomical landmark” has been carefully chosen after years of experiments to serves as elements of the movements instructions (“means-whereby”) to perform the Ends defined by F.M. Alexander (“Let the neck be free, to let the head go forward and up, to let the back lengthen and widen”) in actual practice.
Here is an example of two Anatomical Landmarks: one is a “Line”, an imaginary construct, “the Eye of the Elbow” and the other one is a spot: the Upper Part of the Arm :

See how both anatomical landmarks are related: when the line Eyes of the Elbow (in blue) is perpendicular to FORWARD (90° angle with FORWARD), then the ‘greater tubercle’ is facing Forward. In that geometry, the {Elbow line} in red is FORWARD and all the muscles of the upper back are widening, especially if the rotation of the humerus is accompanied by a translation of the Scapula (shoulder-blade) Forward in such a way that the Upper Parts of the Arms are in front of the Throat (top part of the sternum).

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Coding the movements of the parts – All Together

• When the student has understood how he is to think (talk to himself with precise geometrical directions of movements), the teacher will explains the perspective of the gesture as a whole, that is how the student is going to will (organize his movements with the memory of the instructions) the different actions of the parts as a whole system.

He explains:

1. that the Four movements of the levers have to be performed as a concerted activity, or All-Together, with simultaneity, and therefore,

2. that the series of movements (Actions-unit) forming the passage from the Gesture of mechanical dis-advantage to the Gesture of mechanical advantage must be strictly guided with the essential Delsarte’s triad (1. Measure, 2. Numbers and 3. Weight) that defines a “conscious act”:
   • Measure: “time is of the essence”. The three or four simultaneous movements have to be measured in time; for that the pupil think them (repeat them verbally) one after the other and, using his verbal memory, he commands his practical will to start them all together at a precise moment, he also dictates their regular unfolding (progressive movements) and stops them all together at a predefined time.

   This is why the measure of the transition between the habitual geometry and the desired geometry is counted in a whispered voice, : {one, two, three, four, five, six}. During this time and only during it, the student will guide the movements all together, gradually, i.e. the ratio of angular movement between each pair of levers unfold in a linear fashion. When the count of six is ended, the student is to stop all efforts and tension engaged in the modification of the geometry between the points and experiment to observe if the Structure presents the effects of “coordinated support” and “elastic cohesion”.

   The teacher or a video can be used to consciously control:

   1. that the movements of all parts have been performed in the appropriate progression & “All Together” and,
   2. that the movements have established all the relationships between the parts characteristic of the desired geometry.
      If these conditions are not respected, the student is presented in explicit language of timing and geometry the ‘faults that have been noted’ and is asked to reason out how he could command his practical will in a different way to improve his concerted activity.

   Without measure, there is no concerted activity.

   • Numbers: The erroneous conception which results in erroneous movements has to be realized by the pupil: the idea that, to simplify or perfect the concerted activity, each movement of the levers can be first performed separately, has to be eradicated. It is impossible to “do”, move or release one movement of a part of the torso independently of the others; the inescapable result of this erroneous idea is an isolated action in which the other parts are moving according to the old habit, reinforcing the wrong coordination[8]. Therefore the student must always consciously project more than 3 different instructions.

   Without numbers, there is concentration on one adjustment and all the other parts of the torso will adapt subconsciously to the specific correction; this is impulsive END-GAINING

   • Weight: this concept is not related to the gravitational force but to the special emphasis or importance that each movement will receive in the series. All the movements are performed simultaneously, yet some must be given a conscious ‘weight’ or a leading importance as in a collection of mental objects with an explicit hierarchy. In case the pupil forgets to assign consciously a weight (an inflection for Delsarte), a subconscious weight is always affected and one movement becomes more important than all the others, reverting to the old habit of coordination of the parts, defeating the correct readjustment and coordination.

   Without weight or precise hierarchy between the orders of the series, the concerted activity has no center to unfold from.

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In Conclusion:

This is the essence of Delsarte’s ‘action coding system’: instructions made coherent with actions that one can share and control with someone else, in other words: Conscious Guidance and Control of the Mind.

