Need Help With Avatar Gesture Animations

I seem to be missing some basic issue regarding scripting animation gestures.

I want to be able to set things up for my Avatar so that I can issue some simple command in Chat or by some other means, so I can trigger my Avatar doing simple animations, such as kneeling in place and being able to stand up again.

I found where to define gestures, and I tried assigning /kneel so it would apply the free 'basic kneeling pose' animation to my character wherever she happened to be at that moment. It kinda worked, but for some reason the character turns around 180 degrees before she kneels, and then there is no 'stand up' button to release her from the pose. So instead of kneeling facing a low table, as I wanted to, I end up facing away from the table. And I have to open the window that I use for editing gestures to tell it to stop doing the pose...

Help??

How do I tell the gesture script which way the pose should be facing?

Can I script it in some way so that there is a 'release' command, like "/kneel stop", to stand up again?

I know how to do pretty much the same thing with a pose ball attached to a cushion, so I could toss a cushion on the floor and then sit on the cushion in order to kneel. And I have seen bracelets and other attachments that let you dance or do other animations on command. But I would like to simply be able to kneel where I happen to be (or do other actions), without a prop.

As background, I am an experienced programmer, and I know enough about LSL to create basic pose balls and set them up with animations that someone else has made. I have collected a fair library of animations and of basic starter scripts. But I am still new at setting up gestures or most scripting tasks.

Define a stop kneeling gesture, just like you defined the kneel gesture, but to stop the anim rather than start it obviously.

I'm not sure why you're turning around, do you turn round if you play the anim direct from your inventory, it's most likely that which is causing it. If not there are plenty of other kneel anims out there, try with one of them?

Gestures aren't really scripting, you can also make scripted anim players, like collars and the like, that's a PERMISSION_TRIGGER_ANIMATION call in an attach event, and then a listen for the anim names. Try hunting them up on the wiki...