USE YOUR BRAIN – NOT THE INTELLECT

Aphorisms on the Alexander Technique

The opposite of wrong is wrong.
“End-gaining” is a virtuoso of camouflaging itself.
Don’t expect the chicken to see what the eagle can see.
Our civilization is the projection of the sort of brain activity we exercise. If humanity in general will exercise and experience the F.M. Alexander’s Way, our civilization will change essentially. The F.M. Alexander’s Way is not for us to adjust better to our present civilization which leads us to self-destruction. An ever rising level of consciousness is the only chance for humanity.
Those who pretend they teach the F.M. Alexander Technique deal – as a matter of fact – with the functioning of the body, and not with the Use of the Self, as a whole and total entity. They ignore the fact that the body is the mirror of the mind activity – of the brain, and what has to change therefore is the “brain-discipline”, first and continuously, as an endless process.
When we relate to our sensory appreciation we relate not only to our senses -vision , hearing, smell, taste and touch – but also to our emotional sensory appreciation, that became unreliable as a result of subconscious guidance and control.
“End-gaining” is the “wrong”. To give up the wrong – this is “Inhibition”. If you do so, the “right” will take place.
F.M. Alexander said: “The conscious mind must be quickened”. We can say it must function like lightning – lightning feedback activity. This activity should not be filtered through the intellect. “The agency of the intellect” is a stumbling block in the understanding of the Whole.
“Inhibition” is the endless process of giving up the “End-gaining”.
We have to ‘have’ the “creative conception” of “The Way” and with it to activate the continuous consent for the application of “The Way” in our daily activities.
Those who seek for a guru are not competent of learning.
“End-gaining” is the child of fears of the Unknown; the child of craving for security and for the Permanent – the unchanging. Ambition is the “Child of End-gaining” and so is our competitive human society. Our misuse is the “Grand Child”. All of them are born in our brain. They are not natural necessity.
Those who admire the Teacher do not learn anything. They merely obey and imitate blindly.
“End-gaining” is the genius of “Self-Hiding”.
F.M. Alexander Technique (Way) is a process of re-integration, with the process of Nature through Conscious Guidance and Control.
Be honest but daring.
If you don’t try to be good you will be better.
“This consciousness is really a state of acute awareness”. From “Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual”, page 135 (About the Conscious Guidance and Control)
Results are only milestones along the way.
Don’t expect the chicken to have the eagle’s wing span.
If we don’t have time we exist but not live.
In order to lose our fears we have, first, consciously to lose the fear of losing fears.
Many people find it right to shoot first and then to draw the Bull’s eye around the hit.
Don’t look for the “right”; be aware of the wrong and give it up.
Our civilization and culture are based on an illusive reality.
Our fears paralyze our intelligence.
We should have a “million years of patience” – then things can happen in no time; but if we don’t have this “million years of patience” – things will not happen in a million years.
Don’t hide behind excuses, explanations and apologies.
O.K. – your conclusions are logical – what follows?
Don’t look for results – constantly clear the Way.
Don’t look for results – you have then the chance to meet them on the Way.
Don’t expect the chicken to express itself in the eagle’s way.
Peace is not a commercial item; you can’t sell it, you can’t buy it, you can’ negotiate it. Peace is in and of the mind.
Don’t look for miracles: direct I Don’t look for the Directions: direct! Don’t try to feel the Directions: direct! Don’t “do” the Directions: direct! Don’t “wait”: direct!
Your hands begin to convey the change in your brain activity.
Don’t be afraid of being confused. Accept the challenge of being confused.
There are no real changes that are not accompanied by confusion.
Don’t hamper your brain activity by using the filter of the intellect.
Don’t try to secure your habitual balance, allow yourself to feel insecured.
You are afraid of changes? You are afraid to feel wrong or lost? You are not ripe for the Alexander Technique.
There are no stupid children; there are stupid parents.
Lose the tensions and the intentions.
We are very enthusiastic and eager to criticize others, but not ourselves.
The PROCESS is a combined and simultaneous operation, and not in stages.
Don’t interfere with the process by relying on your sensory appreciation.
Direct with all your heart and not half-hearted – don’t compromise.
“Inhibition” is neither blocking, nor “Relaxation”.
“Sophistication” is not “Wisdom”. Wisdom is simple.
Don’t tell me “stories” – nourish the “Directions”, instead.
You say your teacher has “good hands”. What do you mean by this?

First we misuse ourselves and then, when the crisis comes we look for a Saviour and his miracles.
Be in command – don’t try to control by means of your sensory appreciation.
Don’t brake and accelerate at the same time.
Nina describes the way we use ourselves habitually: “Strong in the wrong”.
It is not wise to try to be clever.
If you want to excuse yourself, write it down in the “Book of Excuses”.
Don’t care – be aware.
Don’t be worried – be aware.
Don’t know – learn.
Let the excitement sink.
Here when I tell you, you are wrong – accept it with all your heart or go home.
Never just correct the pupil while neglecting yourself at the same time. Continue to give up the wrong in yourself.
When I tell you what is wrong with you, don’t answer “yes, yes”, but take the necessary steps.
If you struggle to achieve the “right” you are still wrong.
Don’t be careful nor reckless.
Don’t expect an eagle’s chick to come out of a chicken’s egg.
Some human relations are like an illness – we have to go through it and get rid of it.
It’s all in the brain; it’s all from the brain; it’s all through the brain.
Take it easy! Let it go; allow it to happen.
From the book “The Way of Chuang Tzu”: “Great knowledge sees all in one. Small knowledge breaks down into many”. From the “Use of the Self” of F.M. Alexander “All together, one after the other”. Always and continuously and simultaneously “all together” and “one after the other” within it.
Don’t make yourself suffer because of the Directions – simply direct.
Illusions are the mental armour we created in order to defend ourselves from our fears. The projection of this armour is expressed in our bodies.
You can’t tame a cow to lay eggs; you can’t convince a chicken to produce milk; but you still think you can deal with the F.M. Alexander Way while you totally ignore the Conscious Control!
In life we deal habitually and normally with the leaves just before they wither and not with the roots.
Don’t be optimist, don’t be pessimist: be realist.
We are just guests on Earth. We must cooperate with our hostess and not be hostile to her.
Undo the “doing” by means of “non-doing”.
We are ready to spend a lot of energy and time for learning tricks and the “right doing”. But we are very lazy when it comes to use the brain in a different way, that is essential and necessary for the required changes to happen.

It is very positive to be aware of the negative, and then as a consequence – to give up the wrong.
Love can exist only when and where fears don’t exist.
You put your hands without the brain behind them. Anyhow – don’t PUT your hands – USE them.
If we employ and apply the right “Means-whereby” things happen at the ripe moment.
You don’t learn by trying to learn.
Energize and accelerate your Directions and don’t use your muscles in the habitual way, and don’t look for results.
You fix yourself in order to move – stop it.
When F.M. Alexander gave the title to his first book “Man’s supreme inheritance” he related the title to the “Conscious Control” – this is the “State of acute Awareness”.
Don’t think – use your whole brain.
Don’t make music – be the music.
You say you want to improve yourself? 0.K. Stop to interfere with the flow of energies in yourself, by giving up the “End-gaining” mental attitude.
For F.M. Alexander the “Movement” (visible movement) was no more than an indicator, or a mirror, for the general Use of the Self (psycho-physical entity); the reflection of the brain activity – the mental attitude toward life -through the medium of the body. In order to improve ourselves, to improve our reactions to stimuli, we have to employ a different brain activity from the one we employ normally and habitually. It means to switch to Conscious Control -man’s supreme inheritance. That is what the F.M. Alexander Technique is about.
In the F.M. Alexander Technique the mirrors are used properly only when the brain is properly used.
Before we fix our body, we fix our brain.
Don’t look for results – don’t ignore the results.
Don’t look for results – produce the results without any intention and end, while the process continues endlessly.
All the writings about F.M. Alexander Technique are like an avalanche of words combined in sophisticated and clever sentences, that cover the truth – that is a fatal misunderstanding and misapplication of the F.M. Alexander Technique.
Those who cannot stand alone are not ripe for cooperation.
In all what people wrote about F.M. Alexander Technique, one thing is missing -the F.M. Alexander Technique.
Don’t tell me which steps should be taken – make them.
Continue the process of giving up the wrong, and you are on the right way.

Humanity does not want to give up the mental attitude of children of the kindergarten age. It becomes more sophisticated, more cunning, cleverer, but still – kindergarten mentality.
Take responsibility for yourself; don’t break into pieces.
Don’t try to be right; give up being wrong.

Don’t worry about your muscles – anyhow they follow the brain.
Let your instrument sing; don’t force it to sing.
What is confusion? Is it not facing the unknown with the wrong “means-whereby”?
In all that was written about F.M. Alexander Technique by, so called, professional practitioners in the field of the F.M. Alexander Technique – and by others – one can realize clearly that their old habitual mental attitude is still guiding them and ominates the manner of their reactions to the stimuli of life. And because of this it is impossible for them to apply practically the F.M. Alexander Principles in themselves – not to speak to teach the application/ of these principles to others. Their intellectually orientated and filtered brain activity suffocates all possibilities for the employment of the Conscious Control.
Be everywhere and all over in no time at the same time.
We can’t give up being “End-gainers” before and unless we are aware and understand through practical experience what it is “End-gaining”.
The F.M. Alexander Technique is like a rain-bow for those who try to grasp, hold and keep it intellectually, and are not ready to make a fundamental change in their mental attitude. Unfortunately most of – so called – civilized people belong to the above category of mental attitude and state of mind -including those who pretend to be professional practitioners of the

F.M. Alexander Technique.

It is wrong to look for the right; it is wrong to look for the wrong; it is wrong to LOOK for anything.
To concentrate it means to ignore the interrelations within the Whole.
The application of the Conscious Control brings us the freedom from the slavery of the emotional reactions.
Not to compromise does not mean to be rigid.
For a long time I told my spine to open, to spread; now my spine tells me to open, to spread; non-stop.
Those who explain themselves – in relation to their reactions to the stimuli of life – are really trying to excuse and justify their wrong as right.
Don’t do the right; let it be done.
Anarchy is not freedom; freedom is not anarchy.
The timeless is full of moments.
You can’t catch the wind; you can’t hold the wind; wind exists only as a continuous process.
Ends are reactions to stimuli born in our brain. These reactions are the products of our subconscious guidance and control. We are then “End-gainers”. When our Conscious Guidance and Control is involved in the process, the proper “Means-whereby” are employed and the required end is gained within the process.
As long as the habitual mental attitude exists, the required process can’t take place.
The more you try to be right the more you will be wrong. So don’t try to be right and instead deal with the wrong – stop it.
With and through the Conscious Control we are absorbed in IT, not concentrated on IT.
When you don’t worry about time, the time within the timeless is at your disposal.
You deal with the flow of the visible movements, but not really with the required brain activity – the change of the mental attitude – needed to allow the change which will produce the conditions through which movements will flow.

I deal – while giving the pupil the practical experience of the conditions (Directions) required to enable the Primary Control to function naturally and so the visible movements will flow – with the changing of the mental attitude. This change in the mental attitude – the adaptation and application of the Conscious Control – is a corner stone for having a “creative conception” and an “active consent” to allow free flow of energies within us as a “whole”. Then the movements flow, but we don’t bother about it anymore.

You say you apply the Conscious Guidance and Control; but it is very clear that you continue to apply your habitual subconscious guidance and control through the agency of the intellect; and still you consider yourself as practitioners of the F.M. Alexander Technique!
Not to hold, to let IT go, to allow IT to happen, does not mean to become “dead”-heavy.
The F.M. Alexander Technique (Way) is a guide for life, not an end by itself.
The required changes can’t be realized unless the habitual interpretation of stimuli and reactions is given up.
You experience, again and again, through our work that it is wrong to try to do the right thing, and yet you continue to try to do the right thing; why?
Can the eagle fly without spreading his wings? Can we “fly” in our daily activities without spreading our back through our brain?
Sometimes when we think we are going to die, this is the moment we begin to live.
If you “sweat” in your brain, you will not “sweat” in your muscles.
The boat moves when the sail expands by the wind. Your back is your “sail” and the brain is the source of the “wind”.
The International Congress of Teachers of the F.M. Alexander Technique reminds me of a decoration of cinema spectacle: A facade of a grandiose palace made of plywood and cardboard, and behind it no more than a falling mud hut without foundation.
Those who admire don’t have the chance to exercise logic and common sense; they are slaves of their own habitual subconscious guidance and control, of their emotional reactions to stimuli; of their fears. They are dazzled by their own mental state and attitude, and therefore they can’t – or even refuse to – recognize the shortcomings and the wrong in the subject of their admiration. Appreciation and respect – this is a different story.
Use your hands without looking for ends and results; without expectations; without intentions; without destination. Let the Conscious Control be the “engine” of your hands.
When you spread the sail don’t keep the boat anchored.
When a person is an individualistic person, it does not mean that this person is an egocentric one.
When an egocentric person has distinguished talents they normally grow into charlatanism.
In each egocentric person is rooted and hidden a deep inferiority complex.
You can’t see the Way unless you open your eyes (brain).
Get rid of illusions; life is not a cinema – life is real.

The brain stimulates the “wind” (energies) to blow; our back is the “sail” (collects and converts the energies); the rest is the “boat”. But at the same time they are the “one” – the “whole” – the “All together and the one after the other”.
First we have to understand what responsibility really means, in order to experience it continuously in practice. Then the real process of learning life is switched on.
You can’t really deal properly with your Primary Control unless you really and honestly deal with your habitual mental attitude. Did you ever meet a teacher of the F.M. Alexander Technique whose mental attitude was changed?
The F.M. Alexander Technique as it is practiced nowadays is as real as Disney Land.
You apply “End-gaining” while TRYING not to be an “End-gainer”.
Better be a content amateur rather than a frustrated professional.
The “Inhibition” can be realized only when the mental attitude is free of “End-gaining”.
F.M. Alexander called IT “Conscious Control”; J. Krishnamurti called IT “Choiceless Awareness”. You can call IT “Total Awareness”, “Awareness of the Whole”, “Awareness of the One”. Call IT whatever you like – this IT will not be real and a continuous process as long as we don’t free ourselves of our habitual mental attitude. Without a different mental attitude the teaching of the F.M. Alexander Technique is no more than gymnastics guided by manipulation.
Criticism – a corner stone of the F.M. Alexander Technique – is totally unaccepted by those who pretend they teach the F.M. Alexander Technique -unless you tell them they are O.K. and doing it all right.
You are so busy directing that you can’t practically direct.
Light hands are not necessarily lively hands.
As long as your brain is full of words and talks, and thoughts in words – the application of the F.M. Alexander Technique is practically impossible.
How do you expect to learn when your head is stuffed with knowledge?
I wonder if will come a time when you will rely on your own brain and not on mine.
I give you the key to the switch of the starter of the new brain activity -but you are the one who has to turn it on.
Let IT happen through your muscles; don’t do IT with your muscles.
Don’t panic when you are told (or discover) that you are wrong; but find the courage to give up the habitual reaction – which normally is wrong – to the stimuli.
If by teaching you don’t learn, your teaching is not real teaching.
Unfulfilled childhood is not an excuse not to take responsibility for ourselves as adults.
I can produce for you, in your body, the experience of the “Directions”, but YOU will accept them and reproduce them for yourself only as far as your habitual mental state and mental attitude allow it.
All of them can repeat – like parrots – “Neck free; head forward and up; back lengthen and widen”; but who of them can practically produce IT in himself, or for himself?

