Today I had yet another reason to be grateful for all I have learned from the Alexander Technique. Over the years I have (of course; I am human) experienced episodes of discomfort and pain. Sometimes I have slept wrong and had one of those 24 hour stiff necks, sometimes I’ve had an injury, and sometimes, like recently, just episodes of pain and/or stiffness. The one I am sharing about now has been a couple weeks or so of sore feet - mostly the right foot - and ankles. They have hurt when I have tried to stretch in the ‘pointing my toes’ way, the left Achilles tendon has been very tender to the touch, and moving about has had me feel I’ve added a decade to the age of my feet.
So, I am guessing that in a life without the Alexander Technique, I would have gone to the doctor and most likely been gifted a label or three; “It’s probably arthritis. And/or your age. Take paracetamol and do these exercises/put your feet up and rest.” And I might well have walked around forever, saying, “I can’t do that; I have arthritis. Plus I’m just getting old.” And it simply isn’t true in this case, and in many other cases with millions of people. It may be so that an x-ray might show arthritic change in my ankles, and why would it not after a half century of sports, running, and dancing? The bones have undoubtedly responded to the muscles’ actions by building up an increase in bony tissue at the attachment point of those muscles. But these changes in bone shape do not mean there has to be itis....actual inflammation within the joint causing pain. No, in this case, as in most cases, what had happened is that, for some reason, I had started to walk with ‘poor use’ - awkwardly, stiffly - and this was causing further compensation and stiffness with associated pain.
I was shopping today - catching up on stocking the larder after a week away in London. And the bottom 6 inches of me was letting me know about it with the sensations of a (perceived) 90 year old - stiff and pretty sore. And I am not used to that and it was time to find out what it was about! So much so that, for the first time ever, I felt no urge to go to a Cornish dance tonight - and that really is a first! So, I turned my attention deeply to my walk.... And very quickly I made a simple discovery. As I walked, I was lifting my feet off the ground as soon as my heel was just one inch off the ground.... I was ‘toddling’ rather than walking! Subtle, but damaging. It is so easy to get used to narrowing our full width and range of movement when there is fatigue, stiffness or pain, and as I often teach, when there are any of these present, I suggest we say ‘No’ to anything other than ‘normal’ movement.... Allow as near normal movement as possible.... Ask if the ‘limp’ or ‘restriction’ is actually helping any? And if it isn’t (as is mostly the case for any of us at any time), drop it and return to normal movement, even if gentle and cautious. Slow good use/ ‘normal’ movement is always preferable to fast limping! (And when I say ‘good use’, I am meaning balanced, even, open, long, free, light, upright movement. That 'good use' we were born with, and which the teaching from an Alexander teacher can help restore.)
So, tonight I immediately I found myself enjoying the fruits of my own teaching - yes, we teach what we most need to learn, over and over and over! When I got home to my wonderful spacious room, I played with walking - not trying to get it ‘right’, not in a worried, fretful way, but played....mostly with plain old awareness - not doing anything at all until I was aware of what I was actually doing in walking rather than what I thought I was doing. (The reflection in the windows was helpful, too) And when I saw and sensed what I was doing, I stopped doing it - that’s all.
It was more obvious than obvious as soon as I looked for what I had begun to do; there was a ‘toddle’ going on! And yet as soon as I allowed my feet and ankles to enjoy their full range of movement as I walked, not only did the stiffness disappear, but each step felt like a soothing massage. There was no discomfort, no stiffness, and all was well.
I checked the heels as I walked this way - you remember I said the heel was only getting to about one inch off the ground before I lifted the whole foot? Now, as I walked openly and freely, allowing the whole foot to enjoy whole movement and the whole leg to enjoy the same, the heel reached its optimum height of perhaps 8 inches off the ground (the length of my foot) before the foot simply wasn’t attached to the ground anymore.... And the foot left the floor perpendicular to the ground, rather than parallel to it, as it will in all of us if we simply lift it off too early during walking. In percentage terms of flexibility, the ‘old’ way used about 20%, and the ‘new’, returned to good use way, 100%. And if you don’t use something, you lose it - and my not using the whole foot created the loss of free movement. And the opposite of free movement is stiff movement. And if you fix and hold something against its will - i.e. stiffen it - it will give you a message, and the body’s ‘voice’ is pain. Nothing more complicated than that - not necessarily arthritis, not permanent, not old age, not an injury, and most certainly no longer a ‘mystery’.
Note I said, ‘if you fix and hold something against its will’? I hadn’t been ‘suffering from’ stiff ankles and feet, I was stiff ankles and feet! They belong to me; no one else moves them for me, and I had fixed them and they had told me so! The only thing I hadn’t done? Looked more deeply sooner! Yet the bonus of this ‘delay’ is always in all that I learn, in all I gain and can then offer. And the offering is the teaching that shows others how to know what’s going on in their ‘earth suits’, what they are doing that might well be leading to pain and stiffness - but never in a judgmental and critical way, just in the way of playful, curious investigation.
Maybe my fortnight or so of discomfort was exacerbated by the (miles of - who says we ‘country-folk’ walk more than ‘townies? Not so!) long pavement walks due to broken down cars, and shopping trips, and lovely concert outings. Maybe, having been feeling a sense of 'not quite knowing where to go next' had created something that Louise Hay's book "You Can Heal Your Life" counters with "I move forward easily in life". (Except I clearly wasn't, and who can without an awareness of where they are holding. And affirmations don't tell you that.) But I don’t mind either way; I don’t need to label or blame my body because I carry the ‘technique’ of awareness and knowledge of what to do about what I find. I am ‘at the wheel’ of my own body. And I am so, so glad I am - so, so glad I met this work and have it in my life.
I am sure the mile-long walk on Monday evening after my car had broken down didn’t help; ‘well fitting’ (tighter than I’m used to!) smart boots, freezing temperatures, and ‘posh’ clothing did nothing for open, easy, walking - it was a shoulders to the ears, rushing-whilst-bent-double-against-the-icy-wind-whilst-holding-clothing-tight-around-the-body walk that night! (And my shoulders and ears haven’t met for about 30 years, and the resulting shoulder-top soreness for two days was an unwelcome guest - what a shame that so many people live with it every day, and when it isn’t even cold?!)
‘Should’ I have had such good use as a teacher that this hadn’t happened? Perhaps so, but I don’t think it matters half as much as I once would have thought; I am human, not a machine. And machines don't make effective teachers. I respond to life, things happen and the fluidity of being human can get caught up in me just as in everyone else, just much less so now. I think this ‘foot episode’ started after an evening of six hours’ constant dancing - again nothing sinister happened, just fatigue and a lack of awareness on my part. It’s what we do in the time of recovery that matters - the compensations and restrictions that visit and forget to leave - and I put my hand up to having clearly been 'on walkabout' during that time! And my dear body reminded me until I listened. I teach this work and yet still took a bit more time than is necessary to see it and clear it away. How much easier it is to go and visit a teacher to make these discoveries! As Pooh Bear said, “Everything’s easier with two!” Especially as what you learn stays with you so that, in the future, you might be walking down the street and suddenly say to yourself, “What on earth am I doing with my (e.g.) right leg? When did I start doing that and why haven't I seen it before? No wonder my knee has been hurting!” And you know how to release it, allow the changes, and all becomes well and full of ease again. I know I have been on this journey time and time again, and I have no fear of going on it again in the future - I’m blessed with knowing that none of these discoveries ever go to waste.
Love it. So true
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