ML is a bright, intelligent 35-year-old mother of two children and has a busy, stressful job working in marketing. She was on maternity leave when she first came to see me. She was in a great deal of pain having been involved in four car accidents from 1995-1998 and suffered whiplash on all of her accidents. She has experienced neck pain and muscle tension in her neck and shoulder since
July 17th, 2011
Alexander Technique and RSI
Jane is a lively, active woman with a demanding, stressful job that involves a lot of computer work. She had previously had 15 lessons with me some years ago for upper back pain. This had been caused by a wrench to the shoulder when the bus on which she was traveling braked sharply while she was holding on to a handrail. This had been investigated by her GP and hospital.
June 23rd, 2011
Take a PitStop to Good Posture the Alexander Way
Summer is finally here ̶ for a while at least. And of course, the summer means we want to look our best and so start to exercise to get in shape. But if you’ve already got poor posture, exercising will compound this by putting pressure on your limbs and possibly causing damage. Added to that, the way we live today often makes us less active. We spend a lot of
May 21st, 2011
Stretchy Finger and Why You Can’t Tickle Yourself
Nottingham University’s research team stumbled on these findings completely by chance during the University’s Community Open Day in April last year. As part of the event, they invited members of the public to experience some of the body distortion illusions they use as part of their everyday research using Nottingham’s unique MIRAGE technology that takes a real-time video capture image of a hand and uses computer manipulations combined with physically
April 10th, 2011
It’s a Good Idea to Breathe!
It is said that we can survive 3 hours without shelter, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food but little more than 3 minutes without breathing. Normally, the function of breathing takes place without any direct help from us – it is continuous and we do not think about it, assuming there is no underlying, pathological problem. Most people, when they take part in sports, exercise or even a
April 5th, 2011
Proprioception
‘The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something because it is always before one’s eyes). The real foundations of his enquiry do not strike a man at all.’ Wittgenstein It is important to remember that human evolution has taken at least 5 million years; we are only able to describe the last few thousand
April 4th, 2011
Exercise Facts and Fallacies
Alexander Technique is not an exercise but is a detailed study of the fundamental principles of human co-ordination and movement that underlies all activity. A unique form of neuro-muscular rebalancing, it is concerned with how you direct your Primary Control. Primary Control is a fundamental concept of The Alexander Technique that describes a certain relationship between the head, neck and back and how this relationship affects poised co-ordinated action. Alexander
March 28th, 2011
Arms & Front Legs
We think our arms hang from our shoulders but in fact, we have reflexes in our arms that support the body. When we interfere with the supporting reflexes in the arms, the arms do not support themselves easily and feel as though they hang heavily from the shoulders. Our arms support us not only when we are on all fours but also when our hands are not in contact with
March 23rd, 2011
A Look At Gravity
Let us begin at the beginning with Newton who said that action and reaction are equal and opposite. This means that every push must be matched and balanced by an equal and opposite push. It does not matter how the push arises. It may be a ‘dead’ load for instance: that is to say a stationary weight of some kind. If I weigh 200 pounds and stand on the floor,
March 21st, 2011
Supporting Reflexes or Why Elephants Can’t Jump
T. D. M. Roberts has defined the essential characteristic of a reflex response (1967, p.9) as: …a characterizable pattern of involuntary response which can be elicited with some regularity from an organism on presentation of the appropriate specific stimulus, provided that the connections to the central nervous system are intact. Scientific studies tell us that a number and a variety of reflexes support the body and they are all are