Curiosity: Gateway to Primary Control

Noticing a place of relative ease in your body is a deceptively simple act with profound implications for the function of the Primary Control. Doing so taps directly into the nervous system's inherent ability to reorganize itself around safety, coordination, and non-interference.

Here's how it works:

When you notice ease—say, in your hands or the space behind your eyes—you're redirecting attention away from habitual tension patterns. This shift allows the neck to release, the head to balance more freely, and the spinal reflexes to function naturally. That's the Primary Control's influence at work.

Strong but, in a sense, yielding, Primary Control isn't something you do—it's something you have to allow to happen. When you notice ease, in a soft, indirect way, you're practicing inhibition. You're stepping out of the way (doing), so that your innate coordination can reassert itself (allowing).

This action and its effects quietly support the parasympathetic nervous system, especially via the vagus nerve, which travels through the neck. A subtle feeling of safety promotes neck freedom, head poise, and softens the whole system. The more you notice ease, the more the Primary Control can function without interference.

By bringing awareness to ease, you improve interoceptive and proprioceptive accuracy. Many people over-focus on areas of discomfort, reinforcing distorted sensory feedback. Sensing ease gives the brain new, reliable input, helping it recalibrate your sense of uprightness and coordination—essential for healthy Primary Control.

The Primary Control's function is global. But noticing local ease (even just a finger or the breath) acts like a doorway to the whole. When one part eases, the entire system can reorganize around that ease. This is a principle of tensegrity—change one strand, and the entire structure shifts.

Most people unconsciously interfere with the Primary Control through unnecessary "doing," trying, and Endgaining. Noticing ease invites a non-endgaining, curious attitude. You become the observer and facilitator, not the fixer—just as Alexander advocated when he stopped "trying" and began experimenting.

In essence, noticing places of relative ease is a gateway into Primary Control. It's a gentle but radical act that interrupts interference, invites reorganization, and lets the natural intelligence of the nervous system—and the foundational head–neck–torso relationship—do what it's designed to do: coordinate you effortlessly, fluidly, and in harmony with your whole self.