Looking into the Spine In More Detail

As I don't have much movement in my back, I have been looking into different techniques to help this that relates to the Bartenieff Fundamentals idea of the 'yeild and push' and "reach and pull". These two ideas help initiate movement in the spine, and looks at where it comes from. One of the exercises that we did was to lay in the child pose and push our head against the floor, reaching away to create a curve in the spine. Another technique that looks into helping with posture and back pain etc is the Alexander technique. This isn't a dance technique as such but it looks into posture and the correct posture. Peggy Hackney says a healthy spine should have a bend in it at the base of the spine is this correct?
I want to look into different techniques on how to increase movement in my back, the principal that we looked at of alignment has really interested me and made me want to look into it more detail.

Alexander Technique

This technique has been around for over a 100 years and was created by an actor Fredrick Alexander who suffered from voice problems and had general health issues.  The technique can help anyone to increase there range of movement in the back neck and head, from athletes to management of disability. it is simply about learning to strip away old habits that cause distortion in your body and learning new techniques on how to over come these and through gradual improvement and classes to be able to do this without thinking.

The Alexander technique is used to control back pain, it is a holistic therapy rather than a dance therapy, there is a lot of movement in this technique but it also focus' on a lot of thinking. The technique looks at self-improvement for back pain and any other muscular pain. It wants to re-establish the relationship between the neck, back and head, the core of your body in which your limbs are supported by and also provides the structural support for your breathing and internal organs. People may prefer a holistic way to help their back pain instead of a physiotherapist session or steroid injections etc. It aims to build and re-discover a balanced mind.You can normally see the relationship in the back neck and head the best in young children. this is because they just move naturally and don't think about the movement. In most children as well they don't have any stress to cause tension and injuries in the back un-like adults.

The focus of the lesson is the neck, the format of the class is trying to find different ways to move from a sitting position to a standing position and aimed to change the direction in which your neck and head go without you having to think about it. The idea is to be able to lengthen your neck in a "forward and up" position, this reminded me of the exercise we did in the bartenieff fundamentals class the principle of alignment. The "forward and up" position is designed to make subtle movements that affect your whole spine and get the whole spine moving just like the child pose exercise I have explained.

Showing the right and wrong posture. The right posture and correct position focuses on the neck going "forward and up" as in the second diagram

The technique helps dancers such as myself and other performers by increasing stamina, free up spontaneity and also it could help with stage fright. Relating it to myself  I could increase and improve improvising, rather than thinking about what is coming I can just free up my mind and let my body take me. It can also to help to get rid of poor habits occurred over time and dance training throughout the years and also develop a wider knowledge of your body. As a Musician their instrument is their tool and they  know it inside and out so as a dancer, my body is my tool so I should know everything there is to know about it.

The Alexander technique also influence other techniques such as the Feldenkrais method.

Feldenkrais Method
 
This method is also based on the idea to help gain more movement in the body not just necessarily in just the spine but in the whole body. It helps to realise our potential more fully It is and exploration of body/mind movement and working together, working on an exploration of self discovery as well as movement enquiry. Feldenkrais wanted a more flexible mind rather than a more flexible body, he believed you couldn't have one without the other. The method can potentially improve permenatly our posture, balance and co-ordination. This method uses gentle touch, movement and directed attention to increase your own self-awareness of your body, what its suppost to do? what does it feel like when something isn't right etc.It helps to explore easy fluid movement and balance which is the natural feeling of the body.  This method aims to deepen your sense of movement and focus' on your brain as the core of the movement, this comes form a quote "I think therefore I move" Thomas Hannah.

A lot of dance techniques go against this idea, such as ballet. Ballet tries to make us completely upright and doesn't use the breath and the release of the body to help the movement easier whereas some contemporary techniques embrace this because it is the natural body movement to use breath and to relax.

In the movement classes precisely structured movement exercises and explorations which involve thinking, imagining, movement and also sensing. The lessons are not intense movements they are comfortable movements that gradually improve your movement capability. There are two ways of learning the felderkrais method and these are : awareness through movement and also functional integration. Functional integration is more often than not a one on one session with a trained teach manipulating your body in order for you to feel the movement correctly whereas the awarnesss through movement classes are normally a group class with an instructor telling you what to do this allows for self exploration and allwoing you persoally to feel what feels right and comfortable for yourself or not.

I will continue to look and different techniques on how to help movement in my back because I know this is one of my main downfalls and weaknesses. I would love to be able to improve on this so I will continue to research this in more depth.