They can put their hands on a pupil and endlessly repeat the Mantra:

“Neckfreeheadforwardandupbacklengthenandwiden”; but their hands convey nothing more than illusive sensation of what they think is the right stuff.

To try, especially to try hard, it means – normally and habitually – to look for achievement, for the end, ignoring the “Means-whereby” while being busy with the end.
Those who pretend they defend and protect democracy, as a matter of fact, bring about its destruction, by misusing its basic principles. The same applies to Societies, like the S.T.A.T., for example: They defend their own personal weaknesses and murder the real F.M. Alexander Technique.
The Sensory Appreciation is a function of the brain: – it is what happens in the brain to the information (stimuli) received by the senses and conveyed through the nerves to the brain. Our Habitual Use of ourselves – the by-product of our way of life and the prevailing general attitude in our civilization – does not respond properly to the natural messages of our senses. Therefore humanity looks as it looks now – not showing the slightest sign of readiness for the necessary changes to take place.
The Conscious Control can’t be operative as long as the filter of the intellect is operative in our brain.
F.M. Alexander described it: “All together and one after the other”. All together is the Timeless; one after the other are the moments within the Timeless.
When F.M. Alexander began to watch himself in the mirror he didn’t know what he will discover. When you watch yourself in the mirror you are intellectually conditioned by F.M. Alexander’s discoveries?
You concentrate? – It means you are not with the Whole. Your mind wanders? – It means you are not with the Whole.
Andreas said: “If I would shout at myself, you would not have to shout at me”. In other words he meant to say that if he would be awaken in his mind and in a state of awareness (applying properly the Conscious Control) he would not need

to be “hammered” by the teacher and could rely on the reactions of his own brain.

It is not hard to train the muscles in the conventional – habitual way. It is very hard to train the brain for the acceptance and application of the Conscious Control, and to produce through it the Creative Conception and the Active Consent, which will activate the muscles as they should work by Nature.
You THINK that, when you SAY that from now on you apply the Conscious Control, it works – just forget it! As long as you cling to your habitual mental attitude it can’t work.
To try to live in the Present – now and here – is as wrong as to live in the Past or in the Future. On the other hand – to understand the Timeless and to live it; to experience the moments within the Timeless – this is another story.
From the bible; DEUTERONOMY Chapter 30 11-14

“For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it and do it? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in the mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it”. Do you understand what it means? Do you really understand?

All of us are infected by the germs of Stupidity. Most of us are infected by the dangerous destructive kind of it; only some of us by its harmless kind.
Don’t look for rewards; take responsibility for your reactions; don’t excuse yourself and don’t complain when you are punished by Nature.
You can’t set off your journey along the real and true F.M. Alexander Way, unless you are equipped with a certain mental attitude – similar to the one F.M. Alexander had when he set off on his route of investigation, and never he neglected his mental attitude.
The F.M. Alexander Way passes through many unexpected and unavoidable “dark tunnels”.
When we look for results, reluctantly we deal with symptoms – bits and pieces -and ignore the Whole.
You waste your time, you ruin your life by being in a hurry.
Don’t expect to be able to satisfy the whole world; don’t think you can please the whole world; don’t expect to be accepted by the whole world; true friends are very rare in our world.
When I practice and participate with a pupil the F.M. Alexander Way, the whole humanity is mirrored in the pupil. The micro and the macro are the same.
It seems that animals are wiser than we are – they didn’t develop and don’t nourish an illusive reality.
The Way is so clear and transparent, that it is very hard to see and recognize it through the very “dark sunglasses” we fixed in front of the “eyes” of our brain – this is the “Filter of the Intellect”, the “armour” we create in our brain – in order to shelter ourselves from our fears and the “naked” reality. So the first step that should be taken is to get rid of the “dark sunglasses”.
If you obey me, you can’t be creative. If you antagonize me, you can’t be creative. If your mental attitude is of readiness to accept changes, to accept the unknown, to explore, not to be fixed in a “mental armour” – we can go together, to flow together with the unceasing process of life; we have then the chance to be fully creative.
We can describe all the writings concerning the F.M. Alexander Technique as “an endeavour to theorize a practical Way that can’t be experienced or explained by and through words”.
You can’t experience the Timeless with a stopwatch in your brain.
If the eagle would use his back and wings as you use your back and arms, he would never be able to take off.
We can’t let the energies flow freely in the body unless we allow the energies to flow freely in the brain.
There is no doubt that I have to take the responsibility for my own stupidity; but why do I have to take the responsibility for the stupidity of the rest of the world?
For my own stupidity I have to pay, but I am forced to pay for the stupidity of the rest of the world.
See not to let your head and back collapse into your spine – but don’t DO the opposite.
Instead of passing through the “dark tunnels” in life, in order to be able to experience the true natural light, we invented the artificial light – the illusive reality – and stay with it in the “dark tunnels”.
Sit down, but don’t sit down and still sit down – o.k. gain the end, but not by means of “End-gaining”.
The necessary steps can’t take place and be in process unless the mind is tuned for the total acceptance of such change. The necessary change can’t take place and be in process as long as the habitual fears are in command.
It is not important how and where you use your hands – it is important which “language” they transmit.
“To put hands” – this phrase is vastly used by those who pretend they teach the F.M. Alexander Technique – and indeed they really lay their hands on the pupil, they, practically, “land” their hands on the pupil, trying to “direct”. But the outcome is no more than a manipulation and shaping of the pupil.
Can a bird have the chance to contract while flying? A bird that contracts while flying will, practically, fall dead in no time. Unfortunately we can endure contraction.
The ego is the shell that covers the real self.
All of them – those who pretend they teach the F.M. Alexander Technique – teach you how to “inhibit” the wrong muscular reaction in the right way. No one of them deals with the mental “inhibition” of the habitual mental attitude, that causes us to be wrong. They are too scared to go through such experience; therefore they don’t have a real chance to apply the process of getting rid of the habitual use.
You can’t change your basic habitual attitude by intellectual activity.
“Creative Conception” – W.A. Mozart is an example of a person who experienced “Creative Conception” – he and the music were one lively entity.

“Active Consent” – W.A. Mozart is an example how the “Creative Conception” is productive when the “Active Consent” is not hampered by the “Filter of the Intellect”.

It happens that an eagle thinks he is a chicken because he grew up among chickens and uses his wings like them. He doesn’t know how his wings can carry him up into the high skies.
When I criticize others, you praise me; but when I criticize you, you are offended. When I criticize others, I am right; when I criticize you – I am wrong.
The train of End-gaining is loaded with excuses.
You make so many preparations in order to do it right that the outcome can’t be otherwise than wrong.
Through the Conscious Control “eaglize” yourself, and this will replace the habitual “chickenizing”.
Through the Conscious Control you activate the continuous process of allowing IT to happen, instead of the habitual process of DOING.
To be your own commander does not mean to be a nozy controller.
From the womb to the grave it’s a one-way road – no U-turn – no return. To apply, properly, the continuous process of the F.M. Alexander Technique in life enables the civilized human being to follow this road smoothly.
When you look around it is alarming to realize how much people are afraid to use their own brain – this includes the so called Alexander Technique circles.
It is a mistake to be afraid of making a mistake. Don’t try not to make a mistake. Avoid and inhibit it by being totally aware of what is wrong.
The eagle doesn’t look for the sensation of flying in order to fly – he just flies.
How can you inhibit the End-gaining when your mental attitude is conditioned by the End-gaining?
What does condition, shape and form our mental attitude? Can’t you realize that our fears dominate, cement and petrify our mental attitude?
What you do is worse than to brake and accelerate at the same time – you “brake” and you are convinced that you “accelerate”.

As long as your mental attitude is hatched by the “End-gaining” (state of mind), you don’t have the chance to get the Creative Conception and the practical understanding of the F.M. Alexander Technique. Your mental attitude can perceive only visible movements – the so called flow and freedom of such movements.

But the Creative Conception of the invisible motion – this unhampered flow of energies in the Self, which is the source of free visible movements – is out of the range of your mental attitude. And all of you pretend to be teachers of the F.M. Alexander Technique!

All of you nourish the desire to be free, but – for God’s sake – NOT to leave the cage.
You have the desire – as you say – to liberate yourself from the gravity of the habitual use of the Self, which is deeply rooted in the past experience of many generations of human beings. You have the desire – as you say – to flow-fly within the natural flow of energies. But you do everything possible not to

cut the umbilical cord through which we are attached to the habitual use – the “Cage of Gravity”.

All of you are acquainted with F.M. Alexander’s term “Inhibition” – this conscious brain activity which inhibits (neutralizes) the habitual reaction to stimuli, and that has to act simultaneously with the projection of the F.M. Alexander’s “means-whereby” (as a general conditioning for the reaction to any and every stimulus, to and of the Self).
I have at my disposal the best teacher oneself can have: Myself.
When a person who considers himself (and is considered, unfortunately, by others as well) an experienced expert in the field of the F.M. Alexander Technique -a practical practitioner and a skilled certified teacher of the above F.M. Alexander Technique – describes and tells us how to DO the act of getting up from lying on the floor, in the “right” way according to (HIS) F.M. Alexander Technique and then claims his compliments: “Congratulations! You have just enacted a process which took millions of years of evolution to develop” -would you consider such a person as one who reached the level of mature mentality? Or would you file him in the category of adults who cling to infantile mentality?

225.

When a teacher of the F.M. Alexander Technique clarifies, in the book written by this teacher, the term “Head forward and up”: “The phrase ‘head up’ means vertically upward in relation to the ground”, I can’t escape the sad conclusion that this person did not get the message of F.M. Alexander. In any case it would be more appropriate to say: “Head forward and A W A Y in relation to the spine”.

226.

That what we call and consider as “discipline” when we expect human beings to be “disciplined”, we really relate to “obedience” and to “authorities”. This sort of “discipline” is compulsory, accompanied by fears of punishment and destruction. The real discipline goes together with self-determination, self-choice, self-responsibility, respect to life, and total consideration.

227.

You can’t practically apply the F.M. Alexander Technique unless you are freeing yourself of the habitual social discipline in favour of the real discipline.

Dreams project reality while we are asleep; daydreaming projects sleepiness while we are awake.
The real discipline grows within us. It controls, regulates and channels our creativity sand activity. Discipline, as it is accepted in our society, paralyses and enslaves our own creativity and activity for the sake of the Authorities, who demand our blind obedience. The Social Discipline is motivated and nourished by fears.
Don’t be in a hurry, but on the other hand don’t slow down when and where it is necessary to be fast.
You say you are afraid of ray powers. It is not really true – you are afraid to deal with your own weaknesses which my powers stimulate you to deal with.
My teaching is not nourishing and stuffing your brain with my past experiences and knowledge but it is sharing and participating with you the continuous process of experimentation, exploration and experiencing, every moment anew.
Don’t waste time trying to feel – either what is right or wrong; don’t waste time trying to analyze your findings, which are based on a wrong sensory appreciation; don’t waste time on intellectual masturbation – trying to use words to describe activity that can be experienced only through the “Blitzfeedback” reaction

to stimuli – the result of an active and vivid Conscious Control.

“Show me-how to do it right and I’ll do it right” – this is in fact the way of teaching and learning the students in the schools for teachers of the F.M.Alexander Technique expect to experience, and that is the way they get it in the above schools. But this is NOT the real F.M. Alexander Technique.
Don’t expect to find openness and friendship where fears dwell.
We tend to fall into holes which we create in our imagination.
I wonder if there is an eagle that concentrates on flying while flying.
I wonder if there is an eagle who is afraid to fly high in the sky.
I wonder if there is an eagle who is afraid to fly alone.
Don’t indulge in wishes and expectations – act.
All of you refuse to realize and to accept that to apply the F.M. Alexander Technique in daily life, it means to face and deal with the wrong NON-STOP.
God created both chickens and human beings; but somehow, strangely enough, the human being insists to be a chicken.
It does not matter how high over the ground the eagle flies – the wings and tail must be spread.
An eagle that looks for secured ground can’t fly. He should better look for a cage.
In life, on each step there is a trap; so in order to avoid falling into these traps it is necessary to employ the Conscious Control by which we can sort out the right “Means whereby” for a safe route.
Don’t try to be great – what does it mean to be great? Don’t try to be important -what does it mean to be important? Don’t try to be somebody – what does it

mean to be somebody? The ambition to be great, to be important, to be somebody is nourished on the “dung” in our brain.

As long as your emotional state dominates and controls your mental attitude you can’t produce the necessary Active Consent for the acceptance of the experience I convey for you through my hands.
When there is no gap of time between decision and action, then IT is right.
Be aware of, and activate the timeless – endless process of crescendo of spreading the back and diminuendo in doing in the limbs.
Today was the tomorrow of yesterday, and will be the yesterday of tomorrow. So what is time? Do you grasp the Timeless?
As long as we “do” in the brain we do with the muscles. The moment we “inhibit” the habitual “doing” in the brain the energy will flow through the muscles.
Our habitual use of the Self is guided and controlled by our subconscious guidance and control, which is deeply rooted in the early stages of our life, when the employment of our own conscious guidance and control is practically impossible, because of the habitual conditioning of our parents and others around us and because of our total dependence on them. Unless this fact is properly and totally understood and accepted, the “Inhibition” is performed through the habitual muscle activity and does not happen in the brain. You still DO it.
When F.M. Alexander said: “Be careful of the printed matter: you may not read it as it was ^written down”, he was so right! And all of you, who find yourselves competent to write about his work are SO wrong and practically impotents in teaching his work.
Without a creative conception, without a creative enthusiasm, without a creative curiosity, without a creative exploration, without a creative drive – without ALL of them together – you can’t follow the WAY.
Sometimes you have to be involved in a storm – but not in one in a glass of water.
No one of you is ready and willing to desert your “paradise”, even if practically it is a hell – because it is known and habitual, and feels secured.
Fatalism and the F.M. Alexander Technique can’t go together.
Don’t ask me if I am ready to teach you – be clear in yourself if YOU are ready to be taught by me and to accept my teaching.
If you expect that I will spread your wings for you, and take off for you, you will never be able to fly with me.
From “Man’s Supreme Inheritance” (page 120, 1957 edition):

“In re-educating the individual, therefore, the first effort must be directed to the education of the conscious mind.” And: …and the first step in re-education is that of establishing in the pupil’s mind …” – And ALL of you ignore this first step required and continue to deal solely with movements.

From “The Universal Constant in Living” (page 113, 1942 edition):

“The projection of continued, conscious orders, calls for a broad reasoning attitude so that the subject has not only a clear conception of the orders essential (“Means whereby”) for the correct performance of a particular movement but he can also project these orders in their right relationship one to another, the coordinated series of orders resulting in a coordinated use of the organism”. (Quoted from Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual). And you put the emphasis on movements and refuse to relate to the different brain activity required.

