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 Flexibility
in Five Minutes A Day
In her book, "Life and Death in Shanghai", Nien Cheng describes her life in
China during Mao's Cultural Revolution. Because she and her late husband had
worked for a foreign firm, her home and all her possessions were confiscated
by the Red Guard, her daughter was tortured and then killed, and she was
imprisoned and held in solitary confinement for six years. Ms Cheng was in
her fifties when all this happened.
Conditions in prison were terrible and several times she came close to death.
Describing one of her lowest points, when she barely had the strength to
stand, she writes:
"...I thought that if I was going to survive the Cultural Revolution, I must
discipline myself with physical and mental exercise. Inspired by my own
resolution, I stood up rather abruptly. Dark shadows almost blinded me, and
I had to sit down again. But from that day onward, I devised a series of
exercises that moved every part of my body from my head to my toes, and did
them twice a day. At first the exercise exhausted me, and I had to interrupt
it with frequent periods of rest. Also I had to avoid the prying eyes of the
guards, as exercise other than a few minutes of walking in the cell after
meals was forbidden. Nevertheless, I managed to exercise each day and after
a few months recovered my physical strength somewhat, as well as my feeling
of well-being."
Several years later, the political situation in China shifted and Ms. Cheng
was released from prison. Despite all the hardships she had been through,
her health quickly improved. Her friends commented that she looked much
younger than her actual age. Eventually she moved to the United States.
It was fascinating for me to read about Ms Cheng's system of movement
exercises because it closely parallels a procedure described in the book "How
to Learn the Alexander Technique - A Manual for Students" by Barbara and
William Conable. This book emphasizes a procedure the Canables have named
"body-mapping" - essentially a systematic process of exploring on your own
body precisely how the major joints and muscle groups work.
This is not the sort of study one usually associates with anatomy - what I
think of as "anatomy at a distance", that is learning about the human body
without relating it to the body of the student who is doing the learning.
Nor is it at all like the detailed study of cadavers done in medical schools.
Body-mapping is all about the practical application of basic anatomical
knowledge to yourself as a living organism, learning about how you function
at rest and in movement.
In their book, the Conables write:
"In recent years some (Alexander Technique) students have expressed a longing
to do flexibility work but have assumed they couldn't devote enough time to
it. To one of these students I said one day, 'Well, you could do worse than
simply put your joints through their range of movement each day.' He came
back a week later and said, 'I did what you suggested and it was amazing.'
"What was that?' I asked. 'Put my joints through their range of motion each
day.' He showed me how much flexibility he had gained in a week doing that,
and we began to systematically play with the idea. Sure enough, it works
like magic and takes only about five minutes a day, with no necessity that
the five minutes be consecutive. The student simply begins with the joint of
the head and the spine...rotating the head and tilting, then moves on the the
jaw...then on to the ribs, moving them at their joints with the vertebrae by
taking a good breath. Then the student moves all four joints of the arm
structure and the hand joints. Then the spine, bending forward, backward, to
each side, spiraling, and twisting. Then the hip joint, knee, and ankle and
the foot joints. That's it. Done correctly this routine increases
flexibility faster than anything I know, and I have wondered and wondered
why. I now think two factors contribute, first the quality of attention
brought to the movement, which is the kind of attention that makes it
possible for the body to learn from each movement. Second, some of the
movements are ones that many people rarely make, like rotation at the upper
arm joint with the shoulder blade and rotation at the hip joint. The body
seems to delight in these movements and the availability seems to free the
joint."
If you'd like to become more flexible, the experiences of Ms Cheng and of
Baraba Connable's students point to a simple, efficient and effective way to
achieve that goal.
***
"Life and Death in Shanghai" by Nien Cheng was first published by Grove
Press, New York, 1986. It is currently available in a paperback edition.
The quote cited above is found on page 203.
Resources
"How to Learn the Alexander Technique - A Manual for Students" by Barbara
and William Conable, and a great many other books about the Alexander
Technique, are available from the Alexander Technique Bookstore at
http://www.alexandertechnique.com/books
"Body Mapping", an introductory article on the topic by Stacy Gehman, can be
found at http://www.alexandertechnique.com/articles/bodymap
Robert Rickover is a teacher of the Alexander Technique living in Lincoln,
Nebraska. He also teaches regularly in Toronto, Canada. Robert is the
author of Fitness Without Stress - A Guide to the Alexander Technique and is
the creator of The Complete Guide to the Alexander Technique
(http://www.alexandertechnique.com)
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