04 F.M. Alexander Explains The Correct Position of the Arms - Learning to Control Your Arms

Though what he wrote was brilliant, F.M. Alexander was not always the clearest, most straightforward writer. However, in his first book, there are two passages that give a precise explanation of the correct orientation and relative position of the arms. In this video, we look at what is the correct position of the arms, and begin to experiment with how we can manipulate our arms to bring them towards the correct position.
Featuring diagrams made by Jeando Masoero.
I offer lessons in the Initial Alexander Technique, which are conducted one-on-one with a teacher over Zoom. They are designed to help you gain conscious control over how you move your body. Most people have no idea what they’re doing with their body, and as they misuse their body, they end up with discomfort, pain, and other issues that they may not even realize are caused by what they’re doing to themselves. But how do you figure out what you’re doing wrong? And how do you change what you're doing and overcome lifelong habits?
In an Initial Alexander Technique lesson, you will record yourself through Zoom, so you will be able to see and understand what you are doing when you stand, sit, walk, and perform other simple gestures. With the assistance of your teacher, you will come to understand how you are misusing the mechanisms of your body, and you will gain the ability to choose to use yourself in a more sensible way. You can learn how to use your body without pain. You can break free from long held habits. All you need is a system that works.
For more information or to book a lesson, please visit my website: mechanicsofpoi...
You can contact me at: [e-mail]
"In order to secure the proper use of the arms and legs correct mental guidance and control are necessary. Such guidance and control should, of course, be conscious. Furthermore, this mental guidance and control must co-ordinate with a proper position and length of the spine and the accompanying correct muscular uses of the torso, if these limbs are to be controlled by that guidance and co-ordination which will command their accurate employment at all times within reasonable limits."
F.M. Alexander

[@delsartealexandermasoeroyo9147]

Though what he wrote was brilliant, F.M. Alexander was not always the clearest, most straightforward writer. However, in his first book, there are two passages that give a precise explanation of the correct orientation and relative position of the arms. In this video, we look at what is the correct position of the arms, and begin to experiment with how we can manipulate our arms to bring them towards the correct position. Featuring diagrams made by Jeando Masoero. I offer lessons in the Initial Alexander Technique, which are conducted one-on-one with a teacher over Zoom. They are designed to help you gain conscious control over how you move your body. Most people have no idea what they’re doing with their body, and as they misuse their body, they end up with discomfort, pain, and other issues that they may not even realize are caused by what they’re doing to themselves. But how do you figure out what you’re doing wrong? And how do you change what you're doing and overcome lifelong habits? In an Initial Alexander Technique lesson, you will record yourself through Zoom, so you will be able to see and understand what you are doing when you stand, sit, walk, and perform other simple gestures. With the assistance of your teacher, you will come to understand how you are misusing the mechanisms of your body, and you will gain the ability to choose to use yourself in a more sensible way. You can learn how to use your body without pain. You can break free from long held habits. All you need is a system that works. For more information or to book a lesson, please visit my website: mechanicsofpoise.com/ You can contact me at: [e-mail] "In order to secure the proper use of the arms and legs correct mental guidance and control are necessary. Such guidance and control should, of course, be conscious. Furthermore, this mental guidance and control must co-ordinate with a proper position and length of the spine and the accompanying correct muscular uses of the torso, if these limbs are to be controlled by that guidance and co-ordination which will command their accurate employment at all times within reasonable limits." F.M. Alexander

[@osenhordarazao3615]

Great

[@ravenoftheweek1137]

all this content is so clear and useful. Thanks. Why do you think FM didn't articulate this position of the arms explicitly in his later books and in training the teachers on his training course? Perhaps his opinion had shifted? Or perhaps he did articulate it but it wasn't clearly understood by those he trained? In other words, do you think this sentences you quote are part of his "initial" technique but not part of his later work, or was it fundamental to his work throughout his life? Photographic evidence of FM himself doesn't seem to me to help clarify the question, especially as I can't locate a picture of FM in true profile with his arms hanging down. Thanks.

[@ravenoftheweek1137]

closest I've found is a STAT copyright photo of FM and John Dewey standing smiling together -- nearly profile of FM. His arms there don't *seem* to reflect the position as described in his first book, but then again, it's just one frozen moment and so in that sense as evidence I give it very little weight. Anyway, perhaps the whole question is moot if what you are after is how he described his work initially, not how he developed and taught it later. (?)

