Alex

A case study by David Hall

Alex was a gentle giant. He worked on a contractual basis in a high tech industry and was looking forward to retirement in 3 years time. He looked at me over the rims of his glasses and said in a voice, rich in wry humour and melancholy “I doubt if you’ll be able to help me.” I asked him if that was because he was a hopeless case and he laughed, and then told me of his troubles.

He had a very exaggerated curve in his upper spine, which he said he had inherited from both his father and grandfather. His head was bowed forward, so he had to lean back to keep his head level. He said that his knees hurt if he walked up stairs or if he crouched and that he intermittently experienced pain between his shoulder blades. At it’s worst he said it felt like he had been walloped.

He enjoyed his work and had learnt to manage stress through a philosophy course he had done with his wife. However he was finding it difficult to walk any distance, particularly if there were hills involved. It was too fatiguing and would always be followed by back pain.

He did a lot of carpentry in his spare time and was looking forward to doing more of that when he retired to the wine country of NSW. However, he was now finding that prolonged hammering was making his elbows and shoulders sore. There was sadness in his voice as he told me this. He worried that he would not be able to enjoy his retirement, as he would be too tired and too sore. He had seen a number of people about his problem to no avail and was resigning himself to a life of limited prospect.

I asked him to walk. He looked down at his feet, and then shuffled off peering over the rims of his glasses. It was an effort to hold himself up as he was lifting himself with his chest and shoulders. He held his upper body very rigidly, which meant there was no rotation as he walked. As well as that he moved his legs as if they were attached below his pelvis rather than to each side. It was easy to see why walking was getting difficult.

It seemed to me that Alex’s idea of his body was out of kilter with what was actually there. It was clear to me that he didn’t need the amount of tension he was using to hold himself up. This can affect many aspects of a person’s experience. For one thing, Alex felt he had to look down before he moved, to make sure he wouldn’t trip.

I explained to him that he could just move his eyes to look down rather than his whole head and showed him that you can see a footstep in front of you with your peripheral vision even when looking straight ahead. I helped him feel the way his legs extended from the whole of his pelvis, the way his arms extended out from the whole of each side and helped him relax some of the tension he was holding unnecessarily in his upper body.

I asked him to walk again and to his astonishment it was much easier. It was easier for him to keep his head up and he was moving his arms and legs in a more co-ordinated manner. He left that session in a much more optimistic frame of mind and returned the following week saying that he had been amazed at how much time he spent looking down. He had been noticing unnecessary tension during the week and was feeling much better for letting it go.

He was still very hunched over though not to the same extent so we worked with bending doing a Feldenkrais lesson called Elbow to knee. This lesson is concerned with bending or the way we fold our body. I was shocked when we began at the limited range of movement he had. It was so restricted I wondered whether I would be able to help him. However we persevered, making minute movements. It was a little uncomfortable in one of the positions of the lesson where he had his fingers interlaced behind his head and his elbows out to the side. I rigged up some cushions to support his elbows and then we continued.

Despite the restricted movement he relaxed a great deal. When he stood up he said it was as if his back was bowed. He felt so much taller.

He came back the next week and said, “ I may be kidding myself but I actually feel better.” He said his lower back relaxes onto the floor when he lay down and that he could dry his ankles now without strain. He certainly looked a lot more relaxed in his lower ribs when walking.

We did a lesson that explored his feet. He sat on my low table and I rolled his feet very slowly on top of a heavy cardboard roller. Through moving in different ways we explored the connection of his feet through to his head along with his ability to flex his spine sideways. He felt much more balanced when standing and he returned the next week to say that walking was now no longer a problem.

Alex was experimenting with the movements on a daily basis, which was clearly making a difference. We did a lesson called ‘Hands on your neck’, which explores rotation and the way your limbs connect through the spine. We had to go slowly as the movements were very unfamiliar. He once again felt bowed in the back and looked taller when he stood. He said he found it easier to reach and looked a lot more upright when he walked.

He said the following week that the day after the lesson he felt popping in his joints of his lower back as he flexed his body. The next night he felt it in his neck. Since then he had been feeling a lot better.

We explored the relationship between his head, ribs and pelvis the following week, which made it easier to walk. He said he sometimes felt sore if he overdid the movements and was learning to avoid that by moving less far than was comfortable.

He was still very restricted in his rib cage so we explored a lesson called ‘spine like a chain’ where we move our head and pelvis in ways that enable us to move each vertebrae in our spine. He looked a lot more comfortable with this new awareness.

The following week he discovered that his boss had been sacked after an internal audit and he was offered the job as head of a whole department. It was very exciting, and as he said, “it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t go well as it will look great on my business card”

He was clearly was no longer thinking about retirement. If this job didn’t work he would be able to find another one.

It turns out that the job has gone well and Alex has continued working with the method. He remarked at our last session that he felt it had been quite a journey. Prior to our work he felt separate to his body and at its mercy as it broke down. Now it was a part of him with which he was daily becoming more familiar and satisfied.

Alex’s case is a very good example of how the way we move can affect the way we think, feel and function. Being locked into a rigid body was fatiguing and had affected his will to go on. Through paying attention to the way he moved and gently looking for the path of least resistance, he was able to rekindle his energy and discover the freedom he required to continue doing what he loved.