Richard Brennen - Ireland.
I came to the Technique though back pain. This was primarily caused by poor posture due to my sedentary profession as a driving instructor. My posture was so hunched that someone once said that I looked like someone who had been living in a very small cottage with very low ceilings for a very long time! I often spent over 50 hours a week sitting in a car and after several years at the job I developed lower back pain. At first it was an occasional aching back that was relieved by massage or some gentle exercise, but before long I was suffering with such a very painful condition that I could hardly walk. I did not know it at the time, but my search to try and get relief for my painful and debilitating condition would take me on an incredible journey of self discovery.
The first port of call was my father who was a medical doctor, and although he was obviously very concerned about my condition, he could offer me little help apart from pain-killers and the usual (in those days) medical advice of rest. This brought only temporary relief and as time went by even the powerful pain-killing drugs I was taking became less and less effective. It was not long before I needed to get back to work due to financial pressures, but sitting in the car only made the problem worse.
MEDICAL TREATMENT
I then attended several physiotherapists over a number of years, and although some of the treatments helped for a day or two, my condition got steadily worse and worse. Before long I was also suffering with sciatic pains that were shooting down my left leg and I got to a stage where I could not sit, stand or walk without pain shooting through my whole body.
Eventually, after a long wait, I saw a series of back specialists who took X-rays and performed various other tests. Although a prolapsed disc was diagnosed as the cause of my problem, no one could tell me what had caused the disc to move out of position in the first place, or how I could get it back in place. I was only told that I would have to get used to the fact that I would never be able to live a normal life again and that I should avoid bending, lifting and carrying anything at all costs. The surgeon advised me to undergo surgery to remove the three lowest intervertebral discs as this, I was promised, would reduce the level of pain. I initially agreed to this, but then my father persuaded me to cancel the operation because he was treating people who had undergone similar operations, many of whom were in even more pain than before, and very few were actually any better. So as a last desperate attempt to find some relief from the pain I underwent an intensive course of physiotherapy treatment as an inpatient at a large residential physiotherapy hospital near London, UK. One of the treatments at the hospital involved improving posture and I was told to ‘hold myself straight’ and ‘pull my shoulders back’, but this only aggravated my pain instantly, in fact it aggravated the problem of all the other patients in the session too. Although the physiotherapists were obviously doing their best to help, the treatment and exercises they gave were not helping me at all; in fact when I was discharged from the hospital my back pain was worse than ever.
ALTERNATIVE TREATMENT
At this stage I started to investigate various forms of alternative medicine. These included the more established therapies such as chiropractic, osteopathy, homeopathy and acupuncture, and then I tried less orthodox treatments such as reflexology, metamorphic technique, aromatherapy, Reiki and spiritual healing. In fact, I was so desperate I would have tried practically anything and while some of these treatments helped to some extent I could get only short-term relief as the severe pain always returned within days of any treatment. I finally gave up after many years of searching and resigned myself to a life of pain. Up to this point no-one, including myself, had considered why the discs had become prolapsed in the first place.
By chance one day I met an Alexander teacher who explained that the Alexander Technique could be very effective in helping back sufferers like myself who had tried many other remedies without success. Although I had no idea what it was and was understandably very skeptical after all the other treatments I had received, I decided to have a couple of sessions to see what it was all about. At this point I was quite desperate as the pain was present day and night and so I felt that I had nothing to lose. I had no idea what ‘learning the Alexander Technique’ meant. As I had come across the Technique in the context of music and acting, being neither a musician nor an actor, I was not sure how it was going to help me.
During my first lesson, I was asked by my Alexander Teacher whether I always sat the way I was sitting. I replied that I really did not understand what he was talking about, so he put a mirror in front of me and I could see that I was twisting to the right while leaning at least 20 degrees to the left. Yet despite the fact that I was obviously sitting in a very crooked way, I felt perfectly straight. This was quite a revelation to me. I was amazed that I had never noticed it before. The Teacher set about making a few gentle adjustments to the way I was sitting and two things happened; in my new position I felt completely twisted to the left and leaning way off to the right. Yet at the same time my back pain started to ease. He showed me how I was now sitting in the mirror and to my amazement I saw with my own eyes that I was sitting perfectly straight.
After a few lessons the changes I felt less strange and my back pain started to slowly but surely abate. It was at this point I realized that when I had been teaching people to drive, I had developed the habit of leaning to the left while twisting my pelvis to the right; this was so that I could see both the road ahead and check to make sure that the learner driver was looking in his mirrors at the same time. Over the years this had become my habit whenever I sat and it was this very habit that had given me all my problems. As the tensions released more and more during a series of lessons I also noticed that it was not only my back that was improving; I started to sleep better, my self esteem and confidence also grew and to my surprise I was gradually becoming happier as well. Within three months I was leading a normal life again and was lifting and bending without any problem at all.
Extract from the book Change Your Posture – Change your Life by Richard Brennen.
