by Ron Dennis
AmSAT News, No. 45 (Summer 1999)
To speak of crisis in that aspect of our work relegated by FMA
himself to second place or worse—”the practice and theory of my
work,”1 “mere theorizing,”2 as he was wont to say—may seem less than
earthshaking to my staunch Alexandrian audience, yet there are firm
grounds for doing so. In practical terms because of the increased
visibility and demand for information about the Technique occasioned by
the expansion in alternative health and regulatory issues, these grounds
encompass no less the ongoing quest for truth. Specifically, I will argue
that the concept of primary control, as articulated by FMA in The Use of
the Self (1932) and as constantly touted since, is not credible as a
conceptual foundation of the Technique, and that this “primary non-
credibility,” at such a late historical juncture, indeed constitutes a crisis
in the Technique’s self- and consequently public image.3
Let us immediately see a basic structural problem with this
concept.4 As a word, ‘control’ functions either as a noun or as a verb. To
control-as-verb something, for example an automobile, is totally different
from a control-as-noun something, such as a thermostat: the one is a
process, the other a thing. Such lurking ambiguity in the meaning of a
word makes it ill-suited for the clear communication of fundamental
ideas, which is the explicit purpose of theory. At the level of ultimate
reality we apparently must, with Heisenberg, accept uncertainty, but at
1 UCL, “Introductory.”
2 US, Chap. 1.
3 Moreso, I submit, than the issues of plagiarism, eugenicism, and
racism as maintained by Jeroen Staring in his The First 43 Years of the
Life of F. Matthias Alexander (Vols. I & II, self-published, Nijmegen,
The Netherlands, 1996 & 1997) and elsewhere. While surely relevant to
any full assessment of FMA, these issues were clearly tangential to the
development and transmission of his practical work, as indeed evidenced
by present day AT teachers’ widespread ignorance of them, while
primary control clearly was not, as evidenced by its general acceptance
today as a defining element of the AT.
4 See my “Afterthoughts on Breath as Postural Process, NASTAT
News, No. 16 , p. 13.
the level of verbal communication, both with others and ourselves, about
the AT, we should not continue to accept unnecessary confusion.
Virtually uncommented upon in the AT literature to date is the fact
that FMA’s famous account of primary control (“Evolution of a
Technique,” in US) came some 35 years after the alleged discovery itself.
Neither has anybody seemed to notice—truly amazing—that FMA wrote
two prior and major expositions of his work (MSI and CCCI) without
mentioning primary control once! And yet it was perfectly clear to Eric
David McCormack in his 1958 Ph.D. dissertation that “This new
principle of the ‘primary control’ then, which represents the outcome of
his experimental observations [emphasis added], may be taken to be the
centre or core of Alexander’s entire system.”5 Frank Pierce Jones
advanced the explanation that “The doctrine of a ‘primary control,’
whether or not it was the same control as the one demonstrated by
Magnus, provided Alexander with a parsimonious explanation for his
findings, and he continued to use it, along with ‘inhibition’ and ‘use,’
when talking or writing about his technique.”6
I submit that an unbiased observer, in possession of the above facts,
would be hard pressed to conclude other than that primary control was
not, strictly speaking, what FMA actually discovered, whatever that
might have been,7 but a label attached retroactively to it. But the
distinction is no mere quibble, for “speaking strictly” is what theory—
good theory—is all about. A parsimonious explanation for the Master
doesn’t automatically make good theory for the Work.
Following FMA’s lead, primary control—”that relativity in the use
of the head, neck, and other parts”8 as he succinctly if loosely
characterized it—has been taken up almost universally by the AT
community. Here are some examples from the literature:
1. Aldous Huxley: “Alexander’s fundamental discovery was this: there
5 University of Toronto, pp 26-27.
6 Body Awareness in Action, p. 48.
7 I tend to agree with Dart in this regard: “The basic discovery
Alexander made from 1888 onwards was the practice of deliberate
conscious inhibition.” Alexander Murray (ed.), Skill and Poise: A
Selection from the Writings of Raymond Arthur Dart, paperback, n.d., p.
93.