The next paragraph from “The Universal Constant in Living” (page 113, 1942 edition):

“In my experience most people, even those who are recognized as unusually brilliant, find this procedure very difficult. Where they chiefly go wrong is in “forgetting to remember” to inhibit while the end-gaining habit which claims most of us as victims, causes them constantly in making a movement to overlook or overrun one or the other in the series of messages they have been asked to project”. And all of you persist to cling to movement and to discharge the “Means whereby” ….

As a matter of fact we don’t dare to disconnect ourselves from the “gravity” of the habitual use of the self. So when we claim that we manage to “inhibit”, it is not the real F.M. Alexander’s “Inhibition”.
When things begin to go – so called – wrong, I begin to see reality clearer.

I can’t escape the conclusion that if the scientific work of Professor Nikolaas Tinbergen – that won him the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine – is based on the same observation, logic, and general brain activity that is presented in his oration he delivered in Stockholm on the 12th of December 1973, the value and the quality of his work don’t raise above the level of zero.
In his lecture “Man’s Future as an Individual” Walter H.M. Carrington says (about F.M. Alexander): “He was a very misunderstood man; he was particularly misunderstood by many people who knew him well and were close to him”. So to which category you relate yourself, Walter H.M. Carrington – you who knew him well and who were close to him (as his chief assistant – as you pretend you were) ?!

What about YOU?!

Another “pearl” of the above Carrington: “… because people who read his account of the Evolution of the Technique in “The Use of the Self” often imagine that what he describes is something he was doing all the time, that he was giving his full time to it; and of course it was not so in the least. It all took place in the intervals of an extremely busy and active life”.

Well, I am afraid you are totally wrong, Walter H.M. Carrington. The moment

F.M. Alexander’s mental attitude was tuned to the new Way he continuously

was occupied by the Process, even while he was not in front of the mirror. What you said above was born in your compromising and lazy brain.

From my certificate issued by the S.T.A.T. :” … having attended an approved Teacher’s Training Course has been admitted to membership of the Society of Teachers established by the late F.M. Alexander …” And above Carrington says: “He was a “non-joiner”, he didn’t believe in societies, he wouldn’t have liked this one (the S.T.A.T. -N.R.)”. I wonder if a logical brain and common sense could match the contraries!
If you wish to gain the accepted standards of the Human Society – you invite the destruction of your real Self.
We want to be accepted and recognized by Human Society – but what a price we have to pay for it!
You look for perfection, see the way and not the end.
Honesty should match reality and not be an intellectual conception.
In the lesson, through my hands you follow my brain activity.
Fears -particularly the fears of facing life alone, and of the Timeless and the Unknown – are the glue which sticks human beings together, to form the Human Society as it is.
You come to me to learn how to develop the process of learning on the basis of the Conscious Control, and not to learn tricks and how “to DO IT right”.
Like dogs who eat their own puke, you return to your own habitual mental attitude and misuse.
As long as the necessary break through in the brain does not occur, the process you are busy with is taming – it is not Education.
How can you expect to experience a real change within yourself, if you absorb all your tolerance, devotion and indulgence in your habitual misuse?
When we – human beings – want to do something, we interfere with the natural flow of energies within ourselves. Our relationship with Nature is badly balanced. We are wrong. Therefore, if we wish to balance ourselves properly with Nature, we must employ the Conscious Control, in order to “inhibit”, continuously~. and endlessly, the habitual wrong Process.
To be lively and active without End-gaining – that is what it is all about.
Don’t struggle for the right by wrong means.

There is a well hidden tiny switch in the human brain, which is responsible

for the changes in the use of the Self, and should be turned on to allow the process of changes to take place. This switch can be activated only by the “owner” of the brain himself. Unfortunately – normally – habitually – we look directly for the changes and not for the switch.

Disconnect yourself from the faulty sensory appreciation – this is “Inhibition”. Give up the habitual interference with the habitual “Doing”, and yet DO IT – this is the “Inhibition”.
Focusing the awareness for a moment on a point, within the Timeless and the Measureless is not concentration.
Your work is a repeated combination of preparation, followed by separation. The continuous process of “all together” is missing.
If I try to cause you to be scared of me – it is my problem; but if, without a logical reason – you are scared of me – then it is your problem. And if you ask what the above has to do with the F.M. Alexander’s work – I am afraid you don’t understand his message.
The arms should be like the eagle’s wings – light and powerful and mobile. They will be like the eagle’s wings if, by applying the Conscious Control, the Primary Control will function naturally:

Neck free, Head forward and away in relation to the spine, Back spreads.

All of you – with the label of the F.M. Alexander Technique – deal with the movements of the body, while the real F.M. Alexander Technique deals with the mobility of the Self – not excluding the brain activity.
Don’t tolerate the wrong; don’t compromise with the wrong; therefore don’t try to be, so called, civilized.
Childhood events are like tattoo marks in our soul. You can cover them from outside; you can build an “armour” or “walls” to hide them and not let them be exposed. On the other hand you may deal with them properly if you manage to apply the Conscious Control.
Quite at the beginning of my studies in the F.M. Alexander Foundation, many questions arose in me concerning the F.M. Alexander Technique and I was looking for answers, probably on the intellectual level. One day I told my teacher Peter Scott about it and he said: “Ask, ask”, and I replied: “Some other time”. – I never had to ask these questions, as my practical experience in the Way and the Process provided – and still provides – the answers.
One day, in my days as a student in the F.M. Alexander Foundation, my teacher Patrick Macdonald noticed that I was “down”, and he told me: “What ever happens -UP!” It seems that he said it in the ripe moment, as since then I began to see the F.M. Alexander Technique as a process within the Timeless and the Endless. Now I say to my students and pupils instead of “up” “open – spread”!
Your “Alexander Technique” is of two dimensions – it is flat.
I can show you the “Way” I “walk” along and if this “Way” appeals to you, you can join me on the “journey”; though don’t expect me to carry you on my shoulders.
The Timeless is full of rhythms and tempos.
You tell me that you are confused and that you don’t know what to Do. I told you already many times, and I will tell you – probably many times more – not to look for the right. Be aware of the wrong – what IS wrong, when IT is wrong and “inhibit” (neutralize) it!
Be loyal to yourself and to your natural needs. To be loyal to yourself does not mean that you are an egocentric-egotistic person.
In our brain we have an eagle and a cage. For some reason, instead of getting rid of the cage and following the flight of the eagle, we do our best to lock the eagle in the cage.
Like a lunatic person who walks while being asleep, we walk through life while our brain is “asleep” and the “switch” of the Conscious Control is firmly tightened on “off”.
As you came to me and asked to learn with me – to follow the Way with me -don’t expect me to adjust myself to your “frame” and to enter your “cage”.
The body should follow the head that goes away in relation to the spine, and not to be like a bottle when the cork is pulled out of its neck.
You have already an extensive and intensive practical experience of the “Directions”, produced for you in you through my hands (while I produce them for myself in myself.) Don’t wait anymore for me to produce the “Directions” in you -reproduce them yourself for yourself – apply the Conscious Control. Use your brain!
You desperately look for the security of a cage and at the same time you wish to fly freely. It can’t work this way!
Many times I explained you that results are just “milestones” along the Way and you seemed to agree with me about it. As a matter of fact you continue to look for the “milestones”.
All of you seemed to be alarmed by the growing pollution in Nature. What about the “pollution” in your mind?
Conscious Control – F.M. Alexander describes it as “a state of acute awareness”. J. Krishnamurti referred to IT as the “choiceless awareness”. We can also call IT “total awareness” and “the awareness of the whole within the Timeless”.
Medicine succeeded to develop a process of transplanting various human organs from one body to another body, and managed to overcome the rejection of the transplanted organ by the receiving body. But, I am afraid nobody can succeed in “transplanting” a new and desirable mental attitude in a brain that is not ready to succeed the habitual mental attitude by another mental attitude, though intellectually and theoretically the need for such operation is understood.
The society of modern technological civilization is thoroughly absorbed in

the world of computers, trying to develop an intelligent computer. Concentrating on this end they are not aware of the declining natural intelligence of the human brain. How long can Nature endure it?!

The process is an endless one. Endless in two respects: not looking for the ends (results) and it is not limited in space and time.
As long as our mental attitude is shaped and dominated by our intellect and subconscious control, we can’t practically activate in ourselves the real Alexander Process.
If you don’t have in your brain this little “drop” of the Conscious Control to be used as a starter for the process of cracking the armour of subconscious control around your habitual mental attitude, you can’t set off on the

F.M. Alexander Way. Then your F.M. Alexander Technique is no more than a fata morgana.

You are too kind towards yourself; you are too tolerant towards yourself; you are too good to yourself: you feel sorry for yourself without having logical reasons for it. As long as you are not fully aware of it (Conscious Control) and don’t neutralize (inhibit) this mental attitude towards yourself, there is no chance for you to make the necessary break through that will enable you to follow the F.M. Alexander Way.
You are eager to obey authorities and fast to respond to their demands and orders. And if, or when you find yourself in a position of power over other people, almost sure you will exercise the Authoritarian and demand absolute and blind obedience – a blank brain.

I heard a definition of the “Conscious Control”: “Awareness of the body … etc.” Unfortunately this is the prevailing understanding of, and the attitude towards the Conscious Control among the Alexander Technique practitioners. I didn’t manage to find in F.M. Alexander’s writings such a definition. I found only: “This consciousness is really a state of acute awareness which has been developed in him during the process of re-education and co-ordination on a general basis

– on general basis; not concentration on the body; not specific attention to the body as an anatomical-physiological entity. A “contracted” brain can’t produce openness and flow in a contracted body.

All of you speak about MOVEMENT and the AWARENESS of the MOVEMENT and the BODY. All of you deal with MOVEMENTS and how to MOVE right and teach it. Could you, please, define for me what is MOVEMENT and where the VISIBLE MOVEMENTS are originated and stimulated in living organisms?
You said that X has the curious, inquisitive and exploring mind of a child. Did it ever occur to you to wonder why we normally lose these qualities as adults?!
It is amazing, it is unbelievable how firmly we cling to the mental attitude of the obedient servant of the End-gaining.
It is not enough to become aware of the Wrong and be pleased with it. It is necessary to activate the brain in order to produce the neutralizing activity (inhibition), to stop the Wrong, and so to enable the application of the required “means-whereby” the Right will take place. All this should happen simultaneously and continuously.
In order to move freely and naturally in the space around you, you must be spacious within yourself. See to “inhibit”, continuously, contractions and blocks in you – deal with our main enemy: the fears.
You ask me what do I think about this or that concerning the F.M. Alexander Technique. The answer is: You come to me to get some sort of practical experience and to learn to use your own brain – not to hear what I think.
Again and again you should consider that it is wrong to try to do the Right, and that it is right to “inhibit” the Wrong.
Don’t be busy with … be aware of … Don’t concentrate on … absorb the whole.
You can’t realize the Creative Conception in your reactions to the daily life stimuli, unless you give up (neutralize) your reliance on your habitual sensory appreciation.
Concentration – if you insist on it, indeed it can be considered as some kind of awareness – even acute awareness. But this awareness is limited to a confined object or interest, and the Whole – the “all together” is then ignored and neglected. When the Whole – the constant “all together” is missing, the application of the F.M. Alexander Process is impossible.
Don’t “strangle” the stimuli in your brain; don’t “strangle” the initiative to react to these stimuli. This is not the “Inhibition”. Neutralize the habitual state of mind that causes you to react wrong and perverts your sensory appreciation. This is the “Inhibition”.
If you think you can gain perfection, you are perfectly wrong.
“Inhibition” is not the stoppage of the immediate muscular reaction to the stimulus to MOVE, to DO – this is the prevailing unfortunate conception of the F.M. Alexander’s “Inhibition” among the practitioners of the F.M. Alexander Technique. The “Inhibition” of the “End-gaining” approach in life, the understanding of the causes of such approach and application of the Conscious Control for reasoning, the “Inhibition” of fears and of emotional reaction, and “directing” – this will bring about the necessary stoppage of the wrong habitual reactions in the muscles and of the muscles. Then the MOVEMENT will change.
Be aware of the Process in relation to the Timeless and the Endless and the moments within it, and don’t look for the momentary progress.

The senses are outposts of the brain, the “Field Intelligence” of the brain. They may send accurate, precise and right information and intelligence messages to the brain. If the sensory appreciation goes wrong and affects our reactions, it is the responsibility of the brain – the “Headquarters”, and not of the “Field Intelligence”.
You desperately look for friends because you are not ready of being your own friend.
Guilt feelings are by-products of the wrong, and at the same time they are the fuel of the wrong.
Inferiority-complex and Superiority-complex, Success and Failure are descendants of the “End-gaining”.
Anarchy ignores the mutual relationship and balance within the Whole.
It is not easy to undo our personal contractions when we live in a contracted society.
It is so easy to sell illusions to those who are eager to buy illusions. It is so easy to cheat people who accept cheating as a normal standard of our society.

The ground for charlatanism is rich and fertile; the field of the F.M. Alexander Technique is one of the richest in this respect.

You are so scared of being wrong, you so much want not to be wrong, that you can’t be otherwise than wrong – the Right can’t exist in such conditions.
It is wrong to connect the Right with feeling right.
Undo the doing by not doing. Undo the habitual mental attitude, and the habitual reactions to stimuli by neutralizing them.
Don’t tell me you need time in order to change. Accept practically the need to change, and actively consent to the endless process of changing within the TIMELESS and you are in IT.
Always be aware of the Wrong, that waits around the corner to take advantage of your lack of awareness.
Yes, I agree with you that all of us are in the same “boat”, but it depends how we behave in this “boat” and what role we have in it.
Don’t come to me because of ME – because of my personality. I am not a Guru. Come to me only if you see the Way and you are ready to join me on it.
To be free it means to stand alone; it means not to hold; it means to lose the fears we have and not to be enslaved by fears; it means to give up the security of the “cage” mentality; it means to get rid of unnecessary brain activity. Did you ever meet a free human being?
To be free it means not to be burdened and shadowed by our childhood any more. May be this is mental maturity?
Long life is not a prize for us; early death is not punishment. This is clear for us when we understand the Timeless and the Endless.
You are not totally involved in the Process – in the Whole, with the Whole.
You come to me not to learn from me some kind of skilled manipulation to be used on and for people, in order to teach them the right way of body movement. This “art” you can learn in all schools who pretend to teach the F.M. Alexander Technique. To me you come in order to have the practical experience of the Process, in which all F.M. Alexander’s discoveries are involved – within the Timeless and the Endless; to employ and apply the “all together”.
When I tell you to “eaglize”, I don’t expect you to fly, or to try to fly like an eagle. I only wish you to be acquainted with the creative conception of spreading and opening all over and everywhere, endlessly, timelessly.
You suggest me to be considerate and patient with X, because may be he will still make the required steps in order to integrate in the Process. I wish your attitude were right. But my long and vast teaching experience taught me that in certain cases I should consider myself and my energies, and the future of the F.M. Alexander Technique. Such people like X managed to “step” on me and they “step” firmly on the F.M. Alexander Technique.
“Take off” continuously, but keep your feet on the ground – all via the Conscious Control.
You ask me whether you should not DO anything. My answer is: You should do a lot -a lot of NON-DOING of the habitual DOING.
Beware of people who are never confused; beware of people who are always confused.
To the members of all societies of teachers of the F.M. Alexander Technique, and others – all those who pretend they teach the F.M. Alexander Technique I wish to say: Instead of adjusting and integrating your mental attitude to the principles underlying the F.M. Alexander Technique, you adjust and integrate the above principles to your mental attitude and frame.
Be aware of your habitual mental attitude and “inhibit” it. Only then you may have the chance to enter the “garden” of the F.M. Alexander Technique.
When you face a stimulus, you shouldn’t push it aside – this is not the “inhibition” – instead, inhibit your habitual reaction and nourish the Process!
The Primary Control – the relationship between the head and the spine – when I go further and deeper, I see in the Primary Control the relationship and the connection between the brain and the spinal cord, and the effect of the mental attitude on it.
The prevailing approach to the Alexander Technique deals with reactions to stimuli of daily life activities, and leads to the business of visible movements and

how to move right, in space – while the real F.M. Alexander Process deals with the flow of energies and the means whereby we can “inhibit” the blocks we create that block the flow of energies. These blocks are the by-products of our general mental attitude.

