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Past Articles:

Get Out of Your Own Way

Thinking with More of You

Starting at the Top

The Spine as a Compression Spring

We Don't Know Squat

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Functioning Without Interference

"Allow my torso to release back and up."

Throughout the course of almost 10 years of study of the Alexander Technique, this is the phrase I have heard most often from my teachers and the phrase I use most frequently as I teach.

This statement is part of a series of directions that F.M. Alexander believed should occur in a physiological system that is functioning without interference. The basic directions of use when we are functioning at our full potential are: "Allow my neck to be free so that my head can balance forward and up, my torso can lengthen and widen, my legs release away from my torso, and my shoulders widen."

Keep in mind that calling these things "directions" is not defining them as something to "do" in any specific order, like the directions for following a recipe. The directions are the result of not doing the things we unconsciously do to interfere with them. This "not doing," when applied to unconscious, habitual muscular tension, is what Alexander referred to as Inhibition. By Inhibition he meant freeing ourselves from habit, choosing how we respond to stimuli, and consciously selecting the most efficient, least-interfered-with response available through our system. He felt that the fundamental directions were pre-existing in our system, and that the concept of Inhibition allowed us to tap into them by clearing out the interferences.

In most of us, unconscious and habitual patterns of unnecessary muscular tension tend to pull our torso forward and down. "Back and up" are not things to do on top of our habits of forward and down, but rather are natural directions we can tap into when we recognize, inhibit, and undo our existing habits of forward and down.

We pull ourselves forward all day long. Everything we do with our hands is in front of us and we are constantly pulled towards them. By attempting to push our shoulders back out of a slump, or pull ourselves up into "good," straight-backed posture, or suck in our stomach to achieve our aesthetic goal of a flat tummy, all we are really doing is pulling ourselves down through the spine. If you lock in your knees, you simultaneously pull your legs into your torso. If you tense your pecs too much as you type, you pull your arms in towards your torso, your head back and down, and you shorten your spine. If you initiate the movement of walking or bending to sit in a chair by taking your chin or forehead forward, or by pushing your sternum out, you will also pull your head back and down and shorten your spine.

When the muscles of the neck release, the spine decompresses to support the head’s balanced weight. This decompression allows the torso to widen and the reflexive spring built into the spine to become engaged, which can then guide our torso into its back and up direction away from our legs, which are then free to "hang" underneath the pelvis. By freeing or releasing all the extra tension present in the muscles of the neck, and by balancing the 10 or so pounds of our head, the arms and legs are free to release away from the torso and the decompressing spine. The whole torso follows the spine as it responds to gravity with its reflexive "back and up," meaning that we have effectively inhibited any forward and down tension through the system.

"Allow my neck to be free so that my head can balance forward and up, my torso can lengthen and widen, my legs release away from my torso and my shoulders widen."

The goal of this work is to attend to these directions not by trying to actively achieve them, but rather by considering how we interfere with them and by inhibiting that interference. They are not something to do, but rather something we can allow to happen by "undoing" our unconscious habits.

- Kate Kobak

- F.M. Alexander

"As soon as people come with the idea of unlearning instead of learning, you have them in the frame of mind you want."

- F.M. Alexander