8 US, 3rd ed. (Re-Educational Publications Ltd., 1955) p. 9.
exists in man, as in all the other vertebrates, a primary control
conditioning the proper use of the total organism. When the head is in a
certain relation to the neck, and the neck in a certain relation to the trunk,
then (it is a matter of brute empirical fact) the entire psychophysical
organism is functioning to the best of its natural capacity.”9
2. Patrick MacDonald: “One of Alexander’s discoveries and one which
has immense significance in the learning of the Technique is what he
called ‘The Primary Control.’ This is a master reflex of the body, so that
by organizing it one can modify all the postural relationships throughout
the body.”10
3. Giora Pinkas: “So to me, what F.M.A. emphasized is not an aspect, but
the core, the central control mechanism, located in the brain, and related
to the spinal cord. Being primary, by its natural hierarchichal function, it
governs other, secondary patterns, down the line, to the fingers and
toes.”11
4. Alexander Murray: “When this [starting on the toes] is done with the
assistance of a skilled teacher, the primary control is activated and the
whole system is tonified.”12
5. Missy Vineyard: “But we claim to enhance in students something we
call the primary control, and we claim that this is a physiological
mechanism rooted in a reflex system that all possess.”13
6. Freyda Epstein: “Primary Control: Rediscovering our built in reflex
which governs poise and posture.”14
Not that the chorus has been totally harmonious. A faint cautionary note:
7. Eleanor Rosenthal: “Attempts have been made to explain the primary
control in neuromuscular terms; I don’t find them entirely satisfactory.
Nevertheless, I do know that if I use Alexander’s model, and work on the
9 Saturday Review of Literature, Oct. 1941.
10 The Alexander Technique As I See It, p. 6.
11 NASTAT News, No. 5, p. 6.
12 Alexander Murray (ed.), Skill and Poise: A Selection from the
Writings of Raymond Arthur Dart, paperback, n.d., p. 73.
13 NASTAT News, No. 24, p. 15.
14 Workshop advertisment, n.d., author’s possession.
hypothesis that there is a primary control that can be activated by
improving the relationship between the head, neck, and torso, I will get
results reassuringly similar to Alexander’s.”15
Audible skepticism:
8. Wilfred Barlow: “Few people would find it helpful nowadays to talk
about a primary control, although in the past the phrase did emphasize
the prime importance of a proper USE of the head and neck, at a time
when anatomists and physiologists had no very clear account to give of
the factors underlying balance.”16
And patent discord:
9. Frank Meulendijks & Loes Bredius: “Primary Control Can Not Be
Located.”17
In Nos. 1-6 can be clearly seen the tendency toward elaboration and
particularly toward reification—”regarding or treating an abstraction or
idea as if it had concrete or material existence”—of FMA’s original
notion. It is this reification of primary control, via the uncritical
appropriation of ‘control’ in its sense as a noun, that is the most
damaging consequence of FMA’s belated and actually specious
introduction of primary control into the Alexandrian canon. A reified
primary control puts the AT community in the embarassing and
ultimately untenable position of having to explain a neural mechanism
that has no evident basis in empirical research. I personally have looked
at a fair amount of movement science literature since I began doctoral
work in 1984, and have found nothing to indicate the kind of overarching
mechanism implied by primary control.18 At the 1996 NASTAT AGM I
15 Medical Problems of Performing Artists, June 1987, p. 54.
16 The Alexander Technique, p. 16.
17 NASTAT News, No. 30, p. 4. This perceptive article may be read
with profit both on its own terms and for its relations, too complex
for further comment here, to the present text. See also in the same
issue “The Primary Control: A New Look at Alexander’s
Discovery” by Chris Stevens and Ariane Hesse, pp. 7-9.
18 Lest I be hoist with my own petard, there is in fact just one
instance in my scientific reading of an hypothesis suggestive of primary
control, although clearly offered by N. Bernstein, the eminent Soviet
movement scientist, as speculation about the role of tonus of the neck
and trunk musculature in organizing movements. See my “A Modern
(footnote continues next page)
publicly asked Chris Stevens, the Ph.D. physicist-AT teacher-researcher,
if there were any way in which he would be prepared to explain primary
control to a neurologist. He replied, with only the briefest pause to
consider, “No.” Deborah Caplan, who could attest to this exchange
because she later commented to me on it, does not mention primary
control at all in her book.19 Even FMA himself eventually saw this huge
problem with reification, admitting in a post-1940 letter to Frank Pierce
Jones, “There really isn’t a primary control as such. It becomes a
something in the sphere of relativity.”20
How FMA could put forward, so late and without qualification,
primary control as the discovery upon which his technique was based, is
a serious question, and certainly one that all Alexandrians should reflect
upon. Jeroen Staring’s voluminous research leaves little doubt that FMA
was less than forthcoming in matters relating to early sources and
influences on his work.21 In conversation with Staring, Walter Carrington
has acknowledged that FMA was, with regard to the revision in later
years of certain of his texts, “lazy.”22 All things considered, it is difficult
not to see a decided tendency toward loose linguistic behavior on FMA’s
part.