We can’t deal properly with the wrong in our body, unless we see to stop the wrong in our brain.
Our relations with Nature are like the relations between us – human beings: We use, we exploit others – we don’t really cooperate. This is our general mental attitude.
We are scared of seeing the Whole, of exposing ourselves to the Whole, of integration and involvement with the Whole; this is the reason why we refuse to deal with IT, as a whole.
We are scared of losing our habitual balance (the psycho-physical one), so that our real natural balance can’t exist.
We are so frightened of war, that our logic and common-sense are paralyzed. Therefore we can’t reason properly and we select the wrong “Means-whereby” for stopping wars. Wars therefore continue non-stop.
The eagle – while flying high in the sky – saw on the ground a prey that attracted his attention. He didn’t concentrate on the prey he saw; he didn’t lose his quality of flying entity bounded to the laws of Nature; he didn’t disobey these laws; he wasn’t in a hurry to gain his end; he didn’t “lose” his head – he was with the Whole.
The emotional balance dictates the muscular balance, and not vice-versa.
When the Conscious Control is properly applied, we see the details within the Whole, and not a detail as the Whole.
That what you see through the microscope is not the whole elephant. So don’t cultivate illusions.
If you expect to see the Whole through the key hole – forget it!
Continued self-criticism, matched by the “Inhibition”, is necessary in order to stop the wrong. Self-criticism should not lead to self-pity, guilt feelings, inferiority complex, excuses, and all the rest.
If you are not totally aware of the “all-together”, the “one after the other” will not serve you right.
The Timeless is full of timing, of synchronization. Don’t interfere with it -let IT flow.
Be the master of your own brain.
I can’t explain you in words what is “all together” – words by their nature are “one after the other”, and not “all together”.
You ask for an example of active creative conception: Beethoven composed music when he was deaf already.
When during the lesson I ask you whether you realize something, it is a matter of information and not of expectation.
Demand the maximum from yourself, but don’t be an End-gainer.
The right is one and indivisible. The wrong is countless and scattered all over.
Susan said: “It is such an effort not to make efforts”. Yes, it is hard to stop making unnecessary and harmful efforts, as long as the mental attitude is not tuned properly.
I would like to teach pupils who, when I show them they are wrong, they accept it in good spirit.
When ever I read what ever is published about the F.M. Alexander Technique; when ever I hear about the F.M. Alexander Technique from people who pretend to know it; when ever I get a practical experience from a qualified teacher of the F.M. Alexander Technique I realize how right was F.M. Alexander in what he said: “They may have an intellectual conception of what they want to bring about, but how are they going to do it? They are not doing THE thing that alters the rest”. And: “The point is that intellectuality as we understand it, means it can only be used when we are wrong within us”.
This opening, this spreading, has nothing to do with the visible form of the body – but it shapes the body.
“End-gaining” is born in the brain; “End-gaining” is active in the mind and shapes the mental attitude; “End-gaining” is transformed into excess tension in the muscles and blocks the natural flow of energies throughout the human entity. As it is so, your mind is tuned to deal with the ends and not with the way. Therefore you deal with the muscles and visible movement only, and not with the cause of the misuse.
Don’t “inhibit” what shouldn’t be inhibited.
Accept being out of your habitual balance (psycho-physical) and you are re-balanced.
All of you look for tricks, rituals and ceremonies – not for the process based on the principles that F.M. Alexander discovered.
Most people wish to have the rights and privileges of the royalty and the responsibility of the slaves.
We have to use our knowledge in the continuous process of learning, but the process of learning is not accumulation of knowledge.
To be indépendant doesn’t mean not to be cooperative.
The qualities needed for flying exist in the eagle even when he is not airborn. In the same way the “Directions” should function in us even if we are still.
Let your hands float from nowhere to nowhere, energized by a spreading back, while the neck is free and the head goes forward and away in relation to the spine.
Your head doesn’t go forward and away in relation to the spine, but your head definitely is “high in the clouds”.
My pupils and students are like a mirror for me: I see in them my own misuse, and it helps me to “inhibit” it – for them as well, while teaching them.
Don’t blame gravity for our misuse of the self. It is the “gravity” in our mind that pulls us down.
You try to reproduce the Directions in yourself through memorizing the sensation you had when I provided the Directions for you through my hands -this is wrong!
Directions – unfortunately you continue to try to FEEL them, instead of “inhibiting” this habitual reaction, and projecting them continuously in the mind – not looking for results.
The Process is a non-stop combined operation, originated, controlled and commanded by the “Headquarter” – the brain.
First of all, take the responsibility to accept the Directions I produce in you for you – through my hands – and absorb them; then take the responsibility to reproduce these Directions in yourself, for yourself, by yourself.
The moment you look for the end – for the right – the Process ceases.
Mistakes we repeat and nourish through the subconscious guidance and control; the Directions we reproduce and nourish through the Conscious Guidance and Control.
When you realize that you have a wall in your mind, and at this moment you have only a small hammer, begin to break the wall with this hammer and don’t wait for the bulldozer to come.
Those who try to show independence are the most dependant.
You can’t let your neck be free unless you free yourself of the mental attitude that causes your neck not to be free.
The body can be the brain’s cage or its villa – depending on the mental attitude of the person.
For those whose brain is occupied by competitions and wins (a form of End-gaining), a quotation from the book “The Way of Chuang Tzu”:

THE NEED TO WIN. When an archer is shooting for nothing, he has all his skill.

If he shoots for a brass buckle, he is already nervous.

If he shoots for a prize of gold, he goes blind , or sees two targets. He is out of his mind! His skill has not changed. But the prize devides him. He cares. He thinks more of winning. Than of shooting – and the need to win, drains him of power.

When F.M.Alexander writes about REASONING, this reasoning is not the INTELLECTUAL or EMOTIONAL reasoning – this reasoning is a result of a different mental attitude than the habitual one.
The “doing” people call BODY BUILDING is really a muscles inflating process based on End-gaining and “one after the other”, ignoring the Whole and the general misuse of the Self.
“Inhibition” , as a factor in the whole combined process which is the F.M. Alexander Technique, is primarily a process of neutralizing the habitual MENTAL ATTITUDE that causes us to be End-gainers. “Inhibition” is NOT stopping within the limits of time; it is NOT a gap of deadness between activities; NOT between the wrong and the right; it is NOT waiting till the wrong vanishes and then activating the right. NON-DOING, WAITING and STOPPING are NOT separated from the flow of energies within the Endless and Timeless.

“Inhibiting” the habitual reactions to stimuli is NOT a direct muscle activity -it is a brain activity that is registered in the muscles, through the nervous system.

So without realizing the CREATIVE CONCEPTION of the “Inhibition” and the ACTIVE CONSENT, our habitual mental attitude is not neutralized. Therefore it is impossible for us to experience the real F.M. Alexander’s “Inhibition” this way. And so what all of you practice is NOT the real F.M. Alexander Technique. The written proof can be found in books and articles about the F.M. Alexander Technique.

Indeed you have some kind of awareness which is based on the habitual faulty sensory appreciation, and thus you are not aware that your sensory appreciation is faulty.
Don’t look for the paradise in the F.M. Alexander Technique.
All of you say that when we die we go either to paradise or hell; but it seems that when we die we leave, as a matter of fact, the hell we created on Earth.
Be spontaneous and conscious at the same time.
People want to feel right and keep the right feelings; but they ignore the fact that their right is a product of a faulty sensory appreciation.
Don’t expect people to be more than they really are. Don’t see in people more than they really are – don’t cultivate illusions.
You try to explain me that it takes time to open – it’s not true: To open it’s a mental attitude that is there or not.

What takes time is the undoing of the contractions, the holdings and the knots in ourselves. Don’t rely on your back to open by itself – apply for it the Conscious Control.

“Inhibit” being your own enemy.
One of my pupils said: “Awareness does not bring happiness”; I added: “But be happy with your awareness (Conscious Control)”
You say you can’t do what you can’t do, and I say you CAN do what you consider you can’t – just: apply the right “Means-whereby”.
Without a mental attitude similar to F.M. Alexander’s, without the inspiration he had, without the creative conception that was developed out of the above conditions, nobody can experience the real Process along the Way.
Children like to play the adults – adults continue to play like children.
Don’t try to be cheerful; don’t play the cheerful – don’t try to ignore reality.
Directions in the F.M. Alexander Technique are an active creative conception, and not done with the muscles – they are registered in the muscles.

You complain that the “dark tunnel” you are in became darker – how can it be otherwise when you closed your eyes?!
It seems that I am not intelligent enough – otherwise I would refuse to come to this world in the form of a human being.
The “Directions” are not directly related to the visible movements.
The eagle – not like the cock – doesn’t have to announce himself.
You complain about politics and politicians – You are the ground on which they grow.
We learn history but not from history – so we repeat the same mistakes instead of “inhibiting” them.
If you hold the old, you are not capable to accept the new.
When you want to express yourself see not to contract.
The unknown is fathomless; the known is as shallow as a morass. As much as

we wish to face the unknown – the Fathomless, the Timeless, the Endless – our subconscious guidance and control inhibits the realization of the above wish. We stay in the shallow morass.

When you tell me something about your behaviour or reaction to a certain stimulus – as a fact – it is o.k; but if you try to excuse yourself it is wrong.
You claim that the civilized society is free of slavery. In reality we barely have the freedom and chance of choosing the sort of slavery to take for” ourselves.
Mental tensions (over-tone, strain, stress) cause contractions in the muscles. Increased tensions increase contractions – they are unseparable.
Don’t throw the responsibility for your own failures on others.
What ever happens – eaglize.
A teacher who can’t accept criticism, who can’t accept being wrong, and who knows always is not a real teacher.
All of you are convinced that the Conscious Control you apply is a product of the inhibitory process which neutralizes the habitual subconscious control.

My experience with all of you convinced me that you are wrong – your, so called, Conscious Control became even more intellectualized subconscious control.

What you consider as freedom of the self is really anarchy and chaos which dominate your mind; and when you say that you are a “wild animal”, it means that your brain lacks inner discipline, sticks to your faulty sensory appreciation, and rejects the Conscious Control.
It is useless to try to run away from your own shadow; it is useless to try to hide in your own shadow.
When a person has high human qualities, his weaknesses and shortcomings are magnified in contrast.
While flying don’t look around for other eagles – you will be disappointed -continue to fly and then you may meet one.
Two wholes can go together; two halves can never become one.
Modesty is never harmful.
“Inhibit” illusions – but don’t give up hopes.
Remember the past, think of the future, but live in the present.
The little man/woman in us does not let us eaglize – so we are chained to the cage which is planted in our mind. In order to eaglize it is not enough to lengthen the chain – it must be cut totally.
Grow grow grow even if you don’t know why.
Unless you actively consent to dissolve your mental armour you don’t have a chance to dissolve your body armour.
Indeed you have some kind of awareness which is based on your faulty sensory appreciation; thus you are not aware that your sensory appreciation is faulty.
When I train people to be teachers of the F.M. Alexander Technique, I wish they are eagles who can fly alone, and not hermits.
The more you try to be “somebody” the less you will be somebody.
I have the impression that when I talk to you, you hear me through a glass -even not a transparent one. This is our habitual way of dealing with things; this is, what I call, the filter of the intellect.
We are terrified when it comes to expose ourselves in front of our inner mirror.
It seems that I am not aware enough of my own stupidity, but I see stupidity all around me.
It is better to be a lonely eagle than the head of a flock of chickens.
Success without modesty is sheer End-gaining.
When the moment comes and you realize that the door of your cage was opened for you fly away – don’t close it back while you are still inside.
We are eagerly ready to waste a tremendous amount of energy and time on trying to do things right by the wrong means; We are not ready to stop and consider and reason whether the means are not right and the way is wrong.
Don’t expect me to play the game YOU want me to play; don’t expect me to guide you along a way that appeals to you, except if this way is the way I follow.
The eagle, when in danger hastily takes off and disappears in the high skies. The chickens, when in danger run around in a panic, and then gather all of them in a “safe” corner, they so become an easy pray for the hunter.
Dedicated to Martinella – A blind eagle is still an eagle, in spite of not being able to find his way in the skies – qualities of an eagle are still with him. The blindness does not make him a chicken, though he is grounded.
A sonata for two instruments should be played by two instruments and not by three. In nature there are forms, there is order, there is balance. Don’t you realize that we shouldn’t interfere with it?!
It is very painful to wake up from sweet day-dreaming and realize that daydreaming and real life is not one. You – teachers of the so called

F.M. Alexander Technique – add sleeping pills to your day-dreaming.

You already heard about it; you already read about it; but it should be repeated endlessly:

OPEN, SPREAD, GROW, DON’T HOLD – it can happen only when your mind is in a certain state and attitude, in which the habitual DOING with the muscles and the reliance on the faulty sensory appreciation are inhibited.

Chickens are all around; eagles are few and remote.
When the eagle flies high in the skies he is far away from his vague shadow which follows him somewhere on the ground – unnoticed. When we eaglize, the same will happen to the shadow of our childhood.
Most of people are like a plant which grows in a pot – unable to grow and spread to the extent of plants which grow in the vast ground. But these people, when given the chance to be transferred to the vast ground, are too scared

to take it.

Stop concentrating on a drop of water and begin to see the whole ocean and to deal with the Whole.
Don’t replace the old habitual taboos by new ones. Remember – don’t replace the ingrained habitual Wrong by another version of wrong.
When I ask you not to resist my hands, don’t collapse into my hands – open, spread, grow instead.
F.M. Alexander Technique’s “Directions” can’t be produced by manipulation –

the “Directions” can be conveyed through the hands from the teacher to the pupil. Words can’t convey those “Directions”, and the necessary practical experience.

