Victories in Continued Recovery

Although it seems a very long time  to me since I was living and moving "normally", and a discouragingly extended time until I will move and live "normally" again, there is evidence that I am healing and strengthening.  Recovery is indeed progressing!  Good use, time, expert support, and the kindness of friends are propelling me to the next stage of recovery.

I was very happy to give a Continuing Education workshop for Alexander teachers and serious students of the Technique this past Saturday.  It was a confirmation for me, as well as for the participants, that the Alexander Technique is not concerned with perfection in form, but in choosing a response for best possible use of the self whatever the current structural challenges may be.  The workshop was not focussed on me or my injury, but on the information and Alexander procedures that I was presenting.  Although I was tired and leg-sore by the end, my stamina held up well, and my attention didn't get over-involved with knee discomfort.  I sat and rested when necessary, and certainly didn't repress pain, but made no fuss about it either as my attention was on entire use of self.

Today, with Marty's steadying company, I took a bus downtown.  Taking a bus is potentially scary as the Metro drivers typically begin moving the bus before I am seated.  Also, finding a seat that will accommodate my extended leg without blocking the aisle is a bit of a trick.  Suffice to say, we managed, without too much panic or pain involved.

Once downtown, we did various errands that required walking many city blocks, crossing streets with briefly timed "walk" signs, and negotiating crowded sidewalks.  All of this would have frightened and exhausted me a few weeks ago.  Today I did fine!  No muscle spasms, no major worries, no pulling down with fear of falling. 

Of course, I am still slower than your average tortoise (as opposed to my previous mythology, which was faster than your average Energizer Bunny).  An increase in confidence may have to substitute for speed.  I am encouraged by these small victories, and eager to embrace life more fully and fearlessly at any speed once again.

Personal Use and Choices Post-Injury

As a typically energetic and very independently mobile person, the situation in which I currently find myself requires that I apply Alexander principles in daily choices for activity in an entirely new way.  The activities in which I daily engage demand a constant awareness of my entire use of self.

A question which I often have asked my students is:  "if you truly cannot use yourself well in a vigorous  activity, then do you really need to do that activity?".  We bring our current level of use to any activity, and strengthen that level of use with every activity.  If our use is pretty good, then a vigorous activity strengthens our pretty good use.  If our use is poor, then we strengthen poor use in a vigorous activity.  It takes time and attention to change our use so that daily activities, even undemanding ones, strengthen our good use.

Thankfully, I can use myself well in the demanding activity of teaching.  Simple daily tasks such as dressing myself, playing with my cat, cooking, now demand every ounce of good use that I can muster.  I have perfected getting into and out of a car (a rather balletic project), and I have become a master of stairs, with great attention and care.  I have to decide, daily, given levels of pain and strength, which activities are beyond my current use potential, and which I can manage on my own.  So much that was formerly very easy is beyond my capability now.  Walking to work is not an option, as using myself well for a distance of more than a few city blocks is nearly impossible.  Rides to and from my office are a daily necessity.  Doing the laundry is possible but far from ideal. I can't bathe without assistance. These are just three examples that my illustrate daily choices.

It is deeply challenging to be dependent and to ask for help.  As Alexander teachers, we need to be aware of this challenge with respect to our injured and recovering students, and to ourselves.  I notice myself contracting when I even think of what I can't do with good use and what help I need.  My habit is to push through my limitations and just do the thing, but end-gaining now costs me more than I can pay.  I have to consciously choose where I need assistance, and how to gracefully request it, with good use considered for all concerned.  Applying the principle of what I can do with good use helps me to choose requests for assistance, and hopefully informs my communication of need with clarity and respect for myself and for my kind helpers.

Post Injury: deeper recovery questions

The following questions currently linger for me without expectation of answers.  As I continue to apply Alexander principles as best I can to long-term recovery, a coordination of self may reveal new solutions. 

How do I use myself well in the sudden position of vastly increased dependency?

How do I keep depression and despair at bay when my preferred and life-long tools for emotional balance (vigorous activities) are no longer available?

