While sometimes misunderstood as a kind of postural visualization technique, F.M. Alexander’s concept of directing is actually a concrete skill that, when practiced consistently and constructively, can be used to restore the natural and effortless coordination of the postural system.
When I first tried to practice directing I got a lot wrong — I would lie down on the floor in my dimly lit bedroom, with a youtube video playing cheesy spa music and a voice-over guiding my awareness to different parts of my body. I would try to feel everything, I would try really hard to “relax”, and I would close my eyes and visualize my head going forward and up without having any real idea of what I was trying to accomplish.
Later I realized that this was the worst way to go about this. As I began proper training I learned how important it is to stay alert and aware of my surroundings, how unconstructive it is to try to feel and figure out what’s going on with my body, and how having a very clear goal and purpose was essential to getting any benefit out of my practice.
What I wish I had in the beginning was a clear guide that laid out the goals of directing and how to set up a constructive and purposeful session. It would have saved me years of unhelpful relaxation and visualization and instead set me on a path of consistent growth towards the very concrete goals that we have in this work.
This is that guide. In it I will walk you through how to set up a basic directing practice session, including how to prepare yourself and get into a good position to start, how to organize your awareness constructively, what directions actually are, how to give them, and how to avoid common pitfalls.
Let’s get started…
Getting Ready to Direct
The most important thing to do before directing is to prepare not only your physical space, but your mental state as well.
To begin with, you want to set yourself up in a supportive position, or position of mechanical advantage. The most basic of these, and the most useful to the beginner, is called the semi-supine or “lie-down” position. The position consists of lying on the floor with your knees bent and pointing up to the ceiling, and the back of your head supported by a few books.
There are a few important elements to remember when getting into the lie-down position:
- You want to use a firm surface to lie down on, but ideally use a carpet or thin mat so that it is not too uncomfortable.
- Be thoughtful when getting into and out of the position. When going down to the floor, descend to your knees and then get on all fours before lowering yourself slowly and gently turning over to lie on your back. When getting up, turn slowly on your side and then push yourself up to your knees before rising. You should never be doing a sit-up to lower or raise yourself from the books.
- Use enough books that your head isn’t falling too far back, but not so many that your chin is tucking downwards because your head is so high.
- Your heels should not be tucked in too close to your body, and your feet should not be held too close together.
Now that we’re physically prepared to direct, we want to take some time to start using our awareness constructively and do what I like to call clearing the waters.
Clearing the Waters
Directing requires an alert but calm mental attitude, so before we start giving specific directions we want to take time just to be alert and present to our environment and let mental distractions or worries subside.
In the lie-down position, take a few moments to look at the ceiling above you, perhaps noticing textures, colors, shadows. Take note of the sound of the wind outside your window or the ambient hum of appliances in your home. Notice distracting thoughts that arise and let them go, reminding yourself that you’re taking time right now to be very purposeful with how you use your attention.
After some time you should notice that your mental state quiets down significantly, and you may even notice some letting go in your muscles or freeing up of your breathing. These are all signs that you have been working constructively and have given your patterns of tension and interference a chance to dissipate slightly.
Now that we have let ourselves quiet down a bit we are ready to use our thinking even more intentionally.
Organizing Your Awareness with Intention
With our mental state and attitude primed, the first thing I like to do is to practice organizing my awareness using a technique called conscious intention. This is a way to cultivate the skill of using our awareness in a constructive and intentional way, which is one of the most fundamental thinking skills that we make use of in this work.
While in the lie down position, take note of a point of contact such as your head touching the books. See if you can be lightly aware of this sensation of contact while still being present to your environment, holding the two in balance without overly-concentrating or worrying about if you’re doing it “right.” As you become more comfortable with this, you can add to your awareness the contact of your upper back against the floor, and your pelvis as well. It may take multiple sessions to become better at this, but eventually you should have the sense that you can gently organize all of these points of contact within your awareness, while at the same time being present and not turning inward and trying to “feel things out.”
This is a huge step — not only is this intentional, detached, and constructive organization of awareness fundamental to directing and other skills, but when used well it itself can be of great help in making improvements to the system and encouraging muscle length even without going on to use the directions that we will discuss in a moment.
Giving the Directions
Once you’ve gained some experience getting into the lie-down position, taking time to be attentive to your environment as you let things quiet down, and balancing your awareness of various points of contact, you’re ready to start using directions to encourage more length and undoing in the system. Here we will discuss the primary directions, although there are many other specific directions to be explored in the future.