Even the eagle who flies high in the skies needs a piece of ground, to land on it for a rest and for the nest.
You came to me and asked me to teach you, and I agreed to teach you and I give the best I can give from me to you. But if you think that I use my authority as a teacher for my own benefit – don’t stay with me.
The moment you are indulged in illusions, you can’t be honest with yourself, and so you can’t be honest with others.
The past should be a mirror for us, and not a life-belt.
Our consent to allow IT to happen should be lively and active.
The past should be used for us as a mirror in which our habitual misuse of the self is reflected. This misuse is the product of our subconscious guidance and control of the self, which is rooted in our past. When v/e manage to realize this fact, we can inhibit (neutralize; give up) the habitual misuse and the lasting effect of the past, and so clear the way to new means-whereby an improved use of the self can be established and be produced as a continuous-endless process. We shouldn’t fix ourselves on the above mirror – the distance to this mirror should grow when we apply the Conscious Control.
Creative Conception and Active Consent are out of our faulty sensory appreciation; our emotional reactions are well within this range.
The best way to defend ourselves is to apply the Conscious Control in daily life.
Lose the power (the habitual doing) – don’t use the power (of the above doing)
All of you spend a lot of energy being busy in analyzing, excusing or covering the wrong in you, instead of giving it up.
In the process of experiencing the Alexander Technique and it’s practical application in daily life there are no teachers, nor pupils, neither students -there are only partners, who GO TOGETHER along the same way, while the most experienced one is the giver and the guide of the others.
We tend to “fall” into the tissues of the body, instead of spreading away from them. It happens because we “fall” into our thoughts and lack the awareness

of the Whole.

In life we look normally for frames – the frames become the most important and not the content – and we don’t realize that the content forms the real frame.
One day the chickens raised their eyes and saw the eagle flying high in the skies. They envied him and crowed: “Eagle, eagle we want to be like you”. “Fine” answered the eagle, “take off and join me”. “No – no” crowed the chickens “come down to us, live among us and so we will become eagles as well”.
On the wrong basis you can’t build the right.
It is better to crawl on the right way than to run fast on wrong ways.
In order to be able to explore and discover what IT is, the brain must be empty -not burdened, not full with obstacles and blocks – the by-products of our illusive reality.

The Conscious Control can function in us only when we actively accept to be IN and OUT at THE SAME TIME. It means – to allow ourselves to experience the Timeless-Endless and the moments within it.
Illusions are a product of the human brain only. Other creatures don’t have the mental need for illusions.
You tell me you HAVE to be clear about this or that matter. How can you be clear if you lack the “Means-whereby” to experience clarity of the mind?

You don’t really know what is right (if you don’t know what is wrong and “inhibit” it); you don’t really know what is good (unless you are aware of what is bad and give it up); you don’t really know HOW to do IT – so, first of all don’t Do it.
Control by spreading, by opening, by eaglizing, by letting it go – happen -not by contractions.
Feeling sorry for yourself does not “inhibit” the actual fact that caused you to feel sorry for yourself; excusing yourself does not “inhibit” the actual fact that caused you to excuse yourself.
What is WRONG ? Well – whatever interferes with the natural flow of energies.
To deal with details we should always through the Whole and in relation to the Whole.
Most of us – human beings – are ready, and even eager, to spend a fortune on illusions, but when facing the REAL they hastily run away to their mental “holes”. You – so called and considered – teachers of the F.M. Alexander Technique are not excluded.
It is not what you feel – it is what your brain does that counts.
If an eagle insists to be a chicken, his wings will not carry him to the high skies against his will.
When you tell me you wish to spread your wings and be free to fly, may be you first check if you have wings altogether?!
Don’t use your hands as a corset for your pupil; don’t use your hands as a corkscrew to screw out of the neck the head of your pupil, or as a noose to hang your pupil; don’t mould your pupil with your hands; don’t massage your pupil. Through your hands the “Directions” are transmitted – it is the activity of

your own Primary Control, as it is expressed through your hands and dictated by your brain activity.

The real religious person does not need, and therefore does not belong to, any organized religion.
When you are in a “dark tunnel”, don’t look for the light in it – look for the way out of it.
When you make a mistake and ignore it, you cheat yourself, first of all.
You can cover a chicken with eagle’s feathers, and use the best glue that exists – still the chicken will remain a chicken; you can qualify a person as a teacher of the F.M. Alexander Technique and provide him with the most impressive certificate that exists – still it does not make this person a real teacher of the F.M. Alexander Technique, because YOU are NOT teaching the real F.M. Alexander Technique.
It is a basic error to consider that you can’t be wrong.
The mental attitude which causes the neck to stiffen and the spine to contract should be substituted by an open, spreading, flowing mental attitude, which will induce the same above qualities in the body.

If the opposite of wrong would be right, life would be easy. But as the opposite of wrong is wrong, and because of our habitual mental attitude we don’t grasp this fact, and therefore don’t reason and consider that what is needed are new “means-whereby” – other than the prevailing ones – life is non-stop chaos.
When I tell you that you are wrong, I don’t intend to blame you for it; I don’t accuse you for it, nor humiliate you – I just have to draw your awareness

to this actual fact that something is wrong with you and what it is, in order to encourage you to take the responsibility for the “inhibition” of the wrong in you.

Abandon the wrong and you are right.
When you have questions don’t look for hasty answers – the answers are along the Way.
Why, the hell, you – mainly the “descendants” of W.H.M. Carrington – blame Gravity for the misuse of yourselves ?!?
What you apply is not really the Conscious Control – it is no more and no less than your habitual concentration combined with wandering mind, nourished by your fears, controlled by subconscious guidance and control, producing end-gaining, and all the rest …
When the brain is clear there is no trying to be right or to do the right -“End-gaining” then ceases; when the brain is clear there is a total awareness of the wrong, and readiness to give up the wrong – this is the “Inhibition”; when the brain is clear it produces the Creative Conception and the Active Consent – it is ready to face the future, the Unknown, without the blocks of the past. This is the ground for active Conscious Control.
In our civilization mostly those who are mentally impotent gain power and manage to do things. But the hell – what kind of things do they do ?!!!

You – the community of, so called, teachers of the F.M. Alexander Technique -are not excluded!

Whatever was written about the F.M. Alexander Technique, with the best of intentions to try to clarify this issue in people’s brain – through the agency of the intellect (words), indeed – clarifies only one aspect: The total and complete misunderstanding, and miss-application in practice of the whole issue. Besides that it clarifies the fact that those who write about this issue have the intention (may be a subconscious one) to become “somebody”, to become important and famous “riding” on the “back” of the F.M, Alexander Technique. They don’t see the Way – they concentrate in themselves.
If you look for logic, if you hope to find common sense, keep away from human beings.
You are so occupied with being right that you can’t be aware how much wrong you are.
Remember – the Conscious Control is NOT the intellect’s control.
After reading the “Code of Professional Conduct” of the “Society of Teachers of the F.M. Alexander Technique” one can’t escape the conclusion that those who conceive and accept it don’t understand and therefore are not capable of applying The F.M. Alexander Technique – not to speak to teach it.
You look for logic? You want to find common-sense? You won’t find it among human-beings. Those who consider themselves teachers of the F.M. Alexander Technique are not excluded.
The body serves the brain and not vice versa. Nevertheless they are one and a whole inseparable unit of living organism. The misuse present in the body projects the misuse of the brain.

It is not the gravity of Earth that pulls us down and causes us to misuse ourselves. It is the accumulating burden of misuse of the faculties of the human brain during hundreds of generations. Our, so called, civilized society is a clear proof of that.
On the way to perfection mistakes are unavoidable.
You really want to see your worst enemy? O.K. place yourself in front of a mirror.

It is not the right way to look for the “dark tunnel” in life; but on the right way there are plenty of “dark tunnels”.
When you understand IT words are not needed, when you are in IT you don’t have the need to speak about IT; when IT is in you, you don’t look for it.
Don’t think about what I told you – practice it.
Don’t be disappointed when you face a disappointment.
The something and the nothing are one; plus and minus are the same. IT is no more and no less than a flow of energy. All is one.
The Whole you can grasp depends on the degree of application of the Conscious Control you are ready to experience.
You think you are alive I? Oh no – mentally you are no more than dead.
It is not the right way to be busy looking for the “dark tunnels” in life, or to create them. But it is wrong as well to try to ignore the existence of such “dark tunnels” by all kinds of “Positive-thinking”, ignoring the actual facts, and not clearing the Way by passing through these “tunnels”.
When on the Way you arrive to a “dark tunnel”, don’t wait till this “dark tunnel” will move away and clear the Way for you – it will never happen; nor try to find a by-pass – such thing does not exist. The Conscious Control is the guide to be chosen for the Way, including passes through “dark tunnels”.
Somebody said to nobody (or may be nobody said to somebody): “Life is not easy even if you are dead”.
Don’t use your hands in teaching like a stethoscope of a doctor checking his patient.
For many of us pain and pleasure go together. Alas, what a faulty sensory appreciation!
Looking-flowing ahead brings us always to a point of a beginning.
Once it happened that Ego and Self met to discuss the burning problems

of humanity. Said Ego: “Let us concentrate on how to change the rest of the world; it is too much of a bother to change ourselves”.

When rarely I tell you “That’s good”, or “That’s it”, it doesn’t mean that you DID IT right, but that you DIDN’T DO IT wrong.
Even the best of scientist doesn’t know about life as a whole more than a newly born baby.
Freedom obeys the laws of Nature; anarchy ignores or antagonizes these laws. So to which category one can relate the, so called, civilized human society in all her forms?!
The muscles are agents of and channels for energies which flow through them and are not stores for accumulated and blocked and inhibited energies.

You tell me that first you have to solve your problems and then you will be free for the F.M. Alexander Technique. I tell you that first you should accept the F.M. Alexander Way, have a creative conception of it, and actively consent to apply it for the rest of your life. This will be the ground for dealing with your problems.
The growing number of writings and research works about the F.M. Alexander Technique are additional stones on the grave of the already dead

F.M. Alexander Technique.

When we come to use a mirror (many times it is an “inner mirror”) we are ready to see only the “right” (what we consider as right via our subconscious control and guidance and our faulty sensory appreciation), and ignore what is really wrong. We therefore use the mirror just in order to cover the wrong with the “right” make-up.
When the Creative Conception becomes practically active along the Way your DOING won’t be wrong.
IT will happen if you won’t DO it.
The Conscious Control develops, grows, spreads, “eaglizes” within the active Process, along the Way and it’s range spreads accordingly.
I don’t know – I can learn; I know – I can’t learn.
To “eaglize” is a state of mind – a mental attitude – that produces in us certain conditions – certain “Means-whereby” – which obtain openness, growth and spreading within the Whole. To “eaglize” is not to try to imitate the flight of the eagle by spreading and waving the arms.
We shall never be able to fly like eagles, but we are able to “eaglize” within ourselves. It is a matter of the Conscious Control.
Always begin from nothing – but begin!
Your consciousness grows on the fertile ground of subconsciousness and is deeply rooted in it. Illogical fears and emotional reactions are some of the “fruits” of such consciousness, plus well established “filter” of the Intellect. In these conditions the Conscious Control, as F.M. Alexander described it, can’t exist. Therefore your F.M. Alexander Technique is a dummy one.
You are one of those who fight themselves instead of fighting for themselves.
Your relations with yourself are rotten; your relations with others can’t be otherwise.
What you do is trying to sing right, as you were taught by your teacher – it is wrong.
When you relate to a moment within the Timeless as if it were eternal -as if it were the Timeless-Endless – you don’t really understand the Timeless through your own practical experience. Your illusive reality} is in command of your life.
The “dark tunnels” in our life we create in our brain; they are not imposed on us by Nature. Still we have to go through them. In order not to have such “dark tunnels” we have to realize on which ground they develop and exist and to “inhibit” it by reasoning the “means-whereby” such “dark tunnels” will cease to exist. For this the use of the Conscious Control is essential.
When you feel you “can’t any more”, make another step along the Way.
As we act in life like in a theatre, which is based on our faulty sensory appreciation, I don’t know what real life is.
The eagle doesn’t need the Conscious Control in order to eaglize; we do need it.
If you wish to experience the rain forest look for it where it grows and not on the north- or south pole. If you still find it on the poles, you can be sure it is merely a decoration made, may be, of plywood. The same applies to the F.M. Alexander Technique.
You can’t experience opening if your mental attitude causes you to keep closed.
Speaking of FREE WILL – free will can exist only when fears and subconscious control cease. Can it be otherwise?!
A good hunter should have a lot of patience, awareness and stillness; but he should react and act like a lightning in the ripe moment.
Keep still, but not “dead”.
Don’t try to BE right – let IT be right. The process in which you are involved should be the right one and not YOU.
No use to demand from the pupil what you can’t produce in yourself.
It is not enough to WANT to change, it is necessary to accept the changes practically – to welcome the unknown without fear.
Teachers of the F.M. Alexander Technique who tell you they still learn try, as a matter of fact, to improve their DOING, to DO it more RIGHT -instead of becoming more aware of deeper layers of the WRONG and “inhibit” it.
Separation between the “inhibition” of DOING and the application of NON-DOING is wrong.
Those whose ego is their dominant guide in life, are not ready to face their own mistakes, weaknesses and shortcomings.
Not to hold doesn’t mean to fall nor to drop, neither to collapse.
We are never really open – therefore we always have to be involved in the constant process of opening.
The “means-whereby” are for whatever happens in general, and not for any specific end.
We can’t eaglize unless we give up the need for the security of an armour within us.
We can’t eaglize with a floppy brain (mind).
Patience is not a matter of time – it is a state of mind.
Life is full of questions, which the answers for them are out of the range of human’s brain.
Your hands convey your fears in the form of “end-gaining”; your hands don’t convey the F.M. Alexander’s “directions”.
We can’t eaglize unless our “inner armour” is “melted” (dissolved); The “inner armour” will “melt” only when we understand End-gaining and manage to inhibit it.
Conscious Control is not static awareness – it grows in dimensions, and span, and range within the Process, along the Way.
It is of no use to run in circles after your own tail and pretend you move along a straight line. This is not the WAY.
Remember – getting the message of the F.M. Alexander Technique is not a matter of time – it is a matter of mental attitude.
You ask me how one can “reach the brain”. So, if you manage to become aware of the obstacles that block the natural flow of energies in you (the Wrong), if you manage to clear away the “filter of the intellect” from your brain activities, there is a good chance that you “reached your brain”.
Inhibit the intention before its realization through the habitual DOING.
Chickens always look for other chickens, though not necessarily because they like each other. Togetherness gives them a sense of security (an example of faulty sensory appreciation). In order to feel even more secured and safe, they found societies, framed and caged by constitutions, regulations, rules, etc. Chickens are scared to stay alone.
You ask me about meditation. My answer is: for meditation equals masturbation.
You keep yourself secured in the prison of the known.
F.M. Alexander said: “Be careful of the printed matter: you may not read it as it is written down” (depends on and according to the mental attitude of the reader – N.R.)

The same applies to the “spoken matter”: it is filtered through the mental attitude and state of the listener. Therefore unless the Creative Conscious PRACTICAL Conception of the Way, the process, is constantly applied in all daily activities of life, words – written or spoken – as well as “putting hands” are futile and in vain.

When you come to me for lessons and I tell you to begin with, that something is wrong with the way you use yourself and you can’t accept it – we can’t cooperate in the process of learning. You take my professional diagnosis

as a personal offence. Your ego is hurt and humiliated; you register it as an attack on your mental armour. But if you refuse to realize that it is necessary for you to give up (inhibit, in Alexander’s terms) this habitual mental attitude (that is the ground of the wrong use) – there is no chance for me to teach you and for you to learn. In this connection Old Alexander said: “Don’t come to me unless, when I tell you, you are wrong, you make up your mind to smile and be pleased”, and: “I can do the best I can for you, and if you don’t know it and don’t understand it, you will react to me as if I were your enemy”.