This explains also the purpose of the mirrors in the Delsarte’s teaching: it is possible to see yourself as someone else would see you when mentally organizing and conducting concerted movements of the bony parts of the torso in relation to the head and limbs. You could then ask yourself or someone else “Are the movements of the different levers producing the geometry of mechanical advantage in the mirror?”; anyone knowing the system could answer with certainty and mathematical precision.

This constitutes the path to freedom from the subjective habit and faulty sensory appreciation.
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The Verbal Instructions:

1. To give directions One after the Other

To give directions means to repeat the sentences or orders of geometrical movement of the different Anatomical Landmarks (I pull Eye of the Elbow perpendicular to FORWARD for example) so that the Conception of the movement of all the parts is crystal clear in your mind. You repeat the orders One after the Other because you speak to yourself what you want to have in Mind (in memory) for the next phase. You repeat the instructions slowly as they have been given to you. This is a lesson to your Verbal Will. 

That in order to secure the results desired, it is essential to teach the pupil to rehearse the dictated orders, not to do exercises, i.e., to devote his attention to apprehending the instructions of his teacher "those means whereby he is to gain what he requires, and not, as he will be apt to do, to concentrate his thoughts upon the end sought. The orders are necessarily prior to their execution, and if those dictated by the teacher are correct for the particular case in hand, the mental realization by the pupil will be automatically followed by their correct performance » a co-ordinated association with the ideo-motor impulses. (Alexander, ‘Man’s supreme inheritance’, Paul R. Reynolds, 1910, p. 196)

I will describe here the instructions that we use in all sitting evolutions for six lessons in which the student will learn to see himself from the SIDE (sagittal view) as someone would see him.

If you look closely, you will find that there are very many geometrical details in these relational diagrams which would take too long to explain here. One thing though is important: note that the directions of the pulls are the same in each drawings, but that the directions are dynamic: the pulls on the sacrum, for example (the orange arrows), change with the movement of the torso in space by following precise anatomical landmarks of the torso.

The first six skype lessons are done with the camera directed to the side of the student: the student will learn to ‘see himself from the side as someone else would see him’.

Here are the instructions of mechanical advantage (bio-mechanical rest) in sitting. With a modification of the fifth instruction, these same instructions are employed in all movements in sitting and sit-to-stand.

• I pull the Eyes of the Elbow perpendicular to Forward

• to pull the Upper Part of the Arm Forward relative to the Throat,

• I pull the Sacrum toward the Top of the Back 

• I pull the Sacrum toward the Base of the Thigh

• to bring the Upper Part of the Arm one inch Forward relative to the Vertical of the Base of the Thigh, and one inch forward relative to the Wrist;

• I pull the Base of the Thigh away from the Instep;

• I pull the Ribs away from the Base of the Thigh

• to lengthen the line {Base of the Thigh|Ribs }

• I pull the Ribs behind the line {Base of the Thigh|Upper Part of the Arm}

• to bring the line {Base of the Thigh|Ribs } behind the line {Base of the Thigh|Upper Part of the Arm}

• I pull the Chin toward the Throat,

• I pull the Eye direction above the Horizon,

• I pull the First Ribs toward the Upper Part of the Arm to Ellipse the upper ribcage,

• I pull the Throat back relative to the line {joining the Upper Part of the Arm },

• I pull the Throat away from the Ribs and away from the Base of the Thigh, to bring the Throat above the Upper Part of the Arm

• I pull the Ear toward the Vertical of the Throat (“this is called pulling the Chin toward the Strings of an imaginary violin”).

This will seem to you an enormous amount of informations to memorize with precision. Remember that the Work is constructive and that the student will learn these Movements in blocks –given in 6 separate lessons. Each time a new construction-block will be added, the student will have to re-construct the whole coordination between the movements when projecting the directions all together.