[@delsartealexandermasoeroyo9147]

It’s a shame that in the picture Alexander used in Man’s Supreme Inheritance his hands are raised above his head. I of course wish I had a perfect 90 degree side picture of Alexander, but I don’t think one exists. I don’t think he abandoned this concept, it’s a very basic part of the problems he consistently mentions throughout his work. When the abdomen protrudes forward, the upper end of the ribcage and the shoulders go back: this leads to arms that are behind the body instead of being in front of them. If you look at images of Alexander and his students, particularly when they go into monkey or a deep squat, you can see that their back is back and their head and arms are forward. That might seem like a natural part of doing a squat, but you’ll find that most people cannot squat with their back line behind the back of their head and their arms ahead of their lower sternum. Most can’t even go into a small monkey and keep their head forward of their back line and arms ahead of the lower sternum That isn’t crystal clear evidence for optimal posture while standing, but I think it shows that the underlying concept is there. And you certainly do not see Alexander with his chest well ahead of his arms, which is what you will see in essentially every single example of so called good posture that’s out there today. As for why Alexander doesn’t explicitly mention these things elsewhere in his work, I think you have to consider that Alexander never gave much explicit information about optimal posture. He described poor posture many times, and we can reverse engineer what good posture should look like, but unlike Masoero, Alexander was never all that straightforward. As I said, i think he was afraid of people stealing his work, which is a shame, because that seems like a trifle in retrospect. Even what Alexander says about poor posture is open to interpretation to some extent, e.g. what exactly is a protruding abdomen? Alexander never gave a detailed model for us to use. I don’t say this begrudgingly, he gave us tons of good information that helps us. But whether it was simply his style or he wanted to keep his knowledge to himself, he did not give us a clear straightforward model. In my opinion, that’s what makes Masoero’s work so valuable. He doesn’t hide in vagueness, he has a very specific model. If people have disagreements with it, those discussions and debates can be had, and the model can be refined if it needs to be. Whereas I think a lot of people in the posture world don’t really have a good model or are unwilling to lay down a specific model because they know they couldn’t defend it. As a result there’s nothing to even debate or drive forward, there are just vague concepts that amount to nothing in the end.

[@ravenoftheweek1137]

@@delsartealexandermasoeroyo9147 Well, what you say about the clarity with which Masoero describes his positions regarding posture is true. He doesn’t hide behind vagueness. I think that’s great, and I appreciate that about him, and about your videos. Maybe you know more about Alexander’s motives than I do, but is it entirely fair to say he wasn’t straightforward? I always believed he didn’t describe specific postural positioning because he felt a primary obstacle to people understanding and using his technique was their detrimental desire to “get it right.” That is, the technique is a way to learn to respond to the stimuli of life with freedom of choice, without it causing you to unknowingly constrict or collapse, rather than a set of anatomical relationships, some of which were “right” and others “wrong.” But I don’t know. I still feel that photographs of FM and his students don’t suggest that their arms were in the relative position you describe. Surely he wasn’t worried about the students on his training course stealing his work. So did he just not teach them what he believed was right? It seems to me (a supposition only) that if FM wanted people’s arms to be positioned as you describe, he would have taught them that, and the fact that none of the people he trained and worked with for years had their arms positioned that way or taught it to others is worth weighing. Of course none of this is to suggest that it might not be the very best way for one’s arms to be. That claim I have no reason to question. I hope that’s clear. Regarding squatting, when you say “most people cannot squat…” etc., I’m not sure what pool of people you are drawing from. Most children under age 5 can. They are people. To me, it is worth noticing how their arms hang, when squatting and when standing. Maybe you don’t feel it is useful, and maybe you are right - we don’t stay children. Anyhow, many many people in cultures around the world still squat throughout their lives with ease. Most modern western people, you mean? Thanks for replying. I’m curious to understand Masoero’s work and how and why it is different from the Alexander Technique that FM taught during most of his life. I’m not an authority on any of this and I appreciate your willingness to entertain questions regarding the work.

[@delsartealexandermasoeroyo9147]