All of you consider widening the back an activity in the region of the shoulders. My practical experience shows, this conception to be wrong. The back should spread all over and ail of you tend to neglect the back in the region of the hip joints. As a matter of fact, if you activate the spreading of the back in the region of the hip joints, it will activate the opening and widening of the upper back, but not vice-versa.
Remember – the head should go forward and away in relation to the spine but the spine should not remain static – it follows the head that always goes ahead of it.
All of you, who call and consider yourselves teachers of the F.M. Alexander Technique pretend to be “sailing on an endless-timeless- measureless ever expanding ocean” of the above Technique, while in reality you are no more than submerged in a narrow bath tub.
You don’t really direct – you concentrate and try to be right, to do IT right. As a matter of fact you don’t “inhibit” your habitual reaction to stimuli. If you concentrate you can’t be with the Whole, you are not with the Whole you can’t direct “all together”, and while “all together” is active to deal with “one after the other”. And be clear: To direct is a brain activity without words, it doesn’t depend on words. It is within the Timeless-Endless flow of the IS.
The F.M. Alexander Technique can be considered as a way-process which, when properly applied, brings about the cracking of the armour of the ego – the known-habitual “I” – and allows the self – the yet unknown that is covered by the ego – to emerge and blossom.
Just a reminder: You can cover a chicken with eagle’s feathers, it will still be a chicken. Or: A creature, who has physical qualities of an eagle and the mentality of a chicken, is considered a chicken.
The eagles don’t have a king – each one of them is his own king. Chickens always look for a king.
There are many tall persons whose mental attitude is dwarfy.
Simplicity is not an appreciated quality in human society; therefore there is no demand for it in the market of qualities.
You can place the chickens in the eagle’s nest, in the high mountains, up on a cliff and teach them to crow from sunrise till sunset: “We are eagles! We are eagles! „(or: Neck free head forward and up back lengthen and widen, etc.) – they will not be transformed – they remain chickens.

As a matter of fact, in the eagle’s nest they miss their natural-habitual ground (the known) where they can run in search for food and shelter, and they can’t acquire the eagle’s “means-whereby” he can fly and dwell up on the cliff (the unknown for them). They continue to chickenize.

Chickens flap their wings and make a lot of noise, but they can’t fly properly. I find tremendous similarity between chickens and those who consider themselves teachers of the F.M. Alexander Technique, and find shelter within the frame of Societies. It is well known that Old F.M. was against such establishments, and he had good reasons for it.
When you feel, or think you don’t use power, use even less of it – but eaglize.
Concentration – as it is practiced and experienced among civilized human beings (according to the prevailing habitual mental attitude), is an anti-eaglizing activity.
In the application of the F.M. Alexander Technique in teaching I “speak” mainly through my hands and instruct as much as needed at the moment through my vocal cords.
All of you want to learn the right way HOW to teach the F.M. Alexander Technique (how to put hands, how to sit down and get up properly, the right movements “according to Alexander”, ect.), but all of you refuse to consider and to deal with WHY we went wrong and WHAT is wrong with the Self as a whole that causes the misuse of our “machine”. Therefore all of you became mechanical technicians who deal with THE USE OF THE BODY (what does it really mean?!) and don’t deal with the SELF as a whole entity. That what you practice is not the real Way of the “Old Man” – it is merely some kind of gymnastics or physiotherapy.
When I observe the world’s economy I see an inflating elephant on deflating flamingo’s legs; the same applies to the practical prevailing Alexander Technique nowadays: What will happen, what the future prepares for us, I leave for your own reasoning and imagination…
The easy way is not the Way; the hard way is not the Way; the Way is neither easy nor hard. How we see it, approach it and experience it depends on our mental attitude.
It is beyond the capacity of my brain to grasp why “Old” F.M. didn’t kick away from the range of his work people like W.H.M. Carrington and company. No wonder why Alexander Technique is practically dead!
“Inhibition” is: Consciously giving up, neutralizing, whatever we reason and consider – via Conscious Control – as wrong with and for the use of ourselves (and not the use of our body).
A mental attitude which allows to activate (Active Consent) the constant process in our brain – which F.M. Alexander named Constructive Conscious Guidance and Control (and what J. Krishnamurti called “choiceless awareness”) ^_ is THE corner stone, the core of the real F.M. Alexander Technique. All the components which in combination form the F.M. Alexander Technique are triggered by it.
It is possible to improve the state of being of the human being by the improvement of the functioning of the Primary Control (the natural functioning is: Neck free, head forward and away in relation to the spine, back spreads), when and if the mental attitude of the human being concerned accepts actively the guidance of the Conscious Control and is ready to be tuned to it.
When you want to cool a drink you blow cool air through your mouth; when you want to warm your hands you blow warm air through your mouth. The change is initiated in the brain according to the need of the moment. The brain DIRECTS these reactions.

Directing is a brain (mental) activity, that effects and dominates the flow of the energies in ourselves. In order that the directing process will produce right reactions to stimuli, the application of the Conscious Control is necessary.

Our mental attitude is directed and dominated by our fears – mainly by deeply rooted subconscious fears. Our emotions are perverted and twisted by these fears. Therefore our reactions to the stimuli of daily life activities are on the same level. The chance to change it is laid in the application of the Conscious Control.
Don’t drag your brain behind your muscles; don’t drag your muscles behind your brain – let them work in harmony.
You have the same chance to learn shoe making from a tailor, as to learn the application of the F.M. Alexander Technique from those who pretend to teach it. See in “The Book of Values”, the value: S.T.A.T. and its satellites.
It is not hard to accept the right (theoretically, intellectually); it is hard to accept that the wrong dwells in us habitually, and to “inhibit” it in practice.
When I direct you, don’t lean your head or back on my hands; don’t press against my hands; don’t resist my hands – allow my directions to flow through my hands from my Primary Control to yours.
We don’t have the “means-whereby” to measure the Whole, to evaluate the Whole, to frame the Whole; but we can be aware of it.
The F.M. Alexander Way does not tolerate ceremonial behaviour, does not accept rituals – the Way is simple.
There are some kinds of chickens who have very colourful feathers. By this they catch the eyes and attract attention. They are impressive in a way – but under the beautiful colourful feathers they are still chickens … In connection with it see in “The Book of Values”, the value: The Average Teacher of the F.M. Alexander Technique.
While reading The Alexander Journal Nto.11 (Spring 91), and the S.T.A.T. News (May 91) an idea was born in my brain: Before being qualified and getting the desired certificate, every student of every Alexander Teachers School, must know by heart and be able to recite Hans Christian Andersen’s “The King’s New Clothes”. This because the story of the practical ( as well as theoretical) F.M. Alexander Technique in reality nowadays is the identical twin of H.C. Andersen’s fable.
Concentration – as it is practiced and experienced among civilized human beings, according to the prevailing mental attitude among them, is an anti-eaglizing activity.
In the application of the F.M. Alexander Technique while teaching it, I “speak” mainly through my hands, not through my vocal cords.
We don’t really have relations with other human beings – we have relations with images and conceptions of other human beings, as born in our brain, rooted in our mental attitude.
In order to spread his wings, the eagle’s back has to spread.
If words could convey reality as it is, very few words would be needed.
Unfortunately we are ready to spend a fortune on illusive reality, but not on realizing reality as it is. You want to have an example? – The schools for training teachers of, so called, the F.M. Alexander Technique are full up.
Don’t expect the pupil to react to a stimulus you don’t really give him. Probably you don’t produce it in yourself.
Can friendship exist in combination with fears? I doubt it!
To direct it means to eaglize to eaglize to eaglize to eaglize eaglize eaglize eaglize
Whatever you know, as much as you know – it is limited; that what you don’t know – is unlimited.
Oh yes, you were told already that your habitual way of looking at the Whole is through the key hole; but nowadays there is another way to do it – more sophisticated, cleverer – through many key holes. See in “The Book of Values” about: Workshops, Courses, Master Classes, mainly in relation to the F.M.A.T. and other disciplines.
The creative Conception should be right, not you.
Your hands tell me that you fix your hips, therefore you hold me up and don’t direct me to grow-open-spread-eaglize.
You say you would like to share your responsibilities. It is impossible. Always you will have your share of responsibility. What you really wish is to throw away responsibility altogether.
Our civilization, as it is, provokes and encourages the constant repetition of the wrong reactions to stimuli.
Our culture grows on a culture of fears.
Don’t look for the movements; eaglize instead – the movement is in it.
Don’t be and don’t try to be the “good child” for the authorities; but at the same time be aware that the opposite of wrong is wrong.
The more we become acquainted with the Endless-Timeless-Measureless, the better we can deal with time, measures and ends.
The opposite of wrong is wrong. To follow the way which avoids the wrong, we have to apply the Conscious Control. This is the right way.
Conscious Control is uncontrolled, unconditioned, untamed and unlimited awareness.
“Inhibit” the urge to control and IT will be controlled. For this the application of the Conscious Control is needed.
You can’t give from yourself what you don’t have in yourself; you can’t “direct” others if you don’t apply the “Directions” in yourself, for yourself, in your daily life activities – for your reactions to all stimuli.
Human beings who have a mental attitude of chickens can’t eaglize.
For the accumulation of knowledge, for the taming of the mind, the intellect is enough; for learning life in general, for being in touch with the Whole, the Conscious Control is needed, as well as common sense.
When we are not in good terms with the natural reality, when we are not in harmony with the natural reality, we create the illusive reality. This illusive reality is the core of our civilization and culture.
The conflicts within the individual human beings are the source and cause of conflicts between societies-nations.
If you don’t eaglize you can’t realize who is a “chicken” and who is an “eagle” among human beings.
If you don’t follow the constant active process of self understanding – via the Conscious Control – you don’t have any chance to understand others, as they really are.
Don’t look for the opening-growing-spreading-eaglizing by your habitual “Means-Whereby”; it won’t work; inhibit it Don’t try to perform IT right; it won’t work; inhibit it. Don’t look for the doubtful help of the kinesthetic sense; it is nonsense; remember that normally our sensory appreciation is unreliable. And when via the Conscious Control one manages to reason the right “Means-Whereby” for reacting to the stimuli of life activities the kinesthetic “business” is forgotten.
Those who are empty inwardly turn outwardly. They miss the “inner mirror”; they miss the means of creative criticism.
Don’t try to be content; don’t be content when there is no reason to be content; and when there is a reason to be content, it is not a reason to stop to direct. What ever happens – direct, eaglize!
End-gaining and concentration go together.
F.M. Alexander called it “Position of mechanical advantage”; the students in his first teachers training course called it “Monkey Position”.

The word “Position” normally and habitually mirrors a fixation, and indeed that is what happens to those who use it for mechanical advantage in their daily activities. While if the constant process of:” Neck free, head forward and away, back spreads”, is active, the knees will bend whenever it is required for the functioning; no need to bend them by doing, to control them or to use the weight of the body for the bending.

The “Directions” should constantly flow, whether there is or there is not an “end” in mind; and remember not to ignore the guidance of the Conscious Control; as the flow of “Directions” – energies can be increased when necessary, according to the need of the moment, and for this the application of the Conscious Control

is required.

Oh yes, generally speaking you are less contracted and not more – as you feel; but as you become more aware of your contractions they are felt more.
If human beings wouldn’t have the fear of Death (the eternal Unknown) most of people would prefer to be dead rather than to drag for years alone the unpaved path of life.
Just to remind those who tend to ignore facts: You can never know the F.M. Alexander Technique – you have to learn it for ever.
If while teaching you don’t learn, your teaching is not real teaching.
Humanity reminds me of a dog, holding his tail with his teeth and turning in a circle. But there is an essential difference between the two: The dog plays and stops after a while – he is not an end-gainer. Humanity takes it seriously and continues this activity for many many generations – around and downward – and at the same time pretends to move straight and forward, toward better future.
In the sixth chapter, second part, of his book “Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual” F.M.Alexander deals with: Unduly Excited Fear Reflexes, Uncontrolled Emotions and Fixed Prejudices. This is a subject I never found, yet, in writings of others about F.M.A.T.

The natural fears are necessary for our survival, for the preservation of life, as means of defence – to attack or to run away. When the sensory appreciation is reliable, the reaction to a stimulus caused by danger will be according to the need of the moment, and when the danger is over the fear is over. Natural fear is an awareness of natural danger or a dangerous situation, and the reflex connected with the fear is excited accordingly, and the proper reaction follows. Panic and hysteria are unduly excited fear reflexes. They may occur among animals when they meet situations out of their habitual routine of life. But we, civilized human creatures, developed unreliable sensory appreciation and impossible life conditions – impossible in relation with Nature; we developed the illusive reality, which became very real; we developed fears and needs which lead us toward a total destruction – sometime within the Timeless. The course can be changed, if we – as individuals – will realize it, recruit the Conscious Control as means of reasoning the means-whereby the essential necessary change can take place, and first of all – inhibit the wrong. Do you know anyone who is considered as a teacher of the F.M. Alexander Technique who is seriously aware of the effect of fear on the functioning of the body and deals with it?

The chickens can try as hard as they can to spit on the eagle – they will never manage to reach him.
To inhibit, to really inhibit, is to inhibit the cause of the existing wrong, to get rid of the roots of the wrong. If we apply such inhibition, our inappropriate reactions to stimuli will be neutralized, and therefore will be ceased.
The real natural thinking activity is as fast as lightning – if not faster. This thinking is without words, beyond words, and within the Timeless. The intellectual thinking is slowed down by words, needs time and is nourished by illogical unnecessary fears; it is part and parcel of our illusive reality.
An immediate result indeed may well indicate that we are following the right way; but we should always be aware of the fact that results are no more than mile stones along the Way, and that the Timeless is full of moments. Therefore don’t

be fascinated by, so called, good results, and: What ever happens – go on!

Once I used – like all the rest of them – to train people to be teachers of the F.M. Alexander Technique. Then I realized the “smell” of “End-Gaining” in it, the “smell” of the Wrong. Therefore I deserted this approach. My students now, learn with me to follow the natural-endless-timeless-measureless Way, which F.M, Alexander happened to explore and discover by practical means, guided by the Conscious Control, common-sense and logic beyond the intellectual thinking. May be one day they will be skilled enough to convey the Way to others by the practical means-whereby developed by F.M. Alexander. Then they may be considered teachers of his work.
One day the chickens saw a vulture, resting on the ground. They were immensely impressed and utterly fascinated by the royal appearance of the vulture.

