Just
fix my back so I'll be OK.
Your pain is caused by injured tissue. You can't fix an
injury, you have to allow it to heal. You are probably
doing something that places excessive strain on one area
of your body. This is often an unconscious holding that
prevents movement in some areas thus requiring more work
from an ajoining area. So long as the limitation remains,
injured tissue is being stressed, it is irritated, the
wound stays open and thus cannot heal.
I was taught to lift by bending my knees.
That is not enough: unless you are acutely aware of how
you are lifting, and how the effort is distributed
throughout the body, by keeping your back straight you
can actually put more stress on the lumbar area and
increase the chances of injury.
The problem is my posture.
Better posture would help, but posture does not lend
itself easily to being adjusted or corrected. Good
posture is that which allows the skeleton to fulfill its
role of efficiently supporting your weight without
restricting your ability to move freely.
If only I could stand up straight.
You cannot make yourself straight, you have to let
yourself be straight, in other words, you have to learn
how to stop doing that which prevents you from standing
straight.
But then how can you stop doing that which you do not
know you are doing?
I was told to exercise to strenghten my abdominals.
Most of us have over toned abdominals. Holding the belly
in may be one of the main causes of sore backs.
One leg is longer than the other, also, several
vertebrae are out of alignment and need to be reset.
None of us have perfectly aligned backs or both legs the
same length. Again, the origin of the problem is rarely
structural, it is most often functional: the problem is
not the with the way we are built, it is how we use what
we have, the problem is with the driver, not the vehicle.
Please tell me what to do
Difficult! Repeatedly telling a child to stand up
straight usually makes things worse. We can only learn
from direct experience, and that is where Feldenkrais
comes in.
If a form of treatment does not show marked improvement after five visits, the only thing that will improve is your practitioner's bank account. If you are still waiting for a promised miracle from a treatment, you will probably wait for a long time.
Why should Feldenkrais give better results?
To attempt to repair a symptom through exercise, adjustment or whatever, is a futile operation. Feldenkrais, through movement classes or individual sessions teaches you to take control of your body and gives you the tools that promote self-healing. Coming from a totally different prespective, the emphasis is on improvement and making better use of what you already have. Once you learn how to stop irritating injured areas of your body and placing excessive strain on other areas, your own, normal healing processes can take over.
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