@@ravenoftheweek1137 I think there’s a lot of confusion around this idea of wanting to be “right.” I’ll likely make a video about it sometime soon. Alexander describes many times how doing the right thing will FEEL wrong. He says if you do not allow yourself to FEEL wrong, you will never do the right thing. This is because doing the correct thing feels totally different from what we’re used to, it literally feels wrong. If you don’t allow yourself to do something that feels strange and wrong, you will be preventing yourself from doing something new. Wanting to be right, for Alexander, means wanting to stick with your habits, wanting to feel the way you’re used to feeling. The idea that we should not attempt to be right in the sense that we should not attempt to understand our postural problems and make rational solutions to them is, I think, about as far from what Alexander believed as any idea could be. The foundation of his work is the idea that we can take conscious control over how we use our bodies. Conscious control requires reason and rationality. It requires that we recognize what we’re doing wrong and develop the appropriate strategies and skills needed to coordinate the correct movements. In my view, the most important part of Alexander’s work that has been lost is the use of directions. Alexander talks about using directions to guide yourself through gestures, but there is no AT teacher that I’m aware of (outside of Masoero) who makes explicit directions. AT teachers will maybe have one or two small directions for monkey, but outside of that they only use the broad, preventative directions of “let the neck be free to the let the head go forward and up, back to lengthen and widen…” Those aren’t directions, they are not actionable. Even they do not say that you want to DO these directions. What we need are the means whereby to make our neck free, we need directions that lead to us having our head forward and up when we’re standing, sitting, or going into monkey. The means whereby are our directions that we apply. For instance, we can widen the upper back by moving the tips of the elbows forward and down and pointing them outwards. Those are concrete directions that you can do that will lead to the result of a widened upper back. The “direction” to “widen and lengthen the back” does no such thing - it’s not a means to anything, it’s a description of the end result. It’s a preventative order, not a practically applicable direction. Without directions, I don’t see how the Alexander Technique could be a conscious system. The directions are what allow us to guide ourselves with something other than our feeling sense. You say that young children can squat with their head forward of their backline, but you will find that is not true. Children definitely do squat much more easily than adults and naturally do squat more frequently, but when children squat they are typically shortening their neck and back. The same is largely true for non-Westerners. Children and people who regularly squat around the world are certainly more flexible than most westerners, and since they squat more frequently, they are much more comfortable doing it. That is not the same thing as squatting without shortening the neck and back. If this is at all unclear, take a look at that famous picture of Alexander squatting in front of birdcage (I use it frequently, it’s analyzed at the end of my video on the legs called What F.M. Alexander Got Wrong). Where is his head in relation to the line of his back? I put two pictures of Alexander’s early students in monkey in this video. See where the back of their head is in relation to their backline. Then look at children and non-Westerners squatting. You will see children with the back of their heads back behind their backline. We could debate the significance of that difference, but the difference is unquestionably there. The idea that children have good use is something I once believed, but after looking it over for many years I now must agree with Masoero. Children do not have the same reservoir of harmful habits that adults do, so they are indeed more free and unburdened than adults. But they too shorten and narrow their bodies quite frequently - that is of course what leads to their problems as they get older. It’s not as if adolescence all of a sudden changes their use and ruins them. I don’t think children can be held up as an example of great use, even though they do have much weaker habits and therefore better use, comparatively, than most adults. As for why Alexander didn’t tell the teachers he trained this, I have three thoughts. One, I do think many of the teachers felt Alexander was not telling them everything. George Trevelyan decided not to teach the technique because he didn’t think he ever really understood it despite being trained by Alexander. Other teachers made similar comments that they thought Alexander was holding back. Secondly, what do you make of these passages from MSI? Why would Alexander say that the direction of the elbow was a test that never failed as a measure of imperfect muscular coordination if he didn’t believe such a thing? That’s not an offhand comment, that’s a very specific and significant claim. And lastly, as I’ve said, I do think the general idea is there in his work even if he did not directly tell people to move their arms forward. As I continue with this series, I will go into more detail of how this is not just an issue of the arms. Obviously, if you’re familiar with AT, you know the whole body is involved. The protrusion of the front of the body, the hollowing of the back, the retraction of the head: these are all things that are interrelated with the retraction of the arms. Even simply moving the lower ribs back (“back back” as Alexander said) and moving the head forward and up will tend to move the arms forward and reduce their undue retraction. Alexander wouldn’t need to tell people specifically how the work would affect their arms because really we are not just trying to affect the arms, this involves the whole body. And as I said, I don't think you see Alexander with his chest well in front of his arms as is common in essentially every picture of so called good posture out there. I appreciate the comments. Just curious, are you more skeptical of the idea that the arms should be forward of the lungs, or that the elbow should point out with the back of the hand forward? Or both?

[@cinmac3]

Did you ever get an answer? i wish listening to you in. constructive rest, would help my bodily tensions. Do you have videos on chest ,rib, waist, that seems to be a contribution to my protruding belly. it seem f ok r me to be a fact as menopause and osteoporosis, i now seem to have less space between my chest and abdomen. ( that is the way it feels anyway)

[@michiganhay7844]

When and where are there any examples of people carrying their arms and hands in that position that you show in your later corrected photo on the right? It, in no way looks like any sort of passive natural posture that any human would normally do.