So they decided to become vultures as well. From then on they certified

themselves as vultures and tried to convince the rest of the world that they

are vultures. But as a matter of fact nothing changed – chickens remain chickens…

The descendants of a jellyfish can’t be whales; the same law of Nature applies to the descendants of W.H.M. Carrington. F.M. Alexander himself was a “whale”; but somewhere something went wrong and most (if not all of them) of his “descendants” were and are no more than “jellyfish, or a combination between jellyfish and eel. No “whales” around.
Let the hips follow the head, by following the spine that follows the head.
Dare to act while being aware of the Whole. It can be realized when the Conscious Control is active.
I wouldn’t bother about the rest of the world if I wouldn’t be part of it. I wouldn’t bother about humanity if I wouldn’t be part of it.
Your hands are very light, but – very dead ….
All of us are infected by stupidity, but not all of us are stupid.
As long as our sensory appreciation is unreliable, when we feel good it doesn’t mean we are well, and when we feel bad it doesn’t mean we are not well.
Belief, in general, is connected with a state of mind which is nourished by unduly excited fear reflexes.
When you wake up in the morning and realize that you are still alive – this is discovery as well.
If you want to learn, consciously and honestly, from the eagle, don’t look for him among the chickens.
Don’t try to spread your wings, while you are still in the egg.
For those who intend to become surgeons it is essential to learn anatomy; but for those who study the F.M.Alexander Technique, to learn anatomy is a distraction from the Way, and diversion from the Process.
When you are busy excusing yourself, it means that you are not ready to look further, to see further, to go further.
We should inhibit what ever is wrong, including the inhibition of the Eaglizing, Spreading, Opening, Growing.
When the mouth should be opened in speech, or in singing, let the sound open the mouth – don’t open the mouth for the sound.
We use words in our thinking process – not using them only for communication with others. So was born the “Filter” of the intellect, the separation from the Whole.
When you say: “I know”, what do you mean by saying so? What does it mean

“to know”? What is “knowing”? Is accumulation of knowledge “knowing”, or is it something else?

Let your spine follow your head, as your shadow follows you.
We always have to be aware of the Whole, but never can we have all. See the Way and don’t look for ends.
Eaglizing is a state of mind, a mental attitude, that is registered in the muscles tend other organs and tissues of the body) – it is not stretching of the muscles by habitual doing backed by faulty sensory appreciation.
“Inhibition” is not blocking nor oppressing the habitual reaction to stimuli; “Inhibition” is neutralizing the habitual reaction to stimuli; it is neutralizing the causes, not the symptoms.
We are full of echoes of the past.
In order to gain we have to be ready to lose.
What is fear? It seems to me that natural fear is awareness and warning of real danger to life. We – human creatures – developed unnatural, illusive fears, and that kills us.
The continuous application of the Conscious Control brings about continuous increase of its range, growth of its span and depth; therefore it may happen that what was considered as a cause of something may be found as a symptom of something deeper.
The worst form of stupidity is the stupidity which is covered with wisdom’s dress.
If you are absorbed in listening to music, you can’t hear it as it really is.The same applies to the application of the F.M. Alexander Technique: You can’t “hear” the “Directions” as they really are (if they are the real ones altogether), if you “listen” to them.
Your trouble is that you don’t dare to become your real self.
We pass our life mainly in a dense fog, sometimes in mist, not much we have the luck of sunny spells. It is our own duty and responsibility to be aware of the Way – non stop – in these difficult conditions. Nobody will do it for us!
Frank Pierce Jones in his book “Body Awareness” (for me this book proves that he miss-understood all together the Technique, and already the title of the book shows it), writes about Lulie Westfeld (page 51), that she writes that her lessons with the Alexanders brought about changes in her body, which were accompanied by pain and discomfort, and that she explains it as part of a righting process that appears to right the bodylines in a steady, cumulative way. And she adds that at intervals this righting process became more intensive, and then a basic change takes place. In such cases she might have an uncomfortable manifestation as well as severe fatigue; but she continues, that always after such a change she would be markedly improved in one form or another, and had a considerable increase in strength and energy (page 91, in her book). But you – those who consider themselves teachers of the F.M. Alexander Technique – are panicked if the pupil has pains or discomfort as a result of the “Work”. Your pupils must feel good, and light, and happy, and content, comfortable in their body, and “all the rest”. You demand proofs of my claim? Read all what is written about the F.M. Alexander Technique by all “experts” of it…
In his book “Body Awareness” (page 31), Frank Pierce Jones writes that

F.M. Alexander told him that in 1914 he was just beginning to find a new way of using his hands in teaching. He applied the “Inhibition”, that proved itself when he dealt with his speaking and breathing, when using his hands on his pupils in order to convey, to transmit the “Directions” from his ownself to the pupil and so to cause changes in the pupil that were DIFFERENT FROM ORDINARY MANIPULATION OR POSTURAL ADJUSTMENT. And all of you speak about MANIPULATION (see W.Barlow’s book, for example), PUTTING HANDS (not USING HANDS), POSTURAL ADJUSTMENT (see the up-to-date books and articles about the F.M.A.T.); and more and more they teach groups and use their tongue instead of their hands. They are impotent in “directing” themselves, they can’t “direct” others, so they “direct” intellectually, using their vocal cords, which in most cases are habitually contracted. This is sheer masturbation!

If you don’t desert the Way – the real way, if you don’t give up the Process -the real process – your clarity will grow, your horizon will spread. The responsibility for it is all yours – only yours.
Words can’t explain, can’t describe, can’t define practical experience; and if you have already practical experience, words are not needed.
For those who call themselves teachers of the F.M.Alexander Technique: You pretend you have cream and produce butter, while in reality what you have is merely filthy water …
In discussion with Daniel B. he remarked that the human society is “human suicidety”. This is a fine definition of the human society, totally busy and absorbed in amok run toward itself destruction.
If you try not to be wrong, you don’t have a chance to be right. Be aware of the wrong and inhibit it, and the right is here.
Stillness is not fixation; in stillness there is a flow of energy. Movement is not a guarantee that fixation is undone – that the blocks in the energy flow disappeared.
We, human creatures, are the victims of our habitual general mental attitude.
It is wrong to betray the Way.
We know, more or less, the range of our ego; this is within the Known. We hardly have a clue of our real Self; this is within the Unknown. It is our task to investigate, explore and discover our real Self – endlessly. The means-whereby: the real F.M. Alexander Technique.
Pleasure depends on the sensory appreciation; faulty sensory appreciation perverts the natural sense of pleasure.
If there is any reason at all to be pleased, to be satisfied, it is not because we gained some “good” results, momentary achievement – but that we are aware (through the application of the Conscious Control) of the Way and follow it without end.
It is not important what your hands do, it is important what happens with your Primary Control while you use your hands.
Militarism and pacifism are two sides of the same coin. The opposite of wrong is wrong.
Spread, all over – eaglize, everywhere, the whole time.
Any mistake is, in a way, O.K., as long as it is not repeated. In order to reduce the reasonableness of such repetition, the application of the Conscious Control is necessary.
In teaching I deal with individual human beings, and not with groups, nor with societies.
Democracy is right for intelligent human creatures, but – alas – where they can be found, as a community?!
Only the one who accepts being nobody, can be somebody.
There are very few human beings around the world who really think; the rest of them think that they think.
It is possible to be in contact with the Whole, but it is impossible to describe and analyze it.
I don’t know what wisdom is, but – may be it is just being totally aware what is wrong, in general, and avoiding (inhibiting) being involved in it.
We hold and fix in our body as a result of the same activity in our brain (mind, mental attitude).
Dedicated to Moishe Magidov – one of the most “devoted” and “honest” “teachers” (Gurus) of the “real” Alexander Technique:

“Someone” may drag – with the best of intentions – the chicken to the heights where the eagle flies, but the chicken still won’t be able to see what the eagle can see; beside it the chicken would be frightened to death, and totally in a panic up there.

When you concentrate in order to try to be right, it is the wrong way to do IT.
When I tell you: “Take IT easy”, I don’t mean that you shouldn’t be serious about IT.
It is not the movement, it is the state of mind – the mental attitude – that IT is all about.
The TRUE F.M. Alexander Technique – Words cannot convey IT,

Words cannot describe IT, Words cannot express IT,

Words cannot explain IT, Words cannot give the experience of IT,

but – If in yourself you do not activate IT, Your hands, as well, cannot convey IT.

728 Use your brain before you use your muscles;

and continue to use your brain while you use your muscles.

729 Don’t manipulate – direct!

But in order to direct properly, you have to have the proper A.C.P.C. (active-creative-practical-conception); it means that the principles, the way and the process along the way are active in yourself “all together”, in all conditions and in all situations.

730 Habitually, we break and accelerate at the same time, in what ever we do, thus we don’t enable a free flow of energy in our selves.

731 Allow IT to happen and let IT happen – don’t DO IT through your old habitual reactions to stimuli.

732 Don’t put “hands on” – it is nothing else but manipulation; ALLOW and LET your hands “flow” from “nowhere to nowhere”, and they will convey and transmit the “DIRECTIONS” whenever they contact the other person.

733 F.M.Alexander named “Direction” or “Directions”, the conscious stimuli to the self, as a whole, to spread, to open, to grow, to “eganze”, while neutralizing (inhibiting) the habitual reactions to stimuli allowing and letting things happen.

734 Your hands convey and transmit your conception of the F.M.Alexander Technique; and as one can “read” through your hands that your back doesn’t spread, it means that your neck is not free and your head doesn’t go forward and away in relation to the spine; therefore you can’t “direct” properly; you manipulate the body, you shape the body, you move the body – that is all you do.

735 In F.M.Alexander’s book: Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual” there is a chapter titled: “Unduly Excited Fear Reflexes, Uncontrolled Emotions and Fixed Prejudices”. To have a proper active-creative-practical-conception of the content of this chapter, is essential for the understanding of the roots of misuse of ourselves.

736 When you come to practice the F.M.Alexander Technique you have to accept, agree and decide to give up your known self, your habitual reactions to stimuli in general. This is the process which F.M. Alexander named “INHIBITION”.

737 If human beings would be aware of their unduly excited fear reflexes and understand the source of their rooted rears and neutralize (inhibit) them – humanity would look different.

738 A am not fed up of life – I am fed up of humanity

739 The human brain gained tremendous achievements in science and technology, but the mental attitude of the human creature is still of the stone age – if not earlier.

To “direct” the physical entity of the human being, to give the practical experience to the organism, to produce the necessary conditions in the pupil’s body is not so hard as to influence and change the habitual mental attitude. This change is utterly necessary for the real adaptation of the F.M.A.T. in daily life.
If birds would use their wings as human beings use their arms, they wouldn’t be able to fly.
“Inhibition” – to “inhibit”, it means to neutralize the habitual reactions to stimuli, in general, not of the muscles only; and at the same time to ALLOW and LET any required activity to take place. This is an everlasting process which is nourished by the conscious control.
“Thinking”- what it is thinking? How do we think? What happens when we think? What are the results oft thinking? “Think”; “think along the spine”. These instructions, followed by the habitual way of thinking, bring about the habitual reactions to stimuli: trying to feel, trying to do IT right, concentration, fear of being wrong, – “End-gaining”.
Patience is a state of mind which is immeasurable by any unit of time.
“Think”, “Thinking” – what is it THINKING? What is involved in the process of Thinking? How do we think? What happens when we think? How, habitually, the pupils react when they hear from the teacher: “think up!”?
How can you expect to be right while you stick to the wrong, and not neutralizing (inhibiting) it ?!
The F.M. Alexander Technique is based on criticism (inhibition) – being aware (conscious control) of the wrong and neutralizing it – in order to allow and let the RIGHT to take place.
You try to DO IT right; stop it! Look for the proper “means-whereby”, and the right will be there.
What is thinking? Isn’t it just conscious activities of the brain, in general? But these conscious activities are dominated by subconscious unduly excited fear reflexes, uncontrolled emotions, and fixes prejudices.
Right “means-whereby” are the means which we apply and employ in reacting to stimuli of life in general. F.M. Alexander’s “Means-whereby” are conscious means, which are based on the principles underlying the F.M. Alexander Technique.
What happens when you tell the pupil: “Think up, think along the spine”? Almost without exception, pupils fall back to their habitual reaction to stimuli, concentrating on doing it right, instead of allowing and letting IT happen.
All of you teach your pupils how to move properly, how to sit down and get up properly. This is not the real Alexander-Technique. It is simply gymnastics guided by manipulation. F.M. Alexander used movements- mainly sitting down and getting up – only as a control and check whether the habitual reaction to stimuli is neutralized (inhibited) in activity.
It is very easy to “sell” illusions to people; but the ral thing, only very few are rady to “buy”.
The advertisements on the radio and television mirror the infanitility of the human brain.
Your primary control doesn’t function properly, so how can you pretend to DIRECT other people?!
Human beings tend to see the “whole” through the “keyhole” shelter behind the door, having the illusion that they are secured and not involved.
All schools or courses – without exception – teach how to teach pupils, how to work ON PUPILS, TAKING FOR GRANTED THAT THE “TEACHER PRODUCES” IN Him/herself the right “means-where by”. The experience proves that the “teachers” concentrate on manipulation of the pupils, ignoring the necessary process in themselves. The result is gymnastics guided by manipulation and not “directing”.
Those who read Alexander’s writings, understand, interpret and apply IT according to their own mental attitude.
My experience in the FM Alexander-Technique taught me that the line between awareness and concentration is obscure.
Learn to DIRECT yourself properly in daily activities before you direct others.
The Process along the Way is simple, therefore it is not easy for us to realize it practically, because our mind are not simple.
Don’t expect not to be hated by those who don’t accept and don’t respect your individuality of the mind.
Have the courage to stand alone; don’t try to satisfy the rest of tee world; don’t try to be like all the others.
The present is the future of the past and the past of the future; it is all an endless flow.
The line between the reality and the illusive reality is very obscure.
To be in a hurry, it means to be in some kind of panic and hysteria, which is a product of deep fears, rooted in the human being for generations.
Directions are born in the brain and depend on the conception we have about the subject we deal with.
Through the F.M. Alexander Technique we don’t learn how to move properly, in the lessons the movement is used only in order to check and control whether in the crucial moment we continue to apply the principles of the Technique, or we fall back to our habitual reactions to stimuli. This relates to the teacher as well as to the pupil.
In order to be able to neutralize (inhibit9 our habitual reactions to stimuli, we should be aware of them and consider if they are wrong.
Conception is a product of experiences and – so called – education; but it can be based on fantasies and illusions that are not realistic.
What is considered education is mainly taming and not means – where-by to develop one0s own creative activity of the brain.
F.M. Alexander was aware of the role of fears in dictating our mental attitude and habitual reactions to stimuli; (see *Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual” part ll, chapter 6), but those who pretend to be teachers of the F.M Alexander Technique ignore, or are not aware of, this fact.
If you are not aware of your habitual reactions to stimuli, you can0t inhibit (neutralize) the wrong.
Peace you can’t buy; so, those who are craving and wailing to pay for peace, will not gain it therefore and lose what they have.
I can direct you and improve your Primary Control and build your back, but if you are not aware of your habitual mental attitude that causes you to interfere with the natural control and to contract, you will, in no time, fall back to the habitual use of the self.
Our fears are the parents of our uncontrolled emotions, fixed prejudices and end gaining. One of our main fears is the fear of authorities, because we depend on them since we were born.
Those who consider themselves as gurus, don’t really teach people who to use their own brain. They impose their ideas on those who are ripe to accept and absorb them, so they become believers and followers without using their own brain.
Don’t expect not to be hated by those who don’t accept and don’t respect your individuality of the mind.
F.M. Alexander sail: “Stop the wrong and you are half way home”. Don’t do the wrong and you will be right! – But how? Therefore, in order to stop the wrong (inhibit-neutralize) it is necessary to be conscious – aware of the wrong and to be ready to accept and to agree with the unfamiliar way and process of changing the familiar habitual reactions to stimuli. For this a different mental attitude is needed than the habitual one.