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2. To project directions All Together

To project directions to the different parts of the Torso means to DO together all the MOVEMENTS of the parts defined in the lesson, all the Actions (with an S) the details of which are stored in the memory, by starting at the same time and stopping them all in 6 whispered seconds. You do every movement by Willing (telling your brain to do the movements – because you do not know which muscles have to effect the pulls). All movements that have been Coded in your Memory in the preceding phase, have to be performed slowly and progressively to readjust the parts in relations to each other, but you teach your brain to do the exact range of the movements by Controlling in the mirror, at the end of the six seconds what is the geometrical relationship between the landmarks. 
This is a lesson to your Practical Will.
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3. To keep the geometry

At the end of the 6 seconds (measure of all the adjustments) you Stop all the efforts of the Projecting Phase and you observe in the mirror to see:

• how conform is the geometry you have achieved compared to the instructions and the indications of the relational diagrams, 
• if you can keep this geometry (even if it is not exactly right) while reducing drastically the Efforts of phase 2; remember that it is paramount to inhibit any specific impulsive correction: before attempting an other series of simultaneous readjustments, you need to reason out how you could direct your practical will in order to perfect the performance of the concerted activity as a whole;
• how wrong you feel. This is an essential part of the lesson: Learning to feel wrong without reacting impulsively will allow you to detach yourself from the drag of sensory impressions and the subjective habit.
• then the lesson will involve experiments with “postural perturbations” so that you can check that the new geometry is imparting you a new ‘non-doing’ kind of response to imbalance: a response that draws its force and stability in the same movements that you projected to establish the desired geometry of the parts.

Once again, I encourage you to experiment with a Skype Lesson with me to get first hand knowledge of the details of the lessons of conscious guidance and control.

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What the Delsartean mirrors can teach us

In the mirrors, you will not see what you feel when organizing a geometry through a series of concerted movements of the parts of the torso. When engaged in concerted activity in front of a mirror, you automatically inhibit the preconceived idea that perceptual thinking (thinking about what you feel) is necessary to control simultaneous movements –because you realize that it is not the case.

Perceptual thinking is nothing but an hindrance to concerted thinking in activity:
“Feeling has no part in the intellectual acts which work together in mechanical production”. (“Delsarte, System of oratory”, p. 174, Arnaud, Angélique)

By definition it is impossible to exercise Conscious Control in the sphere of activity of perceptual thinking because it is impossible to compare impressions (appreciation of tension), to share impressions or to explain impressions to someone else. It is often the case that it is also impossible to explain to oneself or to compare reasonably two impressions we had at two different times (I know that many boast that they can feel so, that they ‘know’ by feeling what they are doing with their hips or back, but it is sufficient to show them a video of their own movements to establish the fact that they do not know what they are really doing with the different parts of their torso and limbs when they are inhibiting and directing). In Alexander’s words: they do not see themselves as others would see them. This is the signification of the principle of faulty sensory appreciation and its effect on the standard of subconscious guidance.

When a subject uses conscious control, he talks to himself as if he was talking to someone else, he applies to himself a geometrical measurement exactly as he would to someone else: this is why we are talking of employing a ‘social perspective’. For the simple reason that perceptual impressions are private, they do not belong to the sphere of conscious control.

In iAt, we do not suppress private impressions, we inhibit our reaction to them. They are free to come and go.

When Alexander is talking about the pupil who “has only his own judgment to depend on”, he is talking about a pupil who attempts to reason with his perceptual thinking.

He may “want” to do it, he may “try and try again” to do it, but as long as the psycho-mechanics by which he tries to carry out his teacher’s directions are not working satisfactorily, every attempt he makes to carry out his teacher’s directions “correctly” (trying to be right) is bound to end in comparative failure. For in making these attempts, as we point out elsewhere, the pupil has only his own judgment to depend on as to what is correct, and since his judgment is based on incorrect direction and delusive sensory appreciation, he is held within the vicious circle of his old habits as long as he tries to carry out the directions “ correctly.” Paradoxical as it may seem, the pupil’s only chance of success lies, not in “ trying to be right,” but, on the contrary, in “ wanting to be wrong ”— wrong, that is, according to any standard of his own. (Alexander, F.M., “Constructive conscious control of the individual”, Integral Press 1923, reprinted 1955, p. 131) «Uncontrolled Emotions, and Fixed Prejudices»

Yet, it is clear that a mirror or video-recorder can be used to evaluate the geometry of the anatomical structure of the pupil before and after he attempts to follow his teacher’s directions in a measured time. This is exactly what Delsarte recommended his pupils to practice: rehearsing first (giving direction) and then, projecting directions to the reflection of the different levers (bones) of their anatomical structure according to a perfect type drawn on a paper.

To consciously control the geometry in the mirror means to check if the geometrical relationships between the levers on the diagram are all present between the reflections of the levers.

