Practicing what I preach (or teach)! Back Pain - and being an Alexander Technique teacher.

The other night, my hot water bottle leaked (I had noticed that it was getting a bit limp but paid no attention). I woke up sometime during the night, on a wet futon. So, the next morning, I pulled the futon off its base and managed to get it to lean against a radiator, held up by a couple of chairs. I felt very proud with myself for getting this done without doing my back in. Of course, I had to then lug the futon back onto the base in the evening, and all was well, until the middle of the next day when I noticed an increasing pain in my lower back, especially when sitting, and when getting up from sitting and starting to walk.

Quite by coincidence, a colleague of mine came round in the afternoon, and we did about three hours of Alexander work. I noticed that whilst I worked, my back was completely pain free. As soon as I stopped, it hurt again. This can only mean that I stop directing when I stop working. As an Alexander Technique teacher, I could not let this one go, so I started some serious work on myself and made some discoveries:

I did lots of lying down which helped but the pain was there again when sitting, and when getting up from sitting. So I worked on sitting (whilst doing normal things like emailing, reading, having tea, etc). And then I went for a short stroll in the town. What I discovered was:

1) when sitting, really get onto the center of the sitting bones and then let them take the weight (meaning stop holding the weight with the abdomen/shoulders/upper and lower back...). The pain just seemed to stream away and out of the sitting bones. This works even when sitting on a soft sofa - I still continued directing through the sitting bones. And

2) when standing, or walking: attend to the leg that is standing - I mean the leg that is carrying the weight - and really commit the weight to that leg entirely, right down to the heel and to the floor, with each step. I can direct this way now fairly easily when walking, even when walking quite fast. With each step, the hold and the pain just fall down and out of the foot.

Both these things have helped tremendously, and I am now practically pain free.

Understanding - again

During my recent stay in Switzerland, I tried to get some postcards of Wolhusen, the village I grew up in. Not much luck, which is not surprising, because I would not call it a particularly photogenic place. But I did find some contemplative cards at the local stationery shop, with nice pictures of birds, flowers, nature, and wise words. One of them reads: "Das Besondere. Ein Freund versteht dich, weil er dich mag. Aber ein Freund mag dich auch dann, wenn er dich nicht versteht".

Roughly translated, it means: a friend understands you because he likes you - but a friend likes you even when he does not understand you.

I would put it even stronger: to understand someone is not a prerequisite for loving them. Nor is it a consequence of loving someone.

I am going on, and wonder why this topic seems to be a thread in my musings - right from childhood.

Thinking aloud

Hm - between getting into my bath and eating my porridge is a good thinking time. I was thinking of the conundrum of putting yourself into someone else's shoes, and came to the conclusion that this is actually impossible. Which means we ought not to expect anyone to be able to put themselves into our shoes. The best we can do is to acknowledge that we can never understand someone else. But not understanding them does not mean that we cannot respect them, or feel compassion for them. That's probably the best we can do. To be honest, I would rather be respected and enjoyed than being understood. Come to think of it - if someone told me that they understood me, I would not believe them.....