Arm pain and RSI: Tube Principle directions to the rescue

Crash! David’s at his wits’ end: that’s the fourth time he’s wrecked his side-gate this year.

He keeps reversing his car into the gate instead of driving forward as he intended. He can’t understand why it’s happening. What do you think? Is that a strange scenario?

Well it is strange but no stranger than the symptoms of persistent arm pain such as RSI. The only difference is that it’s your arms and hands behaving oddly, not your car.

For example, you do your best to hold your mouse lightly, but your arm starts to hurt and, on checking, you notice that you’ve actually got your mouse clasped in a vice-like grip. How strange is that?

Another example: you try to hold a glass just like everyone else but it inexplicably falls out of your hand.

Why would such things happen? The problem that the above examples illustrate is that…

Your instinctive reactions have become unreliable

and, although it’s driving you up the wall, nobody is able to help. The ergonomics person is no help. Neither is the physiotherapist. So who can help?

Who can help you re-tune your instinctive reactions? Who can show you how to re-train your habits so that they once again behave as they’re meant to behave? Who can help you get back to working with your body instead of constantly fighting against it? An Alexander teacher.

An Alexander teacher re-tunes your instinctive reactions

Helping you re-tune your instinctive reactions is exactly what an Alexander teacher does. He or she helps you find out what is wrong with your habitual, instinctive reactions and to re-train them.

Being the exact right tool for the job, the Alexander Technique works wonders. Are there any problems? Well, yes, there are.

What are the problems with re-