Welcome to lecture four. In this lecture, we're going to talk about innovation. Alexander's definition and term of innovation. So what is innovation? Well, it's nothing to do with the Friday in term of innovation, where you suppress emotions. I'll read you a description of innovation by a scientist, an Alexander Technique teacher called Frank Pierce Jones.
Inhibition is the conscious avoidance of response patterns which interfere with the automatic functioning of the primary control. So, if you remember back to the first lecture in primary control the relationship of the head to the spine inhibition is when you stop interfering with the optimal relationship of the head to the spine, in any activity. I also have a description here by Alexander inhibition. My technique is based on inhibition, the inhibition of undesirable unwanted responses to stimuli. And hence, it is primarily a technique for the development of the control of human reaction. So, that's a description of inhibition by Alexander.
An everyday example we could use could be the telephone or somebody knocking on your door. When you receive the stimulus, most people will tighten the neck and try and go to the phone or try and go to the door as quickly as possible. And they're unconscious of this reaction. So when you hear the the telephone ringing, or let's say someone knocking on your door, the first thing you notice is, notice the tension in your neck. Notice how you tend to your neck, you, you tend to the body, and then you you move And most people aren't aware of this reaction. Alexander found when he was working with his pupils that his students were very subtly triggering the fear reflex.
Most of the day, the fear reflex is when the head goes back and the shoulders come up like this. If I shoot a gun, my head will go back automatically my shoulders will come up. It's an automatic reflex that's in the body. So, Alexander found when you inhibit the tendency to for this to trigger, you can improve your total coordination. So, just to recap, inhibition is when you stop interfering and become conscious of the optimal relationship between the head and the spine in activity