What is the Alexander Technique?

In India, sadhus (ascetic students of yoga) sometimes practice austerities, committing themselves to difficult, long-term observances.  One example is hand raising.  A devoted sadhu may decide to raise his hand and never lower it.  We in the West look at a practice like hand raising and wonder how a person could do that.  We would never choose to deliberately contort our bodies for years at a time.

But in fact, like the hand-raising sadhus, we do practice bodily austerities.  The difference between us and the sadhus is that they consciously choose to practice mindfully.  But we develop our bodily contortions unconsciously, mindlessly, seldom realizing what we are doing to ourselves.

As young children, we are taught to sit still for long periods of time, often in chairs or desks that don't quite fit our growing bodies.  We learn to focus our minds and ignore bodily sensations.  At home, we learn how to slump on the sofa and watch TV or play video games, remaining out of touch with our bodies as we lose ourselves in the sounds and images.  We learn how to deal with tension and unwanted emotions by holding them in our bodies.  We graduate and take jobs that demand continual repetition of bodily movements, maybe on an assembly line, maybe at a desk.  If we have a career devoted to abstract mental tasks, we sit for hours at a time in poorly designed office furniture, working with our minds and ignoring our bodies. 

In our 20s and into our 30s, our youthful bodies can adapt remarkably well.  Somewhere in our late 30s, however, our bodies most likely begin to try to get our attention--a little twinge here, a small ache there.  By the time we're in our 40s, after a couple decades practicing the Western equivalent of hand-raising, our bodies raise the volume of their protests.  The aches and pains are more intense and last longer.  We might have a sleepless night once in awhile or miss a day of work now and then.  Pain relievers and sleep aids begin appearing in our medicine cabinets.  A chiropracter or massage therapist might find a place in our address books.

And then one day, our bodies finally demand our undivided and complete attention.  The pain reaches a level of intensity that cannot be appeased, and it does not go away.  We discover that the medical community has no good answer for our suffering.  We wonder how this happened, and we begin searching for a way out.

If you are as lucky as I am, you may find an Alexander Technique instructor.  The Alexander Technique has been a very important part of my way out of chronic pain.  An instructor can see unnatural patterns of muscular tension and knows how to help the student perceive them, too.  She gradually, patiently guides the student to release muscles that have been held dysfunctionally for years.  Instead of trying to teach an idea of correct or good posture, which really is just another form of bodily holding and rigidity, she instills the idea of ease of use, of the body as a dynamic, ever-moving system.

Much about the Technique seems counterintuitive or just plain wrong at first.  The Technique is a form of undoing, of unlearning, of breaking habits, of changing the way the body is felt and perceived.  When the instructor first helps the body release into an easier state, it often feels odd, or even wrong.  Many times, my instructor has had to show me in the mirror that, no, despite the sensation that I'm leaning to the left, that I'm tipping forward, that my legs are bent, in reality, I am standing more nearly upright than I have in a long time.

The Technique can be an emotional as well as a physical exploration.  The body can hold anger, fear, embarrassment, shame, guilt.  Releasing the body can be like opening a shaken bottle of emotional soda.  The emotions can bubble up, memories can gush into consciousness.  The enhanced bodily awareness I've received from the Technique also is an enhanced emotional awareness.  When I feel my left abdomen tensing, I know I'm becoming upset.  When I feel my lower back become rigid, I'm aware that I'm feeling embarrassed.

The Technique is an ongoing education.  The lessons continue out in daily life.  I learn something new about my body and emotions nearly every day.  The Alexander work has given me a sense of curiosity about my body and its relationship to my mind and the world around me.  I'm feeling a pain in my jaw?  That's interesting!  I wonder what would happen if I invite my shoulder to relax?  I'm feeling tension in my hip.  Fascinating!  Could it be related to this deadline I'm working under?  What would happen if I took a short break and breathed deeply for a few seconds?

After a couple of years of working with my Alexander instructor, I am free of the chronic pain that led me to her.  But I continue the work.  As each layer of tension, each pattern of holding, peels away, I find a new layer underneath.  Lifting away the pain reveals new possibilities of a visceral joy and ease.  I can't wait to see what I'll find tomorrow.

