Thursday 23 May 2013

Please may I share something very important to me...?

I have a real desire for people to feel more comfortable, and the strength of feeling I have tonight had me think that I would further share how I felt before I came to the Alexander Technique back in 1980. This is my story shared with love in order to assist others. It dawned on me today that, having been in this work for over 30 years now, no one I know now has any idea how much it helped me. One of the main reasons anyone takes a look at anything in life is because they see a friend enjoy, gain from, change, feel better - they see the comparisons and how well something worked, and yet there is no comparison in me as this is how I have been for so long. Many think this is just how I have always been, and maybe that is why they are in pain and I am not, and that's just not right.

I imagine that if I - and I sincerely hope I won't - were to show up tomorrow as I was in early 1980, people might get a real shock! The comparison would reveal a great deal.  I had woken up one morning after a dance class and found my body had 'gone wrong', seemingly overnight. My head was on one side - my right ear considerably nearer my right shoulder than the left side - and my face screwed up to the right, looking every inch the pain I felt in my head. My jaw was moved over to the left and my teeth didn't meet - I had malocclusion of the jaw. I had no idea that my body and I were connected; I thought my body had done this all on its own and the only way out was through medical intervention. Added to the 'acute' symptoms was my chronic posture - my hips were slung forwards - my pelvis being carried before me as if I was still pregnant. This over-arched my lower back and when I lay down on the floor with my knees bent up, I could put my whole hand, thumb upwards and little finger down, right under my lower back with inches to spare. (A happy back touches the floor when we lie in this 'semi-supine' position.) My feet were flat, my knees sore and braced back, my shoulders had screamed with a constant burning pain for a couple of years, and my neck was always nothing short of agony up the right-hand-side. The pain shot into my head and yet the 8 paracetamol a day  didn't do much, and the endless visits to an osteopath only gave a few days' relief each time. But almost worst than all this was the sense of 'spaciness'... It was as if I was living in a bag of bits that didn't connect in any way. I couldn't think straight. I felt hugely vulnerable - after all, the basic instinct of 'flight or fight' was severely compromised; I could barely walk so it felt as if I was going to suffer badly at the hands of a bear or lion when I needed to react quickly.... My head was full of fog, and yet my anxiety levels were sky-high. I would frequently feel nauseous and 'get the shakes' as, I imagine, my body just released the excess tension off the top before I 'exploded'. And yet I felt depressed as my body was so depressed and shortened - I had no energy and great pain so that felt pretty depressing. I couldn't sleep well with the pain, and was 'tired all the time'. I have - somewhere as yet to be unearthed - my passport of that time, and I know you can see my face (all lop-sided), but no neck at all; it having drooped down on my chest like baby-food sliding down a plastic bib. This rendered my spine completely unable to rotate as I turned my head - or couldn't turn my head any more. And the compression in the vertebrae from this 'position', from this now familiar habitual way of holding my head, was creating merry-hell in there. The rest of my body was doing its best to compensate, but by using parts of it that are designed for other purposes, so the result didn't help at all, in fact, made things worse day by day. My head weighing around 12-14lbs (like everyone's) had become about 4 times heavier on my spine due to where I was 'carrying it', way off the top where it had no support from the torso beneath - no wonder my shoulders screamed with pain. Basically, despite the sense of acute tension, I had 'fallen apart'. This 'dis-integration' was leading to the scary sense of vulnerability and fogginess; the body just knew it was in a bad way and was almost closing down to protect both itself and me. (I know we are one, body and mind, but in this instance, that is what it felt like.)

When I went for lessons in the Alexander Technique, my teacher used gentle but wise hands to invite my body to still, to cease the inner panic. She gently guided my body into balance, re-stimulating the postural reflexes so the body could begin to 'come together again', so begin to support itself as it is designed to do. As I let go, it could 'take up', and as I let go some more, it took on its mantle of happy work even more. Its natural lightness restored, I felt a new person! Alongside all this was the verbal tuition from my teacher - lots of eye-opening guidance as to the twisted way I was doing everything and what I could allow instead...and the experiencing of freedom as she moved me around, maintaining the flow with her hands. It was the small 'unhelpful' movements I was doing in each moment - just one of these was taking my mouth to the fork instead of the fork to my mouth - go on, watch people eat! Little things over and over that wreck your neck which in turn upsets the whole body. It was obvious when it was pointed out, and so easy with her hands guiding me, but feeling so different, it felt a bit 'wrong' and I wouldn't have done it on my own. But a strangely 'right wrong'; one that worked! I had no pain! And gradually my old way of moving gave way (literally) to the new one. No, I couldn't have done this from a book, I had to have the teacher to give me the actual experience, and I am so glad I did. Within 6 lessons, I knew everything was going to be ok, and my life changed immeasurably.