[@delsartealexandermasoeroyo9147]

Before you focus on the arms, look at the condition of the torso. In the picture on the right you will see a torso that in no way looks like any sort of passive natural posture that any human normally does. Yet to your eye, you saw it as an improvement of “APT.” That’s not how I would describe the overall change, but I understand why you’d phrase it like that. I could only show you a handful of pictures that show someone with a torso similar to mine in that picture. And if you look at pictures where people claim to have fixed someone's “APT” their torso will not look mine. What’s interesting to me is that I don’t think you would or do have an issue with the condition of the torso. I’m perhaps making a bit of an assumption here, but it sounds like you see the change in the torso as positive. So why do you have a problem with the unusual, atypical relative position of the arms but not the unusual, atypical relative position of the parts of the torso? The obvious answer is that the arms are much more noticeable. From the front you would not actually notice anything odd, but from the side the arms looks massively different from what you are used to seeing. You really can’t have your arms hanging vertically as I show in the picture without correcting your torso. To reiterate, the pictures of me are not perfect, the outward pointing tips of the elbows are not the issue though. I wouldn’t focus on the hands, I’m exaggerating the extension of the wrist in this particular picture - as many people will need to exaggerate that extension at first to their combat habitual flexing of the wrists. As I say in the video, the idea of pointing the tips of the elbows out with the thumb side of the hand pointing in comes from F.M. Alexander, who said it was unfailing test of muscular coordination. The reason we want the tips of the elbows to point out is because it’s an indication of what’s happening in the shoulder blades (and really the whole arm and torso). We want to widen the shoulder blades, but when we point the tips of our elbows back (and that is what most people do) we are shortening the muscles of the arms and narrowing the shoulder blades. I certainly understand why the arms in that picture look unnatural to you. I didn’t get there in a day, I had to overcome deeply held habits of movement in my torso to stand this way. If you think about the armpit in particular when comparing the arms, you can imagine what a massive altering of the tissues had to occur in the armpit area. But really it’s the reorientation of the ribcage that changes the natural, “passive” condition of the arms. It’s also worth considering whether it’s correct or “natural” to have your arms perpetually bent. Look up images of so called good posture. Try to find one where the person doesn’t have their arms bent (look at their torsos while you’re at it and see if you notice any "APT" or protruding abdomens in those with “good posture”). Why would the arms be bent? Shouldn’t they hang with gravity? Wouldn’t you need to apply effort to maintain your arm bent against gravity? Nearly everyone in modern civilization has habitually shortened and narrowed their body for two, three, five plus decades straight. There is a result of that shortening and narrowing. Part of that is the enormous retraction of the arms which leaves them bent. Undoing that retraction will bring your arms to an entirely new spot, in an entirely new orientation. Jeando Masoero posted some videos on youtube years ago that show him performing some simple and some more complex gestures. If you want to see someone else showing the elbows out posture, you can look those up - the channel is just his name.

[@michiganhay7844]

@@delsartealexandermasoeroyo9147 correct I don’t have a problem with the torso however the upper thoracic spine might lack a little bit of needed curvature, but the sternum and abdomen look natural. As far as I can tell, however, still would like to see a little bit more proof and collaboration about the hypothesis of carrying your shoulders and rotating your arms that way how would we know or not? If that is going to have undo wear and tear on the rotator cuff also, you were showing just still photos and not seeing this practically implemented into movement and jobs and work. Still somewhat skeptical on this as not a lot of collaborative besides FML Alexander in a few other people just like some more assurances however, thank you for the long, thoughtful explanation.

[@delsartealexandermasoeroyo9147]