Since my identity was partially based on being independent, mobile and physically strong, who am I now that I am dependent,  not fully mobile, and much weakened?

Can I survive several months of only being able to wear the 2 pairs of pants that fit over my brace?  This question may seem superficial, but hints at a much deeper issue, which is the shifted self-perception and challenged vanity of being in a physical state and definition that is unfamiliar.

What new coping skills am I learning in this experience?

Teaching with an Injury

Following upon my previous posts about use with a compromised elastic structure, I have further observations based on my experience of teaching, now to my full schedule, since March 5.  Although this post is primarily directed for the use of my Alexander colleagues, it will hopefully also benefit anyone intending to return to activities while recovering from injury.

Since my surgeon doesn't understand what I do or how I do what I do (I plan to offer him a lesson, by the way), he was not at all enthusiastic about my plan to return to work.  Despite his reluctance, I knew that teaching would enhance my recovery, as I would be required, in teaching, to be newly refined in my entire use of self.

Monkey, in a usual interpretation, is not an option for me.  One knee absolutely cannot bend, not even slightly.  But a "possible monkey", meaning that I direct head going up and forward, whole back lengthening and widening, arms undoing out of whole back, and knees directed forward of  whole back, allows solutions for coordinated movement.  If my student becomes "heavy" (pulls him/her self down), I can accept that weight to enhance my own elastic response through my entire self.  I spring up with their weight, and the student gets a new message for response.  All proceeds well, despite my stiffened leg. I end up in some version of lunge or "one legged monkey" with ease. Any weight goes through me to the ground.  All effort becomes invisible as the available elastic response becomes balanced and available in the moment.

My students have not reported (although perhaps they are being kind!) any reduced direction or support from my hands.  In fact, most have been pleased and surprised to report an actual improvement in the clarity of direction that they are getting.  I credit this to the increased necessity for awareness that I must bring to the activity of teaching in order to take good care of myself.  This is a real demonstration that the skill of teaching the Alexander Technique requires, first, foremost and continuously, the teacher's refined use of the instrument of self.

This is not to suggest that I don't get tired.  My structure and functioning are hugely compromised, and despite my good use, I am compensating for my fully extended leg in ways I can't begin to know.  I need to do a lie-down between lessons,  and do my Gyrokinesis "rehab" routine at my lunch break,  just to reduce swelling in my knee and to re-energize my entire self.  My back aches from lifting my injured leg to walk, and my neck is not free.  None of this means I can't teach well!  My job as an Alexander teacher is not to be perfect, not to end-gain to a specific form, but to consciously choose the best possible response in the moment, with whatever structure and function I have available.

This is all a huge lesson for me, and I hope a beneficial lesson for my students.  Injury can potentially enhance good use, as thinking with the whole self takes on a different resonance and necessity.  We can make  the best possible outcome of whatever condition of self we are currently experiencing.

Re-energizing the Entire Self

With any injury, slight or severe, chronic or acute, the typical human reaction is to limit flow of movement and intentional inclusion of the injured area.  This limitation spells out a reduction in elastic response, as well as a deadening of muscle and nerve connections.  A general diminishing personal energy also becomes a challenge in continuing to heal the whole self.

Obviously, I am applying my tools of attention and intention to use my entire self as an elastic instrument as much as I am capable of doing.  However, knowing that I need further guidance and assistance, I asked Master Gyrokinesis Instructor, Mia Munroe, to come by my office and help me energize my entire self in movement that was possible for me in my current condition of self.

Gyrokinesis (and Gyrotonic, which utilizes pulley equipment) apply principles that are wonderfully consistent with Alexander principles.  It is an approach that includes the entire thinking muscular self in a joyous, challenging and endlessly interesting manner.  I have been exploring and experiencing Gyrokinesis and Gyrotonic  for 12 years now, and credit the system, in conjunction with my Alexander skills, with my high level of strength and flexibility.

Mia gave me a Gyrokinesis "rehab" routine that I can do on my own to maintain a level of balanced strength and a steady energetic flow, all sourced in good use of respiration.  I had a long teaching schedule yesterday, which could easily have been depleting and increased soreness in my injured leg.  Instead, using both my Alexander direction and the Gyrokinesis routine between lessons, I was able to have energy, enthusiasm, and confidence through a full day of teaching with a compromised elastic self.