To consciously control the concerted activity in the mirror means to check if all the movements of the parts are correctly started, paced and synchronized.

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Learning to feel WRonG

The mirrors reflection is used to reveal both the delusive sensory appreciation at the subconscious level of guidance & also how wrong the pupil would feel when the projected levers became close to the model.

Let’s take the example employed by Delsarte to explain the difference between ‘instruction with principles’ and ‘subconscious instruction’: it is called the pendular arm.

In elementary physics, the geometry of rest of a pendulum is a Vertical line. This principle has been used for centuries by builders all over the world. Yet when it comes to subconscious guidance, when I ask a teacher of the modern Alexander technique to “let the arm rest”, there is always an angle with the vertical both on a sagittal and frontal view: the pendulum represented by the arm is not at rest. There is a chronic contraction in the shoulder that prevents the arm from falling at rest. If I ask the teacher to set the arm according to the principle of geometry of mechanical advantage, then the feeling of the straight arm is one of strain, of tension that is so much disturbing the person that in no time she comes back to her habit with relief.

It is clear that some muscles are doing too much and some others too little when the arm is at-rest-again-gravity. It is interesting to note that the young Alexander does not propose to release the shoulder – that is to act only and specifically on the shortened muscles. He recommends employing a geometry of mechanical advantage to bring back the chronically released muscles in activity. The quote does not mention the form of the arm, but the principle is the same:

The truth of the matter is that in the old morbid conditions which have brought about the curvature [of scoliosis] the muscles intended by Nature for the correct working of the parts concerned had been put out of action, and the whole purpose of the re-educatory method I advocate is to bring back these muscles into play, not by physical exercises, but by the employment of a position of mechanical advantage and the repetition of the correct inhibiting and guiding mental orders by the pupil. (Alexander, F.M., “Man’s supreme inheritance”, (Alexander, ‘Man’s supreme inheritance’, Paul R. Reynolds, 1910, p. 197). After 1917, Alexander finished the sentence with: and the correct manipulation and direction by the teacher, until the two psycho-physical factors become an established psycho-physical habit. (Alexander, F.M., “Man’s supreme inheritance”, Chaterson Ltd 1910, reprinted 1946, p. 181).

When the position of mechanical is projected in the mirror, the pupil must repeat the correct inhibiting and guiding mental orders to refrain from letting his sensory appreciation dominate his mind. This is called “learning to feel wrong”.

Learning to feel wrong is an essential part of the teaching of conscious guidance. But do not imagine a minute that the falsity in proprioception or kinesthesis could therefore be used in a positive repulsive way (If I feel that wrong, I must be close to the target). This is contrary to the facts because:

• faulty sensory appreciation is so variable that any such attempts to base one movements of the parts results also in failure, because one is still thinking in feelings, and relying of the subjective habit and concentration. ‘Wanting to be wrong’ is just a first step, but not the solution;
• sensory appreciation [perceptual thinking] does not allow to create, represent and will a dynamic structure with five, six or twelve simultaneous movements of the different parts of the organism –as required by the purpose of the Alexander technique: “to consciously control the use of his mechanisms as a whole”[9].

To become possible, Conscious control requires a different sphere of activity than perceptual thinking: Only in the sphere of practical, Action-bound thinking will appear the possibility to compare measurements of the parameters of a practical action with an intended model, to delineate geometrical relationships and to explain the various simultaneous movements necessary to realize a definite action.

There exists a reasoned level of calculation of concerted movements at which “wanting to be wrong” is just a byproduct of a mode of procedure. After his lessons, the pupil discovers:

1. that a series of precise geometrical orders can be performed as movements of different bony parts of his torso, head and limbs and,
2. that his guidance of the actions –the guidance of his practical will– improves quickly to a surprising precision as long as perceptual guidance is inhibited by the presence of a mirror (reflection of the parts as everybody can see them). This is the most surprising discovery: geometrical guidance of a number of parts is “understood” and “correctly interpreted” by our motor brain, and old habits of ‘en bloc’ coordination can be decomposed into willed movements of the parts of the torso relative to one another.

