This ebook, Using the Alexander Technique to Move Better after a Stroke than You Did before the Stroke, is published on this website in a PDF format. It goes into extraordinary detail to help those who have had a stroke to move as well as they use to move or even better.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
I am making the assumption here that a person who has had a stroke has damaged part of his or her brain and has lost control over parts of his or her body. I am also making the assumption here that the control over the body can be relearned by another part of the brain.
I am also making the assumption here that you can learn to move better than you ever moved, if you are willing to be incredibly kind and patient with yourself as you regain control over your body, and you learn with the principles of the Alexander Technique.
In other words, you learn to move with more balance and ease than you ever did before you had the stroke. This is what the founder of the Alexander Technique, F. M. Alexander, did. He had a stroke after he created the Alexander Technique, and used it to rehab himself, and moved better than he did before he had the stroke.
I believe there is an assumption that many, if not most people who have had a stroke, can never move and/or speak as if they never had a stroke. I do believe it is possible to move better than ever, if the person who had the stroke is willing to go back to being a baby or a child and learn how to move and/or speak for the first time again. It is an amazing thing to watch a person learn to move and/or speak, and to do so with gentleness and patience and faith, and not try to force themselves to regain control over his or her body.
I was a musician, and this is the same thing as learning to play a musical instrument with patience and gentleness and not try to force yourself to play better and better. Many beginners on a musical instrument are incredibly impatient with not being able to play well at the beginning.
As an Alexander Technique teacher, I do not see someone who has had a stroke until they are finished with traditional physical therapy or speech therapy rehab, because even though the Alexander Technique predates physical therapy by about 50 years, the Alexander Technique never pursued becoming part of main stream allopathic medicine like chiropractors did. So, when someone who has had a stroke comes to me, they usually have regained some control over his or her speech and or paralyzed limb or limbs.
It then becomes my job to help them move with ease and coordination for maybe the first time sense the stroke, or maybe with ease and coordination for the first time in his or her whole life. I get to help the person who has had a stroke gain loving control of his or her body maybe for the first time.