For anyone seeking recovery in a dynamic way, I recommend not only the deep, ongoing learning of the Alexander Technique, but also the intelligence in movement that Gyrokinesis supports.  Recovery needs to be active, and involve dynamic participation for injured people to own and direct their return to fullest function possible.  I am finding more "passive" forms of treatment such as acupuncture and manual osteopathy extremely important as well, but being the activity enthusiast that I am, more dynamic means are of huge value, and I believe are of value for anyone.

Contact information for Gyrokinesis and Gyrotonic:

http://www.miamunroe.com /   phone: 561 234 9531 (in Seattle area)

http://www.gyrotonicseattle.com/   phone: 206 784 7895

ALL of the instructors at Gyrotonic Seattle are deeply trained and very skilled!

One Speed Teacher

My dear mother has often said that I have one speed: go.  Considering currently limited conditions of self, my one speed is: slow.

In the marvelous collection of talks by Walter Carrington, Thinking Aloud, one of his lectures is "Taking Time".  He suggests that we always have time to inhibit and direct, and that the very notion of giving ourselves time shifts our use.  We have to take the time to give ourselves time, but that allowance of time can change how we respond in the moment.

Suddenly, I have all kinds of time.  A walk that previously took me about 10 minutes now requires about 40 minutes.  Impatience, emotional dismay, and a sense of needing to go faster only increase my mind chatter and muscular contraction.  I have to stop myself, take time to allow coordination and ease, request elasticity and balance, and accept the pace that is inherent with my condition of self.  This is not easy for me, but it is what is required.

During a lesson, this need to take time is very useful.  The larger field of awareness that putting hands on students and moving them  requires is expanded further by the necessity to take time.  A new balance of thinking and moving is revealing itself.

I have always moved more quickly than most folks, been more active, and delighted in my speed.  Now, I have to value taking time, relinquishing hurry, enjoying the slow lane.

I keep looking for ways to be grateful for this devastating injury.  Perhaps I am beginning to find a means of being grateful for having to have just one unfamiliar, very slow and observant pace.  

Gratitude expression

Expressing gratitude is an important aspect of my continuing recovery.  The kind thoughtfulness of the folks listed may also provide clues to those seeking to care for injured family members and friends in the future.

Profound and deep thanks to: Marty for patience, love and expert leg-lifting;  the caring and skilled people at Group Health, especially surgeon Dr. Mahommed; Yoshiro and Maureen for transformative treatments; Lindsey for daily espresso delivery as well as good company; Robert for a generous gift certificate to Amazon (I am knee deep in books!); Annie, Jeannie, Bobby and Darlene for delicious food deliveries; Ken and Deb for cookies and consistently amusing emails and voice mails;  Jean for flowers and farmer's market shopping delights;  Marilyn for cat clicker and trash reading; Magali for quiche, croissants and wonderful company; Diane for books, flowers and intriguing conversation; Darlene for taxi service and love;  Ann for patient snail walk company; Dr.Bonehead for absurdist handicap recommendations (let's all party in the handicap stall!); Megan for magazines, PCC gift certificate and daily cheer;  Lorna for home baked bread; Michael for friendship in sickness and in health;  Joanne for a gorgeous bouquet; my dear, loyal students for encouragement, supportive emails, and enthusiasm expressed for my return to teaching; Mia and Lindsey for Gyrokinesis rehab guidance;  John for teaching me the skills to respond elastically:  Carmella for insistence on play as a daily requirement; Ella the dog and Ruffles the dog for being excited to see me again;  and all who have expressed sympathy, support and confidence in my recovery via email, snail mail, voice mail or in person.  The above list is not in order of importance!  Every person's (or animal's)  contribution has been very important!

I am grateful!  Thank you!

Directing with the Whole (imperfect) Self

Happily, I returned to the work I love yesterday.  As stated in a previous post, teaching the Alexander Technique requires me to be aware of my entire self in a refined and ongoing manner.  In teaching, I extend the use of myself,  through hands- on contact, to my pupils to create a broad field of awareness, elasticity, and dynamic ease.

