This paper is devoted to investigating direct adaptive neural control of nonlinear systems with uncertain or unknown dynamic models. In the direct adaptive neural networks control area, theoretical issues of the existing backpropagation-based adaptive neural networks control schemes. The major contribution is proposing the variable index control approach, which is of great significance in the control field, and applying it to derive new stable robust adaptive neural network control schemes. This new schemes possess inherent robustness to system model uncertainty, which is not required to satisfy any matching condition. To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed leaning algorithms and direct adaptive neural networks control schemes, intensive computer simulations were conducted based on the flexible joint robot systems and functions.