780 F.M. Alexander said: “Don’t come to me, unless when I tell you, you are wrong, you make up your mind to smile and be pleased. If you are not ready to realize, if you refuse to accept that something is wrong with you, there is no chance that you will cooperate with me along the Way and the Process.

781 The hands “read* and direct simultaneously. The brain should be active in “Blitz-Feedback” and not through the filter of the intellect.

782 Those who pretend to be teachers of the F.M. Alexander Technique remind a featherless peacock – as a featherless peacock can’t expose his tail, these so called teachers can0t expose the real F.M. Alexander Technique.

783 In the F.M. Alexander Technique, you don’t learn who to move properly. The movement in the lessons is used ONLY in order to check and control whether, when activating the reaction to the stimuli, the habitual reaction to stimuli is neutralized (inhibited), or not.

784 It is not a problem for me to produce the practical “Directions” in the body of a person. The question is: How to stimulate the brain of a person to apply the principles underlying the F:M: Alexander Technique, as a whole, in daily life. It is extremely hard to adapt them to a society of endgainers.

785 What is the essence of life? What is the meaning of it? Is it not a constant struggle for survival, till the unavoidable death? Is it not an endless chain of conflicts? !!

786 It is all in our brain. Our habitual reactions to stimuli are products of our accumulated conceptions we absorbed during our life since birth. The conceptions are rooted in our subconsciousness. This forms the EGO which covers our real SELF.

787 It is all in our brain – our brain is full of conceptions that form our habitual reactions to stimuli and this is what should be neutralized (inhibited) and not the visible movement. When the conceptions will be right, our mechanism will react accordingly.

788 It is all about conception, it is all a matter of conception. Our habitual reactions to stimuli are a product of our habitual conception, based on our subconsciousness, nourished by unduly excited fear reflexes, uncontrolled emotions and fixed prejudices; resulting in endgaining and faulty sensory appreciation.

The required conception is a product of conscious control (a state of acute awareness of the Whole) that produces the neutralisation (inhibition) of the habitual conception.

789 “Directions” are a constant free flow of energy in the Self, unhampered by the habitual reaction to stimuli, which are constantly neutralized (inhibited). Directions in general are endless. When there is no flow, there are no directions.

790 It is very easy to sell illusions to human beings; this fact is a furtile ground for charlatanism.

791 The F.M. Alexander-Technique is based on criticism – it means awareness of the wrong, via the conscious control (which is a state of acute awareness of the whole) and neutralizing (inhibiting it, as Alexander describes it), in order to enable the proper Means-whereby to take the place of the wrong. This is a constant process along an endless way.

792 You can’t produce the right by wrong means. Wrong means are a product of false conceptions. So, in order to be right, it is necessary to replace the wrong conception.

793 It is very easy to produce the wrong; it is very hard to get rid of the wrong. But in order to produce the right, first of all, we have to get rid of the wrong.

794 The habitual reactions to stimuli are the weeds. It is very hard to get rid of them; but in order to let the right plants grow, we have to get rid of the weeds.

795 Those who consider themselves teachers of the F.M. Alexander- Technique still use their habitual conception of reacting to stimuli in general. This can’t be the real F.M. Alexander-Technique. This is no more than gymnastics guided by manipulation.

796 Human beings crave for peace, but are absorbed in wars; they crave for freedom, but are afraid of it; they crave for love, but they don’t have a clue what real love is.

Our life is guided and controlled by our subconsciousness, by our habitual reactions to stimuli.

797 You are closed in the cage and crying: “I want to go out, I want to be out, I want to be free!” So, I tell you: “ok, go out, be free”; and you say: “I can’t, I don’t know how”. So, I say: “ok, I will open the door for you, I will show you the way”. And then, I open the door. Then you say: “ok, I don’t know what is out, I am afraid of it. Just close the door.” This is humanity who is ready to replace the small rusty cage with a bigger golden one, but still remains in the cage of the subconscious control and guidance of life, though we realize that something is very wrong about it.

798 F.M. Alexander said: “Stop the wrong, and you are half way home”, and: “don’t come to me, unless, when I tell you, you are wrong, you make up your mind to smile and be pleased, not trying to do the right”. From this, you can conclude that the important step on the way of replacing the wrong and enable the right to take place, is, to become aware of the wrong and to neutralize it, and if we try to do the right, we still use the wrong habitual means-where-by. The result will be the opposite of the wrong, which is still wrong.

799 F.M. Alexander wrote in “The use of the self”, p-13, foot note:

When I employ the words “direction” and “directed” with “use” in such phrases as “direction of my use” and “I directed the use” etc., I wish to indicate the process involved in projecting messages from the brain to the mechanisms and in conducting the energy necessary to the use of these mechanisms. So, directions are messages born in the brain and flow to the organism. Usually, our habitual directions are products of our habitual subconsciousness. Directions, according to the F.M. Alexander Technique, are based on conscious control (a state of acute awareness of the Whole). So, first we have to be aware of the wrong and then neutralize our habitual subconscious conception of reacting to stimuli in general and to replace it by a conception based on conscious control, following the Way and Process, which Alexander discovered and revealed.

Through my hands, I can produce and bring about the required conditions in the Primary Control. I can direct and affect the Primary Control of a person. The body reacts to my direction. But how to influence the brain to give up the habitual reactions to stimuli, products of the subconsciousness? With this problem, I struggle a lot.
The media, as it functions nowadays, is a disgrace and disaster to the human intelligence.
Human beings stick to the wrong, even if they are aware that it’s wrong, because it is habitual and familiar.
The intellect is a filter with very small holes, thus it’s impossible to realize the Whole, the Total, as one. The intellect puts the Whole into pieces, sees fragments, analyses, doesn’t enable the brain to function in “Blitz-feedback”.
It seems that the real FM Alexander-Technique, the true one, died with him, because what is practiced nowadays as Alexander Technique is no more than gymnastics, guided by manipulation, missing the principles underlying the real FM Alexander Technique. It is a fake Alexander Technique and furtile ground for charlatanism.
Simplicity is beyond our brain capacity.
Our consciousness is limited and guided by our unlimited subconsciousness.
Only dead human beings don’t make mistakes.
Those who pretend to be teachers of the F.M.Alexander Technique adjust it to their personal habitual mental attitude, to their habitual conception of reacting to stimuli in general, instead of neutralizing (inhibiting in F.M.Alexander terms) it in order to allow and let the required mental attitude and conception settle in the brain. Whatever they practice is not the real F.M.Alexander Technique!
It is amazing, how much misuse of the self the human organism can take, before it collapses.
It seems to me that it is easier to tame an elephant to perform headstand than to bring human beings to give up their habitual reactions to stimuli.
Wilhelm Reich wrote about humanity in the introduction to his book “Listen little Man”: “It was the result of the inner storms and conflicts of a natural scientist and physician who watched over decades, first naively, then with amazement and finally with horror, what the little Man in the street does to himself…” I totally agree with Wilhelm Reich and feel the same about the F.M. Alexander Technique. At the beginning, I was naive and enthusiastic and encouraged people to join training courses of teachers of the F.M. Alexander Technique. Later on, I watched with amazement, what the little Man could cause to the Alexander Technique. Now, I am horrified when I realize what little Man does with the Alexander Technique. It is no more than gymnastics, guided by manipulation, without any relation to the principles underlying the F.M. Alexander Technique.

812 Our brain is fully loaded with conceptions which form, produce and activate our habitual reactions to stimuli in general. These conceptions are rooted, and products and controlled by our subconsciousness, by our uncontrolled emotions, unduly excited fear reflexes and fixed prejudices.

813 The active, creative, practical conception in connection with the F.M. Alexander Technique is a product of the conscious control (a state of acute awareness of the whole, a total awareness) and implies the awareness of the wrong, the unreliable sensory appreciation; the force of habit, neutralizing (inhibiting) the wrong (the habitual) and activating the necessary “means whereby”

Anyhow, F.M. Alexander Technique is not a technical activity, it is an endless way and process.

814 When I use the term “eaglizing”, it means avoiding contractions and collapse, spreading all over, growing, opening. It is like having space in ourselves and flowing relations inside our organism, like the relations in the micro cosmos and macro cosmos. It is a constant unhampered flow.

815 Those who pretend to teach the F.M. Alexander Technique deal, and are occupied, with the shadow of the Alexander Technique and not with its roots.

816 All of you say: NECK FREE. What is NECK FREE ? What does it mean NECK FREE ? F.M. Alexander writes in his book “Man’s supreme inheritance p. 171: ….order the neck to relax, and at the same time order the head forward und up. Note that to order the muscles of the neck to relax does not mean “allow the head to fall forward on the chest”. For me NECK FREE is not stiff, not rigid, not blocked and not collapsed. It’s a balance of spreading, of opening, floating. These conditions enable the head to flow forward and away, in relation to the whole spine, and the spine shadows, follows the head and this enables the back to spread, to open, to grow, to “eaglize”. These conditions are ever flowing, constantly, continuously.

817 Total awareness, which F.M. Alexander calls Conscious Control, is not concentration, which is a narrowing activity in the words of Alexander. So awareness is not concentration and concentration is not awareness. Unfortunately, human beings consider concentration as awareness.

818 Belief is an illusion – to believe means to nourish illusions. Human beings try to do the right by wrong means and believe that they are right.

819 Never be sure that you are doing the right; always be aware of the wrong, – neutralize – inhibit – give up – the wrong.

820 If we follow the way and practice the process along the way, we are always beginners from the point that we are along the way in a certain moment.

821 The harder you try to be right, the easier you will be wrong. If you are aware of the wrong, you have the chance to neutralize it; and this is the opening in the cage of wrong we are locked in.

822 Human beings want to KNOW and to know NOW, and not to follow and to be involved in a constant process of learning, based on total awareness, awareness of the WHOLE.

823 Human beings crave for security. What is security?! What implies the conception of security in human brains?

824 When a human being says: “I do my best” or “that is what I can do”, it means the end of a constant process of improvement along the Way and the Process.

825 Never be pleased with yourself, never be displeased with yourself,always be aware of the flow, the endless process along the way. Never be satisfied with the result achieved – never be dissatisfied if you didn’t gain the desired result. Results are no more than milestones along the way. So keep moving along the way –and if the way is the right one, the right results will follow the move.

826 It is a sad fact that human beings, in general, are not ripe, not ready to accept, adopt and apply the way and the process which F.M. Alexander named “technique”. Therefore, that what is practiced nowadays, and is called Alexander Technique, is no more than gymnastics guided by manipulation, missing practically the basic principles of the way and process F.M. Alexander revealed and practiced.Therefore: Whatever is done, is on the same level with Feldenkrais, Pilatus, Eutony, and all the rest….

827 The term EAGLIZE; eaglizing, indicates a state of floating, of flow, in our organism. It is like a flying eagle, floating in the air, not holding and not collapsing, not breaking and accelerating at the same tine.

828 Concentration is not awareness, awareness is not concentration. In his book “Constructive Conscious Control of the Individuum” F.M. Alexander wrights about concentration: “This conception of concentration is a disastrous and NARROWING one”, while about awareness (conscious control): “This consciousness is really a state of acute awareness on a GENERAL basis”. It means that this awareness is a TOTAL awareness, awareness of the WHOLE. Unfortunately, human beings accept concentration as awareness.

829 Our sensory appreciation is our compass which registers what is right or wrong and sends it to the brain, which is the control that reacts accordingly. This compass is faulty and therefore unreliable. Therefore, what is wrong in ourselves feels right.

830 In order to be right, we have to give up – lose – the fear of being wrong.

831 Concentration is a limited awareness, confined to a certain detail, to a specific object, ignoring the WHOLE, neglecting the TOTAL.

832 In his book “The use of the Self”, Chapter one, footnote, FM Alexander wrote: “All together, one after the other”, to describe the process along the Way (The Alexander Technique). The experience shows that the human brain divides between the “all together” and the “one after the other”, not realizing the Whole. Better to describe it as follows: “All together WHILE one after the other”.

833 In his lecture “Man’s future as an Individual” Walter H. Carrington said about FM Alexander: “He was a very misunderstood man; he was particularly misunderstood by many people who knew him well and who were close to him.” Walter H. Carrington is first, at the top of the list of those people !!!

834 Endgaining and concentration go together.

835 J. Krishnamurti used the phrases: “Choiceless awareness” and “to be the observer and the observed at the same time” to describe a state of acute awareness of the Whole, a total awareness. These phrases match with what F.M. Alexander calls “Conscious Control”.

836 When F.M. Alexander began to watch himself in the mirror, he didn’t know what he will discover. When you watch yourself in the mirror, you are intellectually conditioned by F.M. Alexander’s discoveries – and you try to do what he did and to gain the same results. You concentrate on doing it right.

837 F.M. Alexander described it: “All together and one after the other.” “All together” is the timeless; “one after the other” is the moments within the timeless. ALL TOGETHER are the “means whereby”, which are a combination of the factors underlying the F.M. Alexander Technique, functioning together endlessly. The ONE AFTER THE OTHER are the different daily activities.

838 When you say: “I understand” – what does it mean? When you say: “I learned” – what does it mean? When you say: “I know” – what does it mean? Understanding, learning and knowing can be intellectual – theoretical, which does not bring any further activity and developing – then nothing happens. Understanding, learning and knowing can be on a practical – active level that can stimulate a process of development.

839 When human beings are told: “Think up, think along the spine” – at once the habitual reaction – which contains endgaining, concentration, trying to do it right – is activated; therefore the outcome can’t be what it should be.

840 Endgaining, Concentration, Focussing, trying to do it right and intellectual activity, they are all related, they are one “cocktail”, all of them are in one “basket”, they are dominated, controlled and nourished by our subconscious, by our habitual reactions to stimuli; they have nothing to do with a Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual. These above factors should be neutralized (inhibited) in order to allow and let the required means “whereby” to be activated.

841 It seems that humanity, in general, is not ripe to accept, adopt, absorb and apply the endless Way and Process which F.M. Alexander called: The Alexander –Technique. For this, we have to neutralize the habitual active creative practical conception and to replace it by an active creative practical conception based on the Way and Process which F.M. Alexander called the Alexander-Technique.

842 Human beings are constantly absorbed in a certain degree of stress. This fact is a by product of unduly excited fear reflexes, uncontrolled emotions and fixed prejudices. To escape from this state of mind, human beings created illusive reality.

843 Human beings escape to illusions as a solution to their dissatisfaction and frustration of not being able to face true reality.

844 Our consciousness is dominated, controlled and guided by our subconscious, which is nourished and influenced by our unduly excited fear reflexes, uncontrolled emotions and fixed prejudices. Are you aware of the source of your reactions to stimuli in general? Are you aware of the background of your logic, motivation and decisions?

845 There are two kinds of conceptions and understanding: One is intellectual – theoretical conception and understanding, the other is active-creative-practical conception and understanding. There are many human beings who are “great” in the first kind but zero in the second kind. F.M. Alexander relates to this issue in his sayings, and it applies to very many of those who consider themselves teachers of the Alexander Technique.

846 The term “EAGALIZING”, to “EAGLIZE” indicates a state of flow within ourselves, a state of spreading-expanding-opening-growing endlessly within ourselves; not holding, not blocking, not stiffening and not relaxing (collapsing).