This required refinement that seems infinite in possibility is one of the reasons that I chose this profession.  It is far more than a job to me; it is a way of being, a joyous exploration, and a means of contributing to the world.

Giving lessons with one leg in forced full extension increases the demand for my refined attention, for non-end-gaining, and for active allowance of new solutions, previously unknown to me, to present themselves.  There are several protective reactions that I need to actively inhibit.  One is the temptation to let my stiffened leg go dead.  The immediate clues are that my knee aches, and my torso narrows, especially through the tops of my arms, as support from the ground has been reduced.  If I stop, energize through both legs, request a balance of tone with what is available to me, discomfort lessens, and I can re-widen so that my arms are connected to my renewed contact with the ground.

The other protective reaction (which I have noticed in students with knee injuries or pain), is to pull up off my injured leg.  This also results in a narrowing through the torso and knee discomfort, as my weight is no longer moving through to the ground, thus reducing overall elasticity. Scary as it may be in the moment, if I direct my weight through my legs into the ground, despite limitations in the injured leg, I then experience an increased volume of support in my torso, and can begin to spring up with more ease.  Anxiety also quiets.

I may have to repeat these inhibitions/directions a hundred times, a thousand times as I teach.  In this way, I will strengthen new neural pathways of response, which will in turn strengthen the muscular activity that is truly supportive.  The Technique is always indirect.  We don't fix the part, we clarify larger intention, which cues the nervous system, which changes muscular tone, which results in a new experience of overall support and coordination.

I have a month of full leg extension during which to unlearn contractive reactions with this condition of self, and to signal new, expansive responses.  Then, if  all has gone well with bone healing, I will have a brace that allows 30 degrees knee flexion, and a new condition of self for continued direction.

As always, my intention is that these posts convey information that is useful for students and colleagues beyond my specific situation.  My hope is to keep the balance tipped toward awareness, and steer clear of the non-productive pitfalls of self absorption which lurk for anyone recovering from injury and pain.

Use with Changing Conditions

Using oneself well in all activities does not require anything like perfection in structure or functioning.  Structure, function and use all influence one another, like a fluidly connected trinity.  Use is the aspect where we have dynamic choice.

Use, in Alexander terms, could be defined as a distribution of tone throughout the entire self, especially in response to stimulus.  Dynamic non-interference and directed thinking with the whole self change use, which affects functioning, which to some degree can affect structure.  Structure and function may well challenge use, yet use remains a dynamic choice.

I had learned in the past two weeks, with determination and creativity, to use myself as well as possible with a leg length splint.  Both my structure and functioning were very far from perfect, but I could make the best possible use of myself in the conditions at hand.  My use could not heal the shattered patella, but my use could assist how I was accomplishing activities with a shattered patella.

Today, the splint was exchanged for a brace device which takes my leg into even more vigorous extension.  The sensations are strange and disturbing, balance and mobility are unfamiliar in a whole new way, and my structure is clearly challenged.  The use of myself is the place where I can make a difference.  So, with these changed and challenging conditions of self, I have to renew dynamic non-interference and directed thinking in order to have the best possible balance of tone with the structure and function available to me.

Here are my intentions, directed in a continuous and circular fashion:

*Allow the ground to support me as I spring up

*Allow widening so that arms and legs undo from the torso, thus giving more connection to the ground

*Send my head up and forward with the elastic support of my whole self

There, that's better!  

Using a cane with Alexander principles

Although I can weight-bear just fine on the injured leg, the immobilization  of the knee, which changes my balance, makes a cane a wise accessory.  Thus, I have been noticing how to utilize a cane with good use of myself.  I have worked with pupils over the years in using their canes.  Now, I have direct experience to further inform me in guiding others.

As stated previously, my beautiful maple cane is not necessary for support, but is a reassuring tool for balance as I proceed on daily snail walks.  To use myself well, and to continue with my direction of  "on the ground springing up", I think of the cane as an extension of my arm to the ground.  I loop the connection to the ground through the cane all the way through my entire back and to my feet again. An elastic connection is thus created.  My leg may be stiff, but I can have an elastic response with what is available to me.

