I've read a very good article on the subject by Gerald Foley, one of my many betters, entitled Untangling the Primary Control. Frank Pierce Jones also wrote about the primary control.
Alexander used the term quite a bit, but never definitively defined it. He seemed to use term 'primary control' as either a physiological condition or as an instument that can be controled.
As a physiological condition, the primary contol is a condition that exists. It is a state of the head-neck during activity.
As a instument that can be controlled, or employed, the primary control is the use of the area of the head/neck region. Once this instrument is employed correctly one can expect an improvement in the function of the rest of the musculature. It is primary because it is of central importance in improving the global use of the self.
The distinction may seem like a fine line, but it is important because Alexander claimed that Rudolph Magnus proved the existance of the primary control. Magnus published over 300 papers and was nominated for a Nobel Prize just prior to his death at age 53. His studies included posture as a reflex activity. His team used animals who had their cortex disconected from the brainstem - the decerebrate animal. The cortex is the thinking part of the brain.
The brainstem is important for several reasons. Ten of the 12 crainial nerves emerge from the brainstem. One of which controls the sternocleidomastoid and trapezius muscles via the accessory nerve (CN XI). One of the main functions of the brainstem is to conduct the impulses from the cortex. It also controls the posture, balance and adjustments to poise. All activities it controls are reflexive.
Magnus and his team adhered to a clear distinction between habit and reflexes. Habit is always acquired behavior and arrises from conscious action. They initially were voluntary actions from the moror cortex. In contrast, reflex behaviour is inherent and innately given, withdrawn from all voluntary actions. This is evocative of Kants a proiri knowledge. Reflex activity takes place in response to stimuli even if the cortex is removed.
Magnus studied the brain stem. He kept decerebrate animals alive and found that they were able to do quite a lot of reflexive activities that govern movement, posture, and balance.
So on the face it appears that Alexander was wrong when he claimed that the work of Magnus supported his work. Alexander felt that he could influence with his cognition the primary control to improve basic use but Magnus seemed to prove that the reflexes he discovered have no input from the higher centers. Some of the confusion is that the brain stem just happens to be in the base of the skull in close physical proximity to Alexanders 'primary control'. Some of the confusion might be based on Alexanders agressive coaptation of any scientific evidence that would give him better footing in medical establishment. Also, perhaps Alexander was confused because he was not a scientist. This might be controversial, but scientist first and formost study science. They stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before them. In my very limited study I have not found that Alexander studied science at all.
I think that Alexander was wrong that Magnus work supported him, but if we broaden our discussion we can see that the AT does have firm scientific support in claiming that the primary control or brain stem function can be influenced by the cortex.
I've read that Magnus found two categories of reflexes: the 'attitudinal reflexes' and the 'righting reflexes'. The attitudinal reflexes receive input from the inner ear (labyrinths that gives us a sense of balance via CNVIII) and the muscles and joints in the neck which are rich in sensory receptors. In these reflexes, the head first drawn to a fixed position and then the tonus is distributed to the truck and limbs. The posture of the head/neck is imposed on the rest of the body. Apparently it is a very enduring reflex. These reflexes come into play when one stands or sits down, or when a cat jumps. In the startle reflex the first muscles to be tensed are the neck muscles enervated by the accessory nerve (CN XI).
The second group of reflexes are the righting reflex which takes over when an animal is ready to return to a normal posture. Again, normal tonus if restored under the influence of the head/neck. For example, time lapse photos of a cat held upside down and then dropped show the first changes are in the head/neck.
Magnus found that in both categories involving he brainstem, the head/neck relationship is the instigator and the rest of the body follows. I've never read anything about Magnus that did not summarize his work as the "head leads and the body follows".
Another important point to bring up is that not all animal brains have the same ratio of cortex to brainstem, and the influence that animals might have over their reflexes vary. For example, a lizard or frog has little if any ability to learn to change their behavior. All their behavior is reflexive to stimuli, genetically hard wired. Cats and dogs have some ability, they can be trained and learn to inhibit some reflexive activity. Monkeys more so. But humans are very plastic in their ability to change. In our evolutionary setting, such plasticity served us well, as evident by our seeming domination over all things. But it seems to be a basic tenant of the AT that the modern world has put unique stresses on us for which we are not well prepared - such as sitting at the computer all day in a constant low level of stress and worry. Our beautiful righting reflex is not up to the task of bring us back to a fully lifted stature after spending hours hunched over a computer. Our habits have overwritten our instinct.
This does not make Magnus wrong. Magnus was quite right that the righting reflex are subcortical and inaccessible to direct conscious control. But they can be covered up, obscured and debauched by poor use for which evolution has not adequately prepared us. This is understood in medicine. Consider the patellar reflex. When your GP heads towards your knee cap with her rubber mallet you naturally tense up. "I hate it when she smacks my knee with that thing!" and you tense your thigh. She knows that a patient who actively tenses the thigh will interfere with the proper demonstration of the reflex and lead to a falsely subdued response. She tells you to grip your hand together and pull your arms apart. You do as you're instructed while wondering "Why is she having me doing this?" You forget to keep you thigh tense and Smack! goes the hammer and up goes your leg - a normal patellar reflex. By distracting you your GP was, temporarily, working a decerebrate patient.
Is our original righting reflex destroyed by our "training"? It does not make sense that we would be wired to actually lose it. Yes, cover it up and obscure it by years of poor use, but I believe it is a fundamental tenant of the AT that it is not lost. But most of us believe it is lost. We go to yoga classes, spend years studying dance and gymnastics to try to relearn the grace and poise of our youth. My conception of the AT is a "good news" model. You have not lost anything: Praise be! Just stop doing all that bad stuff you learned by mistake!
But how? How do we interrupt the learned patterns to allow our default reflexes to again express themselves? We must interrupt right at the first manifestation of misuse. If indeed the "head leads and the body follows" then we must interrupt at the head/neck area. And with what should we interrupt it? The same tool we used to set it wrong in the first place. There is already tremendous input into the brainstem from the cortex.
In practical terms: First, stop. You've got to stop the debauched program. Just stop. Next use that big cortex of yours. Tell the sternocleidomastoid, the trapezius and the numerous muscles in the neck and back to not pull down. It's a bit tricky to do this - an AT teacher can help. Now keep doing this and off you go!
I've heard it said that some AT students, durring their first lesson, as they are guided out of a chair, exclaim: "I didn't do that! Yes, obviously I got out of the chair, but I didn't do it!" It's a fascinating statement. The student has used a debauched program thousands of time over her lifetime to get out of a chair. And now, for the first time since childhood, has not interfered with the primordial brainstem reflex. The feeling (sensory feedback) of standing up is so different from the accustomed feeling that the only conclusion possible is that she didn't do it. Moreover, that sense of self resides mostly in the cortex. And the cortex in this case, was actively not getting out of the chair. So maybe she, in fact, did not get out of the chair. Who did?
I have been trying to place the AT directions in the center of my life for a bit over a year. Stopping and directing as much as I possibly can all my waking hours. I find it changing a bit from the course thoughts directed to my primary control. It is sometimes just feeling like an intention that underlies all my activities. And it does not feel like I'm alone, every being on the earth plays with gravity and a lot of us think up! quite a bit.
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