Claire Davies Saves My Life--Again!

What one book would I want with me if I were stranded on a desert island? Right now, that book would have to be The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook, by Claire Davies.  I've been working with a chronic pain condition for the past four years.  Self-administered trigger point massage is one of my primary tools.  It's relieved my pain and given me back my mobility.  Without it, I'd probably still be standing when I ride the bus, unable to drive for more than a few miles at a time, and swallowing handfuls of ibuprofen throughout the day.

And I wouldn't have healed enough to get back out on my bike last summer.  My wife loves to bike, and she's missed me for the past couple of years.  But last summer, I finally felt whole enough to dust off my bike helmet, pump up the tires on my Trek, and pedal.  We had a great time riding around Iowa City on weekends.

On Labor Day, we were flying downhill on Dubuque Street toward Waterworks Prairie Park, when the lip of the pavement caught my front wheel.  I crashed down onto my left shoulder and skidded along several yards of concrete.  Di said I was going about 30 when it happened.  I left a lot of knee and elbow on the road and had a lovely bruise on my left hip for quite awhile, but I didn't break anything.  And my bike was fine!  I had a little stiffness and pain in my left shoulder, which I figured would improve with time.  But gradually, the pain has worsened, and my range of motion has become more limited.

My theory about my pain condition is that it's primarily a mental disease.  The problem stems from the idea that the mind is primary and is the master of the body, that will alone can whip the body into line.  When pain flares up, the mind goes to work, trying to solve this problem, trying to diagnose and cure, trying to fix things.  But this approach almost never works with my chronic pain condition, and in fact, it can lead to worse pain and more limited motion.

After I'd been using trigger point massage awhile and had reduced chronic pain to a manageable level, I began seeing an ease of movement therapist.  She's helped me unlearn some of the body patterns that contributed to my pain condition, which has improved my life considerably.  With her help, I came to see that I'd been stretching incorrectly, tensing instead of relaxing into the stretch.  I've had great success with stretching the way she has taught me; I'm probably more limber now than I was before the pain condition developed.

So as the pain in my shoulder grew and my range of motion decreased, I decided to try to stretch my way back to wholeness.  I made what I thought to be an educated guess as to which muscles might be causing the problem and began stretching.  I should have known better.  This was my old mental pattern sneaking up on me again, convincing me that I could diagnose and fix myself.  In fact, I was most likely making things worse.  The pain continued to worsen, and I was having trouble putting on my coat or reaching for dishes in the cupboards.

Yesterday, I was on the road for four hours.  As I got ready for bed last night, I knew I'd be up again in the dark, knocking back some ibuprofen and sitting down with the heating pad.  And I was right.  As I sat on the sofa and waited for the heat and the pills to kick in, I dug out my Claire Davies and flipped through the section on shoulders.  For some reason, I spent some time with the section on the subscapularis.  And there were all my symptoms--why hadn't I seen this before?

I looked at the treatment diagrams and worked my fingers into my armpit.  A flash of excruciating it-hurts-so-good-I-can't-stand-it pain, and I knew I was onto something.  After I'd worked on my subscapularis for a few minutes, the pain was gone.  Remarkable!

So, of course, I've diagnosed and fixed my problem, right?  Wrong!  The tricky thing about trigger points is that the referred pain can create trigger points in other muscles, creating a complicated web of tension and pain.  The pain and limited motion affect the way I hold and move my body, which can overwork other muscles and lead to more problems--which can feed back into the original painful area.  I've learned from hard experience that searching for a single cause and a single fix is pointless and can in fact worsen the situation.  What works much better is a sense of curiosity and exploration, a sense of acceptance of the body as it is in the present moment and a willingness to work with it just as it is.

Right now, I'm typing this blog relatively pain-free.  My shoulder feels great!  I'll continue working with the subscapularis.  But I know I also need to continue massaging my other shoulder muscles, continue exploratory and tension-free passive stretching, continue checking in with how I'm using my body, with how my thoughts and emotions are interacting with my muscles.  It's a way of life, not a quick fix, like a pill, but a very interesting and remarkable journey.

But Claire Davies, you have saved my life again!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!