by Roy Palmer
I first became interested in sport at an early age and soon began to enjoy competitive team games such as football and cricket. In my teens I represented my school at county level competing in 100m,200m and long jump. On leaving school I started karate and continued running.
One of my ambitions in my late teens was to run a marathon and for many months my life revolved around achieving it, to the extent of overlooking one vital aspect that seemed so obvious with hindsight. I followed a strict diet and training timetable but made one big mistake – I neglected to assess my running technique because in common with most people I assumed I knew how to run.
Each day on returning from work I would put on my running kit, warm-up and head off for my run. I eventually achieved my ambition by finishing a marathon in 1984 but not before aggravating a condition that would frustrate me for the next ten years. Shortly after the marathon I began to experience back pain whilst running which became gradually worse until I felt some level of discomfort in most of my activities. At the time I blamed running so I promptly gave it up and moved onto martial arts to satisfy my need for physical activity and competitive sport. For a while this seemed to help but as I progressed in karate I began to experience difficulties again. The decision to change sport turned out to be misguided as the culprit was not the running itself, but how I ran. This problem was waiting to happen and existed before I began training. The build up to the marathon accelerated the condition due to more vigorous activity, changing my sport was not going to solve this problem as this time it was how I applied myself to karate.
For my back pain I received treatment from an osteopath on a weekly basis for about six months. The benefits would last for several days before the aches and pains returned. I went on to consult a physical therapist and chiropractor with much the same result. Thanks to the treatment I received from these therapists I gained a welcome relief from my symptoms but the cause of my problem was a little closer to home – it was me! As soon as I left the treatment room I began to undo the results achieved by the therapist as I resorted to my usual harmful habits.
After a number of years of this cycle I had reached the point of being prepared to try anything and this is how I came to hear about The Alexander Technique. I read an article in a newspaper and was intrigued by what it had to say. I promptly found a teacher in my area, Katarina Diss and booked a course of lessons. Soon after starting I began to appreciate the different approach required to address my predicament: instead of complaining of my back hurting me I began to ask ‘what am I doing with myself to cause this pain?’ Later I came to realise that the back pain itself was just a symptom of a more fundamental problem – I had lost the ability of natural movement partly due to, paradoxically, my preoccupation with exercise and sport. Whilst I had thrown myself into every new sport with enthusiasm and vigour I had not considered whether I knew how to ‘use’ my body well enough to be able to do this. Participation in a new sport put additional stress onto my body as I continued to use myself badly whilst attempting different or more complex techniques. An added complication was that the more I used myself in this way, the worse my condition became, as my movement deteriorated through repetition of poorly executed moves. Each training session helped only to consolidate the habits that were at the route of the problem and in turn corrupt my ‘body map’, an area in the sensory cortex of the brain that receives signals from sensors in the skin. This body map is the basis for all movement so once it becomes inaccurate, movements will also become suspect, further corrupting the body map – catch 22! In short I became more proficient at moving badly and was totally oblivious to the degradation until the pain began.
Through Alexander lessons I began to unlearn bad habits and eventually returned to running and started again. However, it was not as easy I had hoped, as I soon discovered that habits associated with running were well established and were not going to give up without a fight. After many failed attempts I met Malcolm Balk, Canadian running coach, Alexander Teacher and author of ‘The Art of Running’ (see www.theartofrunning.com). He was able to show me how not to run and allow a much freer action that changed my whole concept of ‘physical’ activity. With hindsight I could appreciate the problems I experienced when running was down to my technique. Later still I realised my poor technique was linked to my concept of running, which in turn was due to my attitude. For the last ten years I have continued to experiment with The Alexander Technique and movement and found just how much can be achieved by first learning how to do less and not more.
***
Roy Palmer is a teacher of The Alexander Technique living in Bedford, UK. He came to the technique after years of experiencing discomfort and sports related injuries. Since qualifying in 1998, he has devised ways to help sports people benefit from learning the technique. In 2001 he wrote a book, The Performance Paradox, looking at how popular exercise routines may actually restrict performance and increase the risk of injury.
The Complete Guide to the Alexander Technique