Inhibition as primary direction

This again, really means that in the application of my technique the process of inhibition, that is, the act of refusing to respond to the primary desire to gain an "end" becomes the act of responding (volitionary act) to the conscious reasoned desire to employ the means whereby that end may be gained.
The stimulus to inhibit, therefore, in this case comes from within, and the process of inhibition is not forced upon the pupil. This means that the pupil's desire or desires will be satisfied, not thwarted, and that there will be present desirable emotional and other psycho-physical conditions which do not make for what is known as suppression in any form.

Some more aphorisms:

Pedro de Alcantara :

Alexander teachers talk often enough of misuse and inhibition. But they tend to forget that what causes misuse is end-gaining; indeed, it's our universal habit of end-gaining that ought to be inhibited, not the misuse that's but a consequence of end-gaining.


Roger Sperry (a famous neurologist):

The entire output of our thinking system goes into the motor system.

Aphorisms of FM Alexander

Don’t come to me unless, when I tell you you are wrong, you make up your mind to smile and be pleased.

Trying is only emphasizing the thing we know already.

They say, "I am going to lengthen," and then raise their eyes. Of course raising
their eyes has nothing more to do with lengthening than their boots, but having done
this from time onwards, their conception of lengthening will be associated with raising
their eyes. Therefore when the idea of lengthening comes to them, they must at once
inhibit the movement of the eyes in order to break the wrong association that has been
built up, before giving themselves the order to lengthen.

When I ask you to draw your tongue away and say "t", I mean you not to say "t".
I mean you definitely to prevent it, to give orders, and not to say "t". I ask you to say
"t" because I don't want you to say "t", because I want to give you the opportunity
of refusing to say "t".

Prevent the things you have been doing and you are half way home.

The experience you want is in the process of getting it. If you have something,
give it up. Getting it, not having it, is what you want.

You get away from your old preconceived ideas because you are getting
away from your old habits.

The whole organism is responsible for specific trouble. Proof of this is,
that we eradicate specific defects in process.

When anything is pointed out, our only idea is to go from wrong to right
in spite of the fact that it has taken us years to get wrong: We try to get right
in a moment.

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

If people will go on believing that they 'know', it is impossible to eradicate
anything; it makes it impossible to teach them.

You can't know a thing by an instrument that's wrong.

You come to learn to inhibit and to direct your activity. You learn, first,
to inhibit the habitual reaction to certain classes of stimuli, and second, to direct
yourself consciously in such a way as to affect certain muscular pulls, which
processes bring a new reaction to these stimuli. Boiled down, it all comes to
inhibiting a particular reaction to a given stimulus. But no one will see it that way.
They will all see it as getting in and out of the chair the right way. It is nothing
of the kind. It is that a pupil decides what he will or will not consent to do.
They may teach you anatomy and physiology till they are black in the face --
you will still have this to face, sticking to a decision against your habit of a life.

Change involves carrying out an activity against the habit of life.

Everyone wants to be right, but no one stops to consider if their idea of right is right.

You can't do something you don't know, if you keep on doing what you know.

When people are wrong, the thing that is right is bound to be wrong to them.

When an investigation comes to be made, it will be found that every single thing we are doing in the Work is exactly what is being done in Nature where the conditions are right, the difference being that we are learning to do it consciously.

We can throw away the habit of a lifetime in a few minutes if we use our brains.

You are not here to do exercises or to learn to do something right, but to get able to meet a stimulus that always puts you wrong and to learn to deal with it.

There is no such thing as a right position, but there is such a thing as a right direction.

Everyone is always teaching one what to do, leaving us still doing the things we shouldn't do.

Sensory appreciation conditions conception - you can't know a thing by an instrument that is wrong.

You translate everything,
whether physical
or mental
or spiritual,
into muscular tension.


"When you are asked not to do something, instead of making the decision not to do it, you try to prevent yourself from doing it. But this only means that you decide to do it, and then use muscle tension to prevent yourself from doing it."
Notice the division of the self by acting simultaneously in two contradictory ways, both doing something, and preventing yourself from doing it. And notice the solution: don't both decide and not decide to do something: make one decision only.

You all believe that you must know whether you are right or wrong if you are to make progress. You all want to know if you're right. When you get further on you will be right, but you won't now it and won't want to know it.
You want to feel out whether you are right or not. I am giving you a conception to eradicate that. I don't want you to care a damn if you are right or not. Directly you don't care if you are right or not, the impeding obstacle is gone.