The primary directions are considered “primary” because they relate specifically to the universal pattern of tension that almost all of us are unconsciously using to interfere with the natural design of our postural system. This system is designed to work in such a way that, when the musculature of the neck is not unnecessarily tightened, the skull is free to gently balance forward on the atlanto-occipital joint, exerting a subtle stretch along the long postural muscles of the back. This in turn triggers a reflexive lengthening response through the whole body, allowing various muscles and muscle systems to let go into length and function in a more harmonious and integrated way with each other as part of a holistic system.
Unfortunately, most of us tend to interfere with this system drastically (the question of why this occurs is a topic for another day). This interference pattern is basically the inverse of the well-functioning system I just described — we tend to tighten in the neck such that the head is pulled back and down, which in turn leads to a shortened and narrowed back, and this disorganization of the system tends to lead to tensions and compensating patterns throughout the body, such as tightening in the thighs and shortening our front length.
It’s important to remember that this interference, while currently unconscious, is being caused by our intention. That is, when we tighten in the neck to pull back our head, this is not some kind of muscular malfunction, but rather a maladaptive strategy that we’ve employed in our daily activities since we were very young, to the point that it has become habitual and therefore constantly interferes with the working of the whole system.
What this means is that we have to address the pattern at the level of thinking and intention, as no stretch or exercise will prevent the message from our brain to our muscle cells telling them to contract.
What we have to do is to literally think to ourselves:
“I want to stop tightening my neck such that my head is pulled back, my back shortens and narrows, and my legs tense up. I want instead to allow my neck to be free, so that my head can gently balance forward and up and come out of my back, so that my back can lengthen and widen, so that my legs can let go and my knees can go forward (or up, in semi-supine) and apart.”
These are the primary directions, which are typically condensed into something like this:
“I want to let my neck be free, so that my head can go forward and up, so that my back can lengthen and widen, so that my knees can go forward and away.”
As you can see, there are many ways that you can phrase the primary directions. This is because they are not magic words or incantations, but are based on knowledge of the system we just described. If you know that you want to stop pulling back your head, you can articulate that intention to yourself in many ways. The point is that, eventually, you will actually start to stem the flow of your habitual directions that are causing tension and interference, and in their place you will have sent new directions that will encourage muscles to let go into length, such that various parts (head, neck, back etc.) can relate to each other in a way that triggers the reflexive lengthening, widening, and integration of the whole system.
So what does this look like in our lie-down session?
In practice, if you are in a lie-down position and have given yourself time to quiet down, you would start to recite these directions to yourself while maintaining a broad awareness of the room you’re in.
At this point, the biggest mistake people make is subtly trying to “do” the directions.
That is, they will think “I want to let my neck be free so that my head can go forward and up,” and then slightly push their head forward and turn their awareness completely inward, trying to feel and “figure out” the tension in their neck. In order for the directions to work, you have to detach from your preoccupation with how things feel and with what you want to happen. By sticking to the process of staying attentive to the environment, reciting your directions without doing anything, and giving time for things to happen on their own, you will eventually notice changes in your muscle tone and quality of awareness.
When this happens, and you notice that your neck really has let go a bit and your back is actively lengthening, you have to remember to leave things alone and not try to help. What we think is helping is just more interference, because our habits of interference are familiar and therefore feel “right”. If you stick to the process and stay out of the way, you will start to experience how the system really works, and just how much you interfere with it habitually.
An Introduction to Directing
So there you have it…
While directing can seem at first like a somewhat intangible practice, it’s really just a process of using our thinking and attention in a skillful way. This article serves as only a brief introduction to this important skill, but it should give you the fundamental building blocks and practice principles to help you get started as you begin to study the Alexander Technique.
Here are the steps to getting started with directing:
- Take some time to prepare by getting into a position of mechanical advantage such as semi-supine.
- “Clear the waters” by paying attention to your surroundings and letting yourself quiet down in this supported position.
- Use Conscious Intention to organize your attention and balance your awareness of yourself with your general outer awareness.
- Recite the primary directions to yourself while maintaining your general awareness (with eyes open).
- Refrain from trying to “do” the directions, just focus on the process of staying aware and reciting them without trying to change, fix, figure out, or help your muscles, even if you feel tension or release.
- Stick to this process over time, and when changes do start to happen, continue to refrain from helping them. Detachment is the key to this practice.
Take your time with this process and be kind to yourself — nothing is more counterproductive than getting frustrated that the directions aren’t working, or getting mad at yourself for letting your attention wander. This is a daily discipline that will become more clear over time, and even years down the road you will still be finding new perspectives on these fundamental principles that will help you as you advance in this practice.