I don't lean on the cane, just as I wouldn't lean on a leg.  It is a reference point, and a connection, to the ground from which I can spring up.  Since the cane is made of wood (maple), I think of it as a lively connection.

If my injured leg goes into sudden spasm (all the muscles are being used is a strange and demanding manner), I can use the cane for needed stability in the moment.  The contraction (narrowing, shortening) of fear is eased in this way.

Tomorrow, I graduate to a brace that will allow a slight increase in knee flexion.  I am eager to shed the heavy, huge, solid splint, with all gratitude for the protection it offered post surgery.  I am hoping to proceed to being a tortoise, having learned from being a snail.  The cane may still be a welcome tool, but hopefully with further learning and improved use!

Habit and Identity

We know ourselves by our habitual reactions, invisible as those habits might be.  The mental chatter, muscular responses and emotional textures that we bring to daily life is how we define ourselves. We sometimes even value ourselves by perceived effort rather than by our ease.

There is a story of a little girl with many physical challenges having a lesson with F.M. Alexander.  After he had assisted her in restoring an overall balance of tone, she exclaimed to her mother, "Mummy, look!  He has pulled me all out of shape!".  She no longer recognized herself in a changed and improved condition, and even believed she was worse despite clear improvement.

One of my pupils observed during her lesson, "My outline has been softened". The interference that was previously a given state had eased, and the edges between her and not-her had also eased.

My habitual way of being in the world shifted dramatically with my injury.  This was not an example of suddenly improved use, but of suddenly challenged use.  The activity levels,  strength, and associated mind chatter that informed who I was went off-line.  As I move through the world now, my identity is suddenly ephemeral, unfixed, undefined.  Underlying habits of being have been revealed as they can no longer have physical expression.  It is when we relinquish a habit (or are forced to do so) that we become fully conscious of the habit's breadth and power.  Invisibility is the nature of habit.  When it is gone, we perceive its ghostly remains.

This is an opportunity, of course, a chance to allow my "outlines to soften", as my pupil so articulately expressed.  I could end-gain my way back to a familiar sense of self, with great effort, but that seems to run counter to the offered opportunity.

I miss myself as I believed I was, and I am doing my best to be open to the new self I will be, with an unfamiliar shape, new mind chatter, and a possibly softer edge between me and not-me.  No doubt my previous habits will resume to some extent.  My intention is to choose elastic response over habit as much as I am capable, and to bring all this experience to my teaching.

And, I fully intend to run joyously on the wet sand in Kauai in the pre-dawn, with stars reflected in the surf, by December!

Looking Down/Going Up

Weather cleared in Seattle for a few glorious hours today.  The mountains to the east and west emerged, banks of clouds raced on the southern horizon, and clear fresh light washed every view in blue.  

Happily for me, my friend Ann kindly accompanied me on a snail walk to the local grocery store.  Her good company and patience reassured me as I faced the scary adventures of crossing a thoroughfare with briefly timed "walk" signs, and stepping up and down some steep curbs.  It was a very pleasant walk without any incident, and I learned a few lessons en route.

For obvious reasons, I look down at the sidewalk for any sneaky cracks.  I also need to look at curbs as I step up and down to allow my stiff leg to swing appropriately, and to take weight without losing my balance.  However, looking down does not mean going down!

Early in study, many Alexander pupils mistake the direction of "sending the head up and forward" to indicate a position of the head, when the intention is quite the opposite.  Pupils will sometimes be afraid to look at stairs as they descend, for instance, in case that is "wrong".

We send the head up and forward not by doing a position but by un-doing any internal or muscular positioning.  The head, as long as we are not fixing or collapsing into a position, moves up and forward of the back.  You can't place it there, as that would be fixing.  It's a determined, dynamic non-interference (best learned in Alexander lessons, by the way).  And, since "up" is not one interpretation or position, not an answer but a question, the head has myriad options to move up and over and around the top of the spine, if we can just allow it to do so.

