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Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)

The Alexander Technique makes it possible for people who have Parkinson’s or MS to move as well as they can with the least amount of muscular effort and most amount of balance. I’m making the assumption here that you can learn to move better in some ways than you have ever moved, if you are willing to be incredibly kind and patient with yourself, as you gain a different kind of control over your body with the principles of the Alexander Technique.

In other words, you learn to move with more balance and ease than you did before you got these diseases, even if on the surface it is apparent you are losing control over your musculature. What I mean is that you learn to move with an acceptance of your limitations with a gentle and intense approach to movement. The founder of the Alexander Technique, F. M. Alexander, 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.

It is possible to move in a way that helps you feel more secure, even as you are gradually losing control of your body, if the person who has Parkinson’s or MS is willing to go back to being a baby or a child and learn how to move for the first time again. It is an amazing thing to watch a person learn to move and to do so with gentleness and patience and faith, and not try to force themselves to regain or hold onto control over his or her body.

I was a musician, and this is the similar to learning to play a musical instrument with patience and gentleness, and not trying 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 usually do not see someone who has Parkinson’s or MS until they are finished with traditional physical therapy, 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 Parkinson’s or MS comes to move, they have already been doing some work on strengthening their bodies. It then becomes my job to help them move with ease and coordination for maybe the first time as the diseases have progressed, or maybe with ease and coordination for the first time in his or her whole life.

I get to help the person who has Parkinson’s or MS gain loving control of his or her body maybe for the first time altogether. As a concert guitarist who nearly ruined his wrist with carpal tunnel syndrome, I went to an Alexander Technique teacher, and I learned how to be in control of my whole body with power and gentleness.