Now days I am seen as someone who 'holds themselves well' - and I smile even as I say thank you (if it's not the place to explain), because of course that is exactly what I am not doing any more! Many people say I have 'such a straight back' and it is dawning on me that they think I am 'just a good girl', and have no idea that all I learned, and all I received at the gentle-but-wise hands of my Alexander teachers, is what has me simply sitting, easy and comfortable, balanced with all the parts of my body 'stacked' as they are designed to be in any body, especially the head at the top. I am not trying at all, I am not 'holding', I am not 'doing good posture, I am not 'sitting up properly' - I am simply Here, or There. depending on where I'm being seen from. It's the same when I stand - feeling sad when I stand amongst people who say, "Oooh, I can't stand for long", and yet they just don't 'get' that things can be different for them, as they were for me back in 1980 when I began my lessons.

So I thought I would share with you how although this is me you see, it isn't the me that you would have seen 30 years ago. 30 years ago you would have been saying the same things to me as you say to many of your friends and loved ones.... "Oh, poor you, isn't there anything they can do for you?" "What does the doctor say?" "You need to see an x, y, or z, and be healed, or learn how to save your back - we're meant to be on all fours, you know..." (Which is rubbish I might add!) And then, when I went for my lessons and began to look so much better, then positively happy, then slimmer, I began to get the "Have you had a holiday or something?" questions. Lots of those! (I hadn't, but I looked as if I had.) Then I was playing sport again, dancing again, not taking pain-killers and tranquillisers any more... And people said, "Wow! What is this thing called the Alexander Technique!?" And I trained as a teacher of same, and have taught for 30 years now. And I feel sad that people haven't had the chance to see the difference it has made to me in order to see it as something to consider for themselves and others. Maybe looking at me simply suggests that 'I do posture'. Maybe not hearing me talk of pain or restriction suggests I'm 'just lucky' and never had any problems. (Actually I sometimes do; I am human and get 'tweaks' - we all do - but with the knowledge this work gives me, it's not the problem it might be otherwise.) Maybe people think I am working incredibly hard at 'looking right' and they have no intention of working that hard, 'nice as it looks and much as they know they should'. Maybe they think it's all about holding positions - and surely that would hurt and be exhausting? 'I've tried copying and I can't hold it'.... 

Oh, if I could share with you how much I understand those thoughts, I really do; I do remember 30 years ago very well. But more than anything I wish I could share with you how those things above are not what's happening at all, so that you might really want to experience it for your self - just a moment of what it feels like to be light, balanced, easy, the 'it just feels so right' of balance and integration during a lesson. And to help you see that it's called 'a lesson' because we Alexander teachers don't want to 'heal you in some mysterious fashion, having you dependent on us' - we'd be 'therapists' if we wanted that. No, we teach because we want you to understand the process, the 'technique', and how to live it in your life so that you might know how to have it assist you in every moment of every day - if you so choose. I love to have long-standing students, but at best I am teaching myself out of a job as I teach you into conscious, appropriate use of your body, your whole self. Having experienced the benefits, believe me, you begin to want to play with it, use it, be curious about it. Like toothpaste, once you start living with clean teeth, you want to keep using it! The real question is, do you really want to live without your pain, or stiffness, or anxiety, or fatigue? If you do, please take a look at the possibilities this work offers you; it is For You. Not for me; I already have it, and I teach because I want to share it with as many people as I can. I want to see more people happy in their body and fewer in such a place of restriction and unhappiness. Plus, if there was another teacher working near me, I would have a lesson myself as often as possible; it feels so wonderful and, like anything, a brush-up always does us the power of good. I am still learning too - we all go on learning from cradle to grave, if we're wise. 

Thank you for 'listening'. As I said at the beginning, this is my story shared with love in order to assist others. Please go share this blog with anyone you know who is in pain? If you love them it's worth a go for them, isn't it? They can always say no, but you might be giving them the best tip they will have ever had in their 'pain world'. This work is still too widely unknown and misunderstood, despite all the scientific and medical endorsements, and I want to be part of changing that. I cannot tell you how glad I am that my aunt told me about the Alexander Technique back in 1980; I would have had the operation to fuse my spine, and through my habitual way of holding myself getting worse and worse, be in goodness only knows what state by now - one of those millions who think that pain is all there is, the only option to 'getting older' or being human, and living a life of pain-killers, but it simply doesn't have to be true. Take a look; you've nothing to lose and everything to gain.  

There are taster courses coming up, one day workshops, five day intensives, and the regular individual lessons.... www.thebodywonderful.com - diary page.

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