It quotes the Journal of the American Medical Association: “In 2005 Americans spent $85.9 billion looking for relief from back and neck pain”. What it doesn’t say (because, like most people, neither the JAMA article nor the Newsweek article authors know about it), is that this suffering and enormous expense is avoidable.

We Alexander teachers have been saying so for years but, until they come and find out for themselves, nobody believes us. Now, however, there’s top quality medical research published by the British Medical Journal that fully backs us up. The research was found to be so important, it’s actually on the cover of the BMJ’s August 2008 issue, as you can see here.

Do you know anybody who needs help for their back problem?

Then show them this gold standard medical research. Show them that real, honest-to-goodness help is available. Here’s a link to the research: British Medical Journal medical trial of Alexander Technique

And do you know why this research happened, why a seasoned, medical researcher decided to undertake it? It was because his wife and his wife’s mother both had Alexander Technique lessons and he saw at first hand what a huge difference it made to both of them.

So please read the evidence — and please show it to your friends and family. Anywhere you post online, please mention it — and link to this post.

Do it now. Do it for their sake.

Finding the material to shore up your scoliosis

If you’ve been reading my posts, you’ve already seen many examples of the Tube Principle showing you to work constructively to free up a tight, misshapen body.

Each time you want to coax your body back into shape, you need to find the place where it bends away (the convex side of the bend). In stoops, hunchbacks and swaybacks, the convex side is either in your front or your back. In scoliosis, it is on your left or your right side. That’s the only important practical difference between a scoliosis and those other problems. Let’s take a lean to the right as our example.

Correcting a lean to the right

If you lean to the right, there’s a part of your left side that sticks out more than the right side. In fact, your right side is hollow at that point. That’s the convex side of the bend. As always, you need to allow that convex area to soften and, as it softens, to spread around your body to the front and back.

You can’t do that while you’re struggling to haul yourself up straight, so first stop struggling to be straight.

As your left side spreads, your front and back can begin to ease slightly over to the right (because you have created a little bit of slack by allowing your left side to soften and spread). You’ll be reluctant to do that because your habitual tendency is to try and tighten that area and pull yourself up by main force. But you don’t need me to tell you that that really doesn’t get you very far. Now’s the time to do what does work: begin to soften and ease your bump around to the left.

What do you do with the bump as it begins to inch around rightwards?

The final step in putting the Tube Principle to work for you, is to draw together the slack that you’ve gathered from easing the front and back of your body-bend over to the right. As you do that, it will tend to push the top of your hollowed right side up. It will finally begin to shore you up as it should have been doing all along.

Do you see now what was happening before? The bit of you that should have been holding your right side up was dragged over to the left leaving you clinging on to the overhang, desperately trying to prevent yourself from toppling over.

The more you cling on to the overhang, the more you draw your support out from underneath yourself. The more you draw the support out from underneath yourself, the bigger and heavier the overhang you have to cling on to.

Is it any wonder that your efforts so far have never brought you any success?

Now that you know what you were doing wrong

Now that you know why your efforts couldn’t be successful, just get to busy practising what does work. Whatever you do, don’t let your past failures get you down. I’m not telling you you’ll get amazing results quickly. You might but it’s unlikely. You really need to work at this — and you’ll progress much better if you have a guide.

Don’t wait until you find a guide

Start now. As long as you don’t go back to trying haul yourself up, as long as you begin to put the support back under your sagging right side, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t start your journey back towards greater health and ease right away.

When you need a guide, call an Alexander Technique teacher. They’ll know how to help you. And don’t forget that, whether they realise it or not, your guide will be showing you that it’s not a wall you’re learning to shore up: it’s a tube.

The article cites the monumental medical study led by Professor Paul Little of the University of Southampton, in England. This study was published by the British Medical Journal last August (2008). Here’s the video that the BMJ produced about the results of the medical trial.

There was just one error in the Oprah article: the article says the study was published by Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). A natural mistake for an American publication.

The trial involved 579 patients in 64 medical practices in Southern England. Here are some excerpts from the abstract of the published trial:—

Objective
To determine the effectiveness of lessons in the Alexander technique, massage therapy, and advice from a doctor to take exercise (exercise prescription) along with nurse delivered behavioural counselling for patients with chronic or recurrent back pain.

Conclusions
One to one lessons in the Alexander technique from registered teachers have long term benefits for patients with chronic back pain. Six lessons followed by exercise prescription were nearly as effective as 24 lessons.

The full published paper is freely available at BMJ.com

Here’s the BMJ video about the study

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GbwzqT9piU

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXmimtk381U