Hopefully contributing to a broader understanding of this vexing
issue is a remarkable notion brought out by Lawrence A. Cremin (an
educator who, incidentally, was a student of Dewey’s) in his book Public
Education.
23 Cremin is discussing James Olney’s theory of autobiography
as applied to educational biographies, in particular the concept of
“metaphors of self.” I follow Cremin in quoting Olney at length:
Metaphors, Olney says
are something known and of our making, or at least of our
Theory of Coordination and Its Significance for the Alexander
Technique,” The Alexandrian, Vol. II, No. 2.
19 Back Trouble: A New Approach to Prevention and Recovery.
20 In response to Jones’ first published article on the AT (“The Work
of F.M. Alexander as an Introduction to Dewey’s Philosophy of
Education,” School and Society, No. 1462, 1943). Cited by Marian
Goldberg, NASTAT News, No. 4, p. 7, copy of original letter in
possession of Alexander Murray.
21 Staring, The First 43 Years of the Life of F. Matthias Alexander.
22 “Objectionable Remarks”, Direction (Vol. I, No. 6), p. 234.
23 New York: Basic Books, 1976, pp. 42-43.
choosing, that we put to stand for, and so help us understand,
something unknown and not of our making; they are that by which
the lonely subjective consciousness gives order not only to itself but
to as much of the objective reality as it is capable of formalizing
and of controlling.24
Cremin goes on to point out that “such metaphors as they appear in
autobiographies are ordinarily retrospective and hence far more clear,
simple, and certain [emphasis added] than what Olney refers to as the
‘objective reality’ of the life.” Certainly, FMA’s “Evolution of a
Technique” is nothing if not an educational autobiography. Certain was
his need to put the story down in some coherent and manageable fashion,
and certain as well the events and effects of many, many intervening
years. We may profitably inquire with Cremin, I think, “What metaphors
of self’ did the subject seem to choose or come to believe [emphasis
added]?” Surely in this light primary control appears more plausible as
retrospective metaphor than as primordial discovery.
Needing to be made clear at this juncture is that criticism of FMA’s
later theory, rooted so doggedly in primary control, by no means implies
criticism of his work as a whole. “Fortunately the ‘primary control’
hypothesis did not hold up the development of Alexander’s practical
teaching methods,” Wilfred Barlow said.25 “Talk is cheap, it takes money
to buy whiskey,” the old woman said.26 There can be little doubt that all
the people who paid FMA’s fees—including the present writer, by proxy
so to speak—(1) were not totally gullible and (2) cared more for his
hands and the practical help he gave them than for his current theoretical
notions. In their likewise sharp criticism of Freud, Daniel Yankelovich
and William Barrett observe pointedly, “Contradictions of this sort do
not mark the end of the road for any discipline; on the contrary, they can
be immensely productive, calling as they do for a basic shift in
thinking.”27 What FMA actually gave the world was a sustained, forceful,
and—yes—beautiful example of effective hands-on work for personal
psycho-physical change. Now, in the present historical moment, in a
world dominated by the critical/scientific outlook, it surely behooves us
24 Metaphors of Self: The Meaning of Autobiography, Princeton
Univ. Press, 1972, p. 30.
25 Barlow, The Alexander Technique, p. 16.
26 Franklin A. Brainerd, Raingatherer, Minnesota Writers’
Publishing House, 1973, p. 22.
27Ego and Instinct, Random House, 1970, p. 88.
his self-chosen heirs to raise the level of the theory to that of the practice.
Which brings us to the question, What then if not primary control? But
first a few words, not from our sponsor (who is our sponsor, anyway?),
but about theory.
The word ‘theory,’ though it lacks the sharp noun/verb dualism of
‘control,’ nevertheless has distinctions in meaning that need to be clarified
and borne in mind. The ancient Greek theoria meant “witnessing,” in the
sense of “participation in the delegation sent to a festival for the sake of
honoring the gods.”28 Such a delegate would naturally expect faithfully to
report to his constituency what he saw, heard, and otherwise experienced.