We are designed to be able to easily look up at the stars or down at the sidewalk or around to that sudden sound behind us.

So, as I walked with visual awareness of the ground, up and forward could continue to inform me.  I didn't move any faster, but I did experience ease.

Internal noise and the Alexander Technique

In this current life circumstance in which physical activity has come to a near halt, I have the opportunity to hear my own internal noise, the rumble of emotion, in an entirely new way, and to observe my response to that rumble.

Typically, I am a very active person.  I run every morning, walk to work, teach lessons all day 5 days a week, run a training course 4 days a week, and walk home again.  I also pursue the joyous, ongoing learning that the Gyrotonic method of exercise offers.  Although none of these activities are intended to in any way suppress emotional content, they do serve to balance and ease emotional impact.  None of these activities are available for me now. (Although, I will happily return to teaching later this week!!)

The Alexander Technique is not psychology, nor does the Technique intend to suppress emotional expression.  F.M. Alexander wrote  about the self as a unified condition, not a series of parts.  Nor did he have a "one size fits all" prescription.  His writings emphasize repeatedly the concept of the individual in conscious response.  The Technique offers a skill, learned over time, of using intention and attention in response to any stimulus, whether internal or external.  (In fact, I am seeing that internal and external perceptions aren't all that separate either, but I will pursue that notion at another time!)

In the tools offered by the Technique, the big picture takes precedence over the details.  Sensory information, whether emotional or physical, can be seen as a step in the continuing cycle of overall awareness of self.

Here are examples of what I am noticing, and how I am applying AT principles to the rumble of emotional content:

As I go out for my snail walk, I notice a deep restlessness and frustration with my glacial pace.  Instead of diving into the restlessness, or investigating frustration, I also notice that that I have narrowed and shortened.  Contraction is not useful for my overall elastic response.  Fighting these feelings only narrows me further.  Instead, I make a choice:  my priority is to send my head up, my back into length and width, my legs out of my back.  Suddenly, restlessness is forgotten, and I am noticing the world and me moving through it again.  My view has broadened.  Restlessness returns, but is no longer very important.

Sitting at my desk to write or read emails, I find a deep sadness looming.  I also see that I have collapsed through the front of my torso, and that my respiration has become limited.  I don't really need to know why I am sad.  I am sure I could come up with reasons galore.  I also can't "make" the sadness go away, nor do I wish to.  But, I do prefer to experience the front length of my torso, and to breathe.  A choice has been made.  The sadness may return, and probably will, but it is not the dominant experience.  My choice in response, my preference for elastic balance is the priority.

Emotions are a constant and necessary aspect of being an animal.  They are richly informative, and if we allow their flow, a potential stimulus for continued choice in response.  The Alexander Technique is always indirect in application.  We don't seek to change a shape, a mental process or an emotional tenderness directly, but to widen intention and awareness for an overall balanced response, for the best use of the self in the moment.  I am finding that if I quiet myself, keep the picture big, continue to widen and lengthen, choose elasticity, and dynamically refuse to react with a fixed notion, emotions become like the weather in Chicago: give it a moment, it will change.

The textures and richness of experience thus deepen, and I am in charge by, strangely, not being in charge in my same old way.

This offered from a rumbling snail, with best wishes.

Fear and Widening: an Alexander snail

F.M. Alexander brilliantly described our instinctual/habitual responses as no longer adequate for the complexity of modern life.  He proposed, and developed a technique for, a new evolution in human response, a means of constructive conscious choice that could inform all activity, whether the activity is described as primarily "mental" or primarily "physical".  He saw no separation between the aspects of human responses, and described his work as the "use of the self".

Through careful and long term self observation, Alexander identified the "startle pattern".  Simply put, the startle pattern means pulling the head down and back and contracting the limbs into the torso in response to a stimulus, resulting in overall narrowing and shortening in stature.  Interior volume and respiratory capacity is thus reduced, which also diminishes elastic support for the entire body.  Increased anxiety is also observable with narrowing and shortening, as the nervous system registers decreased overall support.

