"if the figure is zeroed out, the ik can bend it any way it wants" That's kind of what I'm talking about. It seems to me that even if I set up a figure to be slightly bent in my "preferred mode", it still twists in whatever direction it wants to and there doesn't seem to be an easy way to get the connecting joints to go where I'd like them to be (typically a natural looking position). As you've probably experienced, turning IK on and off can be really risky and totally mess up a file. So... I was simply wondering if there's a way to get IK to honor/respect limits and actually move in a preferred sequence instead of twisting all over.:-/ I'm just starting to learn about ERC and it seems that some of what it offers could potentially help with Poser specific IK issues. pixelslave