When each stage of the series essential to the “means whereby” is correctly apprehended by the conscious mind of the subject, the old habits can be broken up, and every muscular action can be consciously directed until the new and correct guiding sensations have established the new proper habits, which in their turn become subconscious, but on a more highly evolved plane. (Alexander, F.M., “Man’s supreme inheritance”, Chaterson Ltd 1910, reprinted 1946, p. 114, «Synopsis of Claim»)

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In Conclusion:

Geometry is not a private language, but an universal social language. Geometrical movements can be understood and shared by anyone. The unfolding and results of a series of geometrical movements instructions can be controlled by anyone who possesses the knowledge of the system employed.

Our untrained pupil’s Action-bound thinking is directed by ‘poor language’. I is considered faulty as it does not allow for efficient movement and for the normal working of the postural mechanism. The reason the language is faulty is that it is not properly separated from “perceptual thinking”, thinking in terms of ‘sensory appreciation’ or ‘the subjective habit’ as Alexander would call it.

And in all such efforts to apprehend and control mental habits, the first and only real difficulty is to overcome the preliminary inertia of mind in order to combat the subjective habit. The brain becomes used to thinking in a certain way, it works in a groove, and when set in action, slides along the familiar, well-worn path; but when once it is lifted out of the groove, it is astonishing how easily it may be directed. At first it will have a tendency to return to its old manner of working by means of one mechanical unintelligent operation, but the groove soon fills, and although thereafter we may be able to use the old path if we choose, we are no longer bound to it. (Alexander, msi, “Habits of thoughts and of body, p. 63”)

Inhibiting voluntarily our perceptual self-speech (“I feel this, I feel that”), we employ an explicit, unequivocal action-bound self-speech to think in terms of geometry, to instill a series of geometrically organized movements in working memory (giving directions) before commanding our practical will to perform these movements All-Together (projecting these directions) to our reflection in the mirror.

The confusion between subconscious guidance –perceptual thinking– and conscious guidance –action-bound thinking with an objective action coding system– runs deep into our habit of language and of thinking.

When a teacher touches a pupil saying “you are doing this now”, teacher and pupil are sharing an intimate conversation. Bystanders are not privy to the conversation. It is important to understand that the instruction of the teacher is not explicit and that it is grounded in the perceptual thinking of the pupil. When the teacher moves, guides or influences the different parts of the body of the pupil, the latter does not think in terms of related movements of parts: he thinks about what he feels. His language to himself is making him think in terms of sensations.

Even if the teacher performs a ‘Miracle’ in the coordination of the pupil, this is momentary and it will only teach a fleeting lesson to his subconscious guidance. It will never reach his guiding, planning, reasoning mind. It will not expand his attention beyond what he feels, it will not change his memory process nor his capacity to direct his practical will in a rational way.

Many people think that Alexander started his journey of discovery with observation. Observing such a complex system as the coordination of the anatomical structure without laws, conceptions, principles and a sound experimental model leads to nothing of value, nothing fundamental.
When the pupils directs his attention in a random way on the how of his movements, does he gains a better understanding of his use of the parts of the torso? My answer is certainly not.

No amount of direct observation of the faulty coordination of the torso has ever made anyone improve their ways nor their mental habits. I must warn you that, as Alexander teachers you have developed in your training a very strong habit of thinking in terms of what you feel. Many good teachers believed that this was the only way to improve your sensory appreciation. This model is wrong and you will have a lot to unlearn. These words seem harsh and negative. I hope you can see the seed of truth in them.

Students do not often notice the habitual stiffenings between the parts because these are so habitual to them that they have no saliency. On the other hand, they do never notice the relaxation (insufficient tone) that affects the opposite muscles.

All these essential details of the simultaneous coordination of the parts of the torso are undetectable to feelings, undetectable in relation to the geometrical mis-arrangements that are the real cause. The feelings of tension or absence thereof are absolutely tuned to our habits of movements: they do not indicate anything else, anything absolute. They constitute no valid criteria of the essence, but a reflection of appearance. Similar impressions may turn out to be indicative of opposing realities, as when a student interprets antagonistic actions as undue contractions.

Alexander did not start with ‘observations’, he started with principles, the first one being that mirrors are necessary to check how we transform verbal instructions into practical will.

It is only by introducing this sphere of activity, practical action-bound thinking in his consciousness, that we can explain conscious control to our student and that we can make conscious control a valuable ressource in his life.

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