@@michiganhay7844 An interesting experiment you can conduct with yourself or another person is to, while sitting, lean forward with the torso so that your sternum is over your ankles. Make sure your arms are hanging at your sides when you do it. I have seen many people do this while giving lessons and nearly all of them will keep their arms back as they lean forward. That’s strange because you’d think that people would let their arms fall too far forward when leaned in such a manner. This pose should force your arms forward, you’d have to fight gravity to not let the arms go forward during this leaning gesture. But because people habitually shorten the muscles of their arms, they do not let their arms hang with gravity - virtually ever. Instead they subconsciously put a muscular effort into retracting their arms. So even when they lean their whole body forward, their arms trail behind. If I gently remind them of this after they've leaned, they will immediately allow their arms to come forward. They are perfectly capable, but their habits cause them to constantly retract their arms unless they consciously decide not to. Saying how the parts of the body should be positioned relative to each other is actually an extremely hard thing to determine conclusively. Your skepticism is natural and reasonable. I can say in my experience trying to apply this work for a couple summers doing landscaping, I found that keeping the tips of the elbows pointed out and forward of the frontal plane of the body makes pushing a wheelbarrow or carrying something heavy more manageable. But it’s interesting because my first reaction was typically to pull my elbows in in order to deal with a heavy weight, and that seemed like the obvious way to deal with more weight. Clearly I subconsciously believed that pulling the elbows back and in (and in many circumstances up) was helping me, but if I gave myself the orders to point the tips of the elbows out, I found that was actually much more helpful. So why had I been pulling my elbows back and in? There wasn’t a reason, it was just habitual. However, because going against your habits will often feel strange and uneasy at first, I can’t say that will be everyone’s immediate experience. You shouldn’t just take my word for it though, and I would never ask someone to believe me just based on my experience. I encourage you to experiment with the idea though and see what you find. The next time you carry something heavy, see if your initial reaction is to pull the tips of the elbows back and in. See if you can point the tips of the elbows out and bring them forward of the frontal plane as you carry the object. Doing things differently should feel strange, but you may also find that going back to pulling the elbows back seems wrong by comparison. And in terms of seeing this posture in action, as I said you can see it in Masoero’s video. I don’t demonstrate a ton on here, but in every demonstration where I’ve shown parts of sitting, you can look at the arms. I might not be perfect, but maintaining the arms forward when leaning and going into sitting is not simple (as you might see if you do the first experiment I mentioned in this comment). Lastly, consider the relative positions of the front of the ribcage and the arms. When the arms, head, and upper ribcage go back, something has to go forward to compensate. What ends up going forward is the lower end of the ribcage, the abdomen, and the front of the pelvis (forming what's called "APT). Take a look at the bodies of those lifting things with their elbows back and in, you'll see the midsection protruding forward, without fail.

[@v.r.2834]

Yes, and that “better posture” looks really ridiculous 😂

[@AJ-mi2zc]

Doesn't the hand position look too odd and unnatural if we place like that?

[@delsartealexandermasoeroyo9147]

Since we are used to seeing people in a posture where they’re shortened and narrowed, good posture certainly can appear odd and almost intimidating or something. But by the same token, if you actually observe any average person from the side, you will see that their posture looks quite odd as well (most people are leaning very much and have bent arms). Part of what may look odd is just due to looking at the pictures of people from side. The differences are in some ways less noticeable from head on. As far as the position of the hands, in this video we’re mainly looking at having the palms face back and thumbs point in. I don’t think that looks odd, but maybe you can clarify. Keeping the hands in extension does look odd compared to what we’re used to seeing, like the person is too alert or something. But I think it’s to be expected that good posture will not look as relaxed as the common habitual posture, since the common habitual posture involves a lot of overly relaxed muscles and limp fascia. By comparison good posture must look tighter, more engaged, and less “relaxed.”

[@Lipbeat]

I've been scanning some tribal videos like this one: kzbin.info/www/bejne/amG1l4R5ZciYfcU and i'm wondering why exactly those tribal people have postures very similar to people nowadays. Their arms are still on the side of their rib cages and definitely not in front of them.

[@moharj]

You cannot immagen how wrong you are.

[@delsartealexandermasoeroyo9147]

Feel free to elaborate. I'm always interested to hear opposing ideas and arguments.

[@moharj]

If telling someone to do the right thing was working you wouldn't have income...

[@delsartealexandermasoeroyo9147]

@@moharj There are several billion people that need help with their posture. I’m not afraid of being so effective that I run out of people to help. I would love it if no one needed help because they already had great posture. That would be ideal, but that’s not the case. You’re right that telling someone to do the right thing is not the solution. You need to tell them how to do the right thing, then you need them to use visual feedback to hone their skill at coordinating the movements involved in doing the right thing. And in order to communicate with them on what the right thing is, you have to have a conceptual system that maps to reality, so it’s definitely a more complex problem than just “telling someone to do the right thing.” I appreciate the skepticism, but I would prefer you apply it to the numerous explicit arguments I’ve made and that I’ve tried to support with evidence instead of insinuating that I’m lying to make money. I think I have a much better shot at making money by helping people and giving out the correct information. But money is not my motivation. The reason I care about posture is that I think it’s the most serious problem in the world. Every single thing that we do, we do with our bodies. When most people are stuck in painful and anxious postures that are out of their control, not only are health problems inevitable - both “physical” and “mental”, but significant problems in society at large are inevitable. And since these habitual postural problems are out of people’s control, people can’t even begin to address them without meaningful intervention to get past their ”blinders” so to speak. That makes it a hard problem for people to even see, let alone understand. F.M. Alexander intervened on himself to change his posture, but only after years of not understanding his health problems. And how did he do it? How did he see what was there all along? With visual feedback using a mirror. That’s how he got the blinders off. We use video now, but it’s the exact same principle.