"Widening" is a direction that is often baffling for Alexander students.  Like all Alexander directions, one can't do widening.  One can, instead, dynamically refuse to narrow and request widening.  Refusing to contract arms and legs into the torso, and asking for width at the tops of the arms and tops of the legs gives an experience of being more connected to the ground, and of being more elastically supported by an overall balance of muscular tone.

All of this applies to my experience yesterday of going out for a snail's pace walk on my own.  My fear of falling, and of not being adequately supported by my injured leg, as well as a general wobbliness, stimulated an instinctual response of narrowing (pulling arms and legs into my torso in a protective manner).  However, I know better, so I stopped, over and over  (now the world's slowest snail, but never mind) and said "no" to narrowing, and requested widening.  This resulted in an immediate increase in ease and support.  As I would approach a potentially scary challenge, like crossing a street (stepping down and up curbs, feeling the need to hurry), I would take time to inhibit narrowing, and ask for widening.  Perhaps the biggest stimulus to narrow was in fact the hurry mode.  Yet, if I refused to hurry, since hurrying narrowed me, my pace actually increased!  I am sure I still looked like a snail with a cane, but who cares.

It was a lovely walk, a week and two days after my injury.  I heard many birdsongs, saw a flicker tapping on a telephone pole, spotted snow drops and crocuses and observed trees in their pre-leaf mode.  Two dogs stopped to watch me (their person was in a hurry, and thus oblivious) and I waved at them.  They wagged and dog-smiled.  I widened further and experienced the full support of my respiration.

Keeping the Picture Big

My students are familiar with the instruction to "keep the picture big".  By this I mean: refuse to focus on being "right" in the activity, or upon any specific sensation, or on the end result of the activity.  Extend attention and intention beyond the sensed self, so that perception is both softened and enlarged.  See something outside yourself and beyond your current experience so that you are not fixing on how you are now, but allowing a new way to be. Quiet reaction to stimuli and sensation.

When I fell and fractured my patella, I went immediately into shock (dilated pupils, nausea, ashen demeanor and a fair degree of hysteria).  My entire experience of self became defined by waves of extreme pain.  No Alexander thinking even occurred to me at this point; I was in survival mode, as was necessary

However, once Marty brought me to the Emergency Room, I began to think again "keep the picture big".  This translated into noticing the photographs used as decor (a lovely photo of three black bears in an old, mossy forest calmed me especially), and learning the name of each doctor, physician assistant, nurse and technician, then greeting each by name.  The result was that I was perceived as a relatively calm person despite the urgency of the injury.  (It didn't hurt that my blood pressure, heart rate and oxygen levels were all as normal.)  The medical personnel became people to me, not just roles and tasks, and I became a person to them, not just a condition.  I give great credit to the humane and skilled people who assisted me, but I know that I felt better, and was most likely easier to treat, by "keeping the picture big".  Focusing further on the pain would have only increased my nausea and anxiety and complicated my interactions.

Another notable benefit of "keeping the picture big" while in a medical environment was that nearly every medical person was curious about my work and, with few exceptions, showed sincere interest when I described it.  The discussion, and attention, went beyond my "broken" condition to an interest in how I would apply Alexander skills to my recovery.

Pain management, and movement with pain, absolutely require "keeping the picture big".  If I focus on the sensations in my knee (and interpret those sensations), I pull my entire self down, panic further (my interpretations being consistently dire) and generally stiffen and collapse on every level of my self.  If I attempt to protect the knee (which usually requires stiffening) in any manner, the same result occurs:  I lose an overall elastic sense of possible response.

If, instead, I can extend my intention and attention, the result is far more productive.  For example, if I am standing, and my knee hurts, I can think something like the following: "my knee really aches, so a more elastic response would help me.  I'd like my heels to drop, my entire back to come back, and my head to go up".  Then, of course, I don't check if these requests happened, nor do I in any way make them happen.  I go on expanding the picture: noticing my brain state, seeing the room, watching light come through the windows, quieting myself.  The pain may take its time to diminish, but I am quieter, and the pain is only part of my picture rather than the entire picture.  An elastic overall response becomes possible even with pain.

Onward and Upward (but slowly)

A continuing theme for the teacher training course which I direct is:  "increased demand requires an increased elastic response".  As a trainee learns to take the weight of a pupil's leg, for instance, the trainee is guided in refusing to stiffen or collapse, and in dynamically allowing a whole elastic response in themselves as they accept the weight.  There are limits, of course, to the demands we can impose and still have an elastic response.

I am currently redefining my limits in terms of demands to which I can respond elastically, discovering new skills in coordination, and facing deeply set habits that have been masked by my typically hyper-active self.  In fact, the restless way of being that is my habit and my coping mechanism is currently unavailable to me.  Since I can't utilize well hewn pathways, new neural connections and unfamiliar modes of response may have some chance of developing.  I am in a large scale Alexander lesson, in which the unfamiliar is atmospheric, and new experience is the only choice available, even if it is not the choice that feels "right, familiar or even preferable.

Demands increased significantly yesterday when I actually left the apartment, went down (and later, up) 3 flights of stairs, got in the car (a major project requiring split-second timing on Marty's part in lifting the stiff leg and swinging it into the car), and went to my office building.  All of this required allowing a coordination of self that was new and challenging.  My pace, for example, was glacial.  Paint dries faster than I climb a flight of stairs.  Lots of time to consider my use.  Slow is not a familiar or comfortable state to me, and feels completely wrong, of course.

While at my office building, I had an excellent acupuncture treatment from Yoshiro, which calmed me, relieved pain, lowered inflammation, and brightened my spirits.  Afterward, Marty kindly served as a guinea pig for chair and table turns, so I could get a sense of the organization of self required for me to put hands on and move people.

Teaching is an activity that always requires my best use of self (which is why I like it!).  The new demands of a fully extended leg and the potential for pain amplified the need for inner quiet, a big picture, and thinking with the whole self.  The challenge, as teaching carries on, is to continue to remain quite and lively, and for me now, to refuse to react to the potential of pain, and to enlarge the picture further with the student included.  The cycle of inhibition and direction goes ever onward.

I was overjoyed to be quite capable of sitting and standing Marty with ease, as well as giving him a table turn without any pain or problems.  The solutions for coordination seemed to "do themselves", thus demonstrating the Alexander instruction to "let the thing do itself".

Three legged stair races anyone?  I am off pain meds, using a lovely maple cane and willing to climb.

Applying Alexander principles to injury and recovery

The Alexander Technique refines specific skills of intention and attention as applied to all activities.  These skills apply, and are even more crucial to, the process of recovery from injury.

I fractured my left patella in a fall.  The fracture required emergency surgery to wire the patella back together.  I left the hospital with a huge splint that immobilizes my leg from ankle to upper thigh. Although I could bear weight, crutches were initially a necessity to pain management.

Of course, applying Alexander direction to all my movements became paramount.  Thinking "on the ground springing up" seemed almost humorous in my non-elastic condition of self, but helped tremendously in using crutches, transitioning to sitting or to lying down, and to the simplest of activities, all of which had become challenging.  Although my left leg was stiffened by a splint, the remainder of myself could remain elastic.  I could still have a balance of tone with what was available to me.

The most important inhibition was in my thinking and self concept.  I came home from surgery in a state of stunned depression, sourced in thinking of myself as a damaged person.  Without denying my injury, I changed my thinking and self concept to that of a person recovering with intelligence and skill.  Depression faded, and I began to see this experience as an opportunity.  This is a process, not an end point, just as chair work in an Alexander lesson is a structure for attending to the means-where-by, not a project for sitting and standing.  Challenge replaced defeat.

The pain meds (Oxycodone) presented another opportunity for attention and intention.  Instead of viewing the meds as a necessity, I began to see them as a tool for continued mobility and needed rest. And since, as am Alexander Teacher, I am accustomed to observing my mind chatter, I noticed when the drugs began to take too much precedence.  This was evidenced by disconnected thinking, a surreal sense of self, and disturbing dreams.  I immediately started tapering dosage and frequency so that I was using the drugs rather than the drugs dominating me.