Well, yes, the question of how long we can keep our attention going is a big one. Rather than attention, though, I was emphasising perception. Also, what I was proposing does not involve thinking of our head and body at all.

This needn’t mean not being aware of the body, though. If I run a mile, or if I’m scared (out of my mind), or if I laugh uncontrollably, I’m far more aware of my body than when sitting typing, waiting in a queue, or just ambling about. This is the result of where I am and what I am doing rather than of my attention being deliberately placed.

To set out to change anything, deliberation is obviously necessary. It strikes me, though, that if there is a way we could approach whatever we do that would automatically put us in touch with ourselves (much as action or fear does) as well as reorganizing our use, it might be worth pursuing.

This would take away any sense of having to ‘pay attention’ to ourselves – with all the attendant concerns as to how much attention is enough or too much.

To me, there is a major difference between placing our attention on our neck, head and back, with the intention for a certain relationship to be maintained there, while we get on with whatever we’re doing; and opening ourselves up to the world in such a way that that neck, head and back relationship occurs automatically.

By ‘opening ourselves up to’ I mean ‘stopping interfering with our perception of’. We interfere in any number of ways; and the reason for my original post was my concern that one of these ways might be our search for, and reliance on, a more accurate bodymap.

What I’m suggesting is that optimal perception engenders good use; but that most of the time this process is interfered with, resulting in poor use. It strikes me that paying attention, as in traditional Alexander work, to improving that poor use, by addressing it (the neck, head and back relationship) rather than its cause, leaves the impetus for its continuation unchecked.

That’s my major gripe: we continue creating the conditions for poor use, while attempting to stop its manifestation.

What ‘optimal perception’ is, remains an open question; but I suspect we’ve all experienced it at various times in our lives.