What Not to Do

"The fundamental difference between this approach (FMA Technique) and others lies in the actual manner of 'doing'. Here you are not attempting find out what is the right thing to do, and then seeing to it that you get it right. You are seeking to identify what not to do, what mistakes to avoid, what must on no account occur if it can possibly be prevented. So the whole focus of attention, as you perform any action, is on seeing that the wrong thing does not happen. This is instead of trying to make something happen that you conceive to be right. (Such an approach really excluded the possibility of usefully performing exercises.) Alexander always used to insist that, with the proper exercise of conscious guidance and control, 'the right thing does itself'."
(Walter Carrington, The Potent Self - Review, first published in The Alexander Review, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1986)

Was nicht zu tun ist, welche Fehler zu vermeiden sind, was - wenn es denn zu verhindern ist - unter keinen Umständen geschehen sollte, darauf richtet sich das Augenmerk in der Alexander-Technik. Das Richtige, so Alexander, geschehe dann von selbst.