Avoiding further injury is common-sense.
Of course you need to avoid injury.

The problem is that what you’d think would avoid injury doesn’t.
It prolongs it.
It immortalises it.

What should be a temporary injury becomes an unbeatable opponent.

So what causes RSI pain?

Wrong question.

What’s important is how to get rid of it
… and that’s what I’m going to show you.

How long would it take you to work out how to bend a finger?

… as opposed to just bending it?

You’d have to work out which muscles need to pull
… which muscles need to hold
… and which muscles need to do nothing.

Within each muscle there are many thousands of separate muscle fibres. Each firing off at the appropriate moment — and not otherwise. Could you distinguish the individual muscle fibres? — or even the individual muscles, come to that?

With that much to work out, isn’t it wonderful that you can still bend your finger? (and without having to think about it, what’s more).

Never mind doing anything more complicated.

If you can’t work out how to bend a finger

then how are you going to know how to sit, stand, walk, talk, laugh, breathe?

You can’t and, fortunately, you don’t need to.

Neither do you need to avoid injury.

If your body knows how to sit, stand, walk, talk, laugh and breathe then surely it knows how to avoid injury too?

Yes it does. That’s part of its job.

Your body does its job perfectly

Like your car, all you need to do with your body is drive it.

You don’t need to tell it how to stand straight
… or where your shoulders should be.

So why are trying to re-engineer it while you drive?

Re-engineer it?

Let me give you some examples of this re-engineering

• You believe you should stand up straighter, so you force yourself straight.
• You feel your shoulders are too high, so you pull them down.
• You think your belly’s too fat, so you hold it in.
• You get a pain in your arm so, to protect it, you change how you use it.

There you go, re-engineering right, left and centre.
Acting as if you knew better than your body.

Did you know that:–

• Standing up straighter pulls your shoulders up?
• Putting your shoulders down makes your belly stick out and creates a pain in your arm?
• Pulling your belly in restricts your breathing, increases your stoop and stiffens your arms?
• Protecting your arms deforms your hands so that you lose both strength and dexterity?

Each one of those problems is there because of your previous tinkering under the hood. Each intervention seems to solve one problem (if you’re lucky) and creates two or three more.

What’s all this got to do with avoiding injury?

Don’t you think your clever body is already doing everything it needs to avoid injury?

“Well, now I think about it, seeing how clever our bodies must be, that seems logical …
… but, then why isn’t it being successful? Why isn’t it avoiding injury?”

Why do you think your body isn’t successful?

“I’m getting injured, aren’t I? I’m in pain.”

Yes you are
… and you’re assuming the pain is a symptom of the injury.

That’s a natural assumption
… but it’s a false assumption.

The pain is a symptom of your healing

If you break an arm, having it re-set hurts.
If you cut yourself badly, having the wound cleaned hurts.

Freeing up over-tight muscles also hurts.

That’s why many people get their worst pain at night. Your body has to wait until you’re out of the way. While you’re awake, that constant re-engineering stops it doing what it needs to do.

The pain is also a symptom of you fighting the healing

When you’re in pain, you fight the pain. What could be more natural?

The problem is this. When the pain is a healing pain, fighting it means fighting the healing.

Your body knows best how to move
… and your body knows best how to heal.

You need to work with your body, not against it.

So how can I work with my body?

By becoming aware of what’s going on.
By beginning to notice yourself working against your body.
Only then can you let it the choose how it’s going to work.
Otherwise, it obediently does what you told it to.

How do I do all that?

By learning the Alexander Technique.

That’s how you:–

1. Come to recognise how unhelpful your habitual movement patterns are.
2. Experience how much easier movement becomes when you stop relying on those non-functional habitual movement patterns.

Slowly, you will discover how much lighter and more effective it all becomes
… and how much less painful too.

Gradually that unbeatable opponent transforms back into a temporary injury — and heals itself as injuries should.

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Further Resources

Here are some ways I can help you further.

Wherever you live

1. If you’re not already getting my free weekly article delivered to your inbox, then go here to get it.
2. Repoise is our membership site for people who are serious about improving themselves (and getting out of pain as they do that). Find out more here: SmilingBackMethod.com/Repoise When you join, you will:–
   • have daily access to me. Together we will work out what’s going wrong for you and how to fix it
   • learn from reading other Repoise members’ questions and following their progress as they work with me
   • get access to all my articles, not just the ones that are published on my web-site
   Check it out and judge for yourself: SmilingBackMethod.com/Repoise
3. I’m writing a book about my work. It will come out on the 1st July 2010. The book I was going to write this year (on the Tube Principle) was a bit too specialised so I changed my mind about writing that book. This new book will still include a chapter or two on the Tube Principle — and, of course, much more besides.

If you’re in Liverpool (or can get to Liverpool)

1. I’m also running introductory workshops in Liverpool teaching you how to apply my work to improve your life. Go here for details of the next workshop: SmilingBackMethod.com/workshop
2. There’s no substitute for individual lessons. Ring me on 0151 708 6172 to book your initial lesson. (Leave your number so I can get back to you).

If you’re further away and can’t get to Liverpool

1. There’s still no substitute for individual lessons. Here’s where you can find a teacher near you in the UK or elsewhere
2. Remember to still do the things I listed above for everyone. Even if you’re having lessons from someone else, you will find these a very great help. They’ll help you understand your lessons better and get a lot more out of them. All my own pupils read my weekly articles and several of them are active members of Repoise.