This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Back Pain, is published on this website in a PDF format. It goes into extraordinary detail to help those with back pain move with greater ease and coordination.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
Because the Alexander Technique is mostly known for how we work with people in back pain to solve their physical problems, it isn’t common knowledge that we also use release work on the massage table to help the person in chronic get out of physical trouble.
What is the purpose of tablework in an Alexander Technique session?
IT IS TO SHOW THE PERSON IN BACK PAIN HOW TO FULLY REGAIN CONTROL OF HIS OR HER BODY, FROM HEAD TO TOE, SO THAT THE PERSON IN BACK PAIN RECLAIMS THE ABILITY TO STOP CAUSING HIS OR HERSELF PAIN.
What do I mean?
There is an AMAZING principle that is central to the Alexander Technique, and it is not part of any other movement work that I know of. Here is the principle: IF YOU CAN RELEASE TENSION ANYWHERE YOUR BODY, THEN YOU HAVE CONTROL OF YOUR BODY. It is truly a display of true CONSCIOUS CONTROL of your body, when you can release holding and tension anywhere in your body.
MANY PEOPLE ARE IN BACK PAIN BECAUSE OF EXCESS TENSION. BUT HARDLY ANY PERSON IN BACK PAIN CAN RELEASE EXCESS TENSION THROUGHOUT THE DAY, UNLESS THEY’VE DONE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE WORK.
Tablework plays a huge role in assisting the Alexander Technique teacher show the person in back pain which parts of the body that the person in back pain has no control over, and then how to regain conscious control over these disconnected areas.
I have the person in back pain lie on the table on his or her back clothes on. I ask the person in back pain to let me lift an arm, and to not lift the arm for me or hold it up once I’ve lifted the arm.
You would be surprised how many people in back pain are incapable of releasing their arm, of making their arm available for me to move without the person in back pain helping. The moment the person in back pain realizes I’m going to lift the arm, they lift the arm for me, AND CAN’T LET ME DO THE LIFTING WITHOUT HIS OR HER HELP.
This is a powerful expression of how the person in back pain has lost the ability to be “at rest” in the arm. In other words, the person in back pain is tensed 24/7 to do something with the arm and is never at ease or rest in the arm.
What I just wrote simply translates into the person in back pain always having unnecessary excess tension in the arms, which is carried into everything the person does, and eventually causes pain and strain, no matter how much at ease the person in back pain tries to be.
As I work with the person in back pain on the table, I also ask the person in back pain to consciously surrender the movement of each leg to me, or to let me support and move the person’s in back pain head with a released neck.
So, in tablework I teach the person in back pain how to consciously regain control over the person’s in back pain whole body by ASKING THE PERSON IN BACK PAIN NOT TO HELP ME.
Let me talk about this psychologically for a moment. WHEN WE ARE NEWBORNS WE DO NOT HELP OUR MOTHERS TAKE CARE OF US. We let our mothers do everything for us initially, and as we mature we learn to do more and more for ourselves, and this is normal and healthy. If you look at the logical progression of doing more and more for ourselves over time, many of us get the message that we must do everything for ourselves all of the time.
This means that if you feel you must do everything for yourself and do it well as a person in back pain, you will go overboard. Going overboard means you will do too much work as you do anything in your daily life. Too much work is too much tension, and this leads to wear and tear and pain.
How this shows up is as an inability of the person in back pain to stop doing too much unnecessary work as he or she does daily activities. IF YOU’VE SPENT A LIFETIME BELIEVING THAT THINGS ONLY GET DONE IF YOU DO THEM, THEN YOU WILL PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY DO TOO MUCH TO GUARANTEE THEY GET DONE RIGHT!
The Alexander Technique teacher’s job is to help the person in back pain regain or acquire for the first time conscious control of his or her body, by finding that balance between doing what is necessary in daily life, and by learning to let go of the physical tension and habits that are unnecessary in being at ease in any activity.
IN SO MANY WAYS AN ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE TEACHER CAN TEACH THE PERSON IN BACK PAIN THAT IT IS OK TO ACCEPT HELP AND REDISCOVER THE JOY OF NOT HELPING AND NOT DOING UNNECESSARY WORK WITH TABLEWORK.