As Gadamer further points out, in this primitive sense theoria in no way
implied separation and abstraction, but rather proximity and affinity vis-
a-vis the subject. It is no doubt the particularly medieval sense of theory
as abstract speculation, the revolt against which was the genesis of
modern science, of which FMA and the modern mind in general were
and are so suspicious. Even in the critical discourse of today, theory has
two senses not always distinguished, the one predictive and the other
descriptive. Predictive theory tells us what will likely happen based on a
limited but relevant number of observations: “If Germ X is present,
Disease Y occurs,” etc. The quality of a predictive theory is its success
rate. Descriptive theory, on the other hand, tells us more or less
systematically what something is: “A major scale consists of two
conjunct tetrachords,” etc. Only by a fundamental misunderstanding
could we say something like, “If two tetrachords come into conjunction,
a major scale occurs.” The quality of a descriptive theory is its
understandability relative to its accuracy and its completeness. Closer to
theoria than to predictive theory, descriptive theory can never tell the
whole story completely accurately, but the conscientious witness does
her best. (In the courts, the opposing attorney actively helps her to do her
best.) It is also important to realize that while predictive theories may and
probably must have descriptive aspects, the converse is not necessarily
true. So much for theory in general.
Regarding AT theory in particular, I am of course aware that the
Technique finds ultimate definition not in any theory, however cogent,
but only within “that solitary individual’s”29 unique and ongoing
experience. That said, would anyone seriously disagree that the only
28 Hans Georg Gadamer, Reason in the Age of Science, MIT Press,
1986, p. 17.
29 Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart Is To Will One Thing, “Preface.”
ground upon which a profession can be solidly built is conceptual
agreement on basic premises?30 Or that the public can be reliably
informed of our purposes and methods only in terms meeting general
standards of rigorous discourse? Theory-wise, these terms need not be
based solely or even primarily in empirical research, but they do need to
reflect established knowledge to the extent that such knowledge bears
upon, illuminates, and helps to communicate our work. That is to say,
good descriptive theory will fill the bill. I note with pleasure “On
Defining the Alexander Technique” by Joe Armstrong,31 who has
carefully framed ten Alexander hypotheses that generally meet the
standard of discourse described above and that, significantly, do not do
so in terms of primary control (hallelujah, nowhere to be seen!). That I
would take substantial issue with Mr. Armstrong on specific points as
well as on the assumption that AT theory need be “based on what
Alexander himself claimed it to be” must remain for another discussion,
in view of my need to bring the present one to a close.
What then if not primary control? In a word, skill. Skill the rubric,
the unifying concept, under which is comprised everything the Alexander
teacher and student are seeking to accomplish both mutually and
individually. Skill in bodily support and movement, skill in thinking,
skill in the always mutual employment of both. Our Alexandrian practice
is eminently describable in terms of skill, which has an extensive
literature of its own waiting to be mined for corroborative findings and
insights. It is astonishing to me how little the skill of the student—as
contrasted with that of the teacher—is discussed or even mentioned in
conventional AT texts. A model of skill acquisition establishes the
continuity of our Alexandrian learning process to all the practical and
fine arts, as well as to that of the conventional classroom. All the
foregoing is not to say that the concept of skill is a panacea for the many
communicational challenges attending the AT, but it is to say that, in
terms of theory, the terra firma of skill is far more secure than the foggy
marshes of primary control.
30 Curiously, Walter Carrington, always eloquent in his elucidations
of the Technique, appears to disclaim having any conceptual basis for it.
Sean Carey: “You don’t have a ‘formal’ doctrine of change, then?”
Carrington: “No, not a bit. If I had one, that would mean I had a
conceptual basis for the Technique, wouldn’t it?” Walter Carrington in
Discussion with Sean Carey [exact title?], galley copy without title page
in author’s possession, n.d., p. 64.
31 NASTAT News, No. 42, p. 20.
After all this fulmination against primary control, I want to close in
acknowledgement that it can remain an important concept, skillfully used,
for our Alexandrian practice if not for our theory. The crux of the matter
lies in (1) knowledge of the term’s noun-verb duality, (2) reflection on
that fact in terms of real situations, and (3) practice in using this
reflectively-modified knowledge in action. For example, in teaching
there are times when it is appropriate to return a student to a global from
a more focal awareness. On such occasions, a direction such as “Coming
back to primary control … “, accompanied by a hand at head/neck, is a
succinct reminder of the primariness of a lengthening response to the
omnipresent gravitational challenge as well as to the specific task at
hand. Knowledge, Reflection, Practice, the elements of skill regardless of
the activity to which applied. Let us hear once more these words of the
founder: “There really isn’t a primary control as such. It becomes a
something in the sphere of relativity.” That something, I submit, is skill,
skill in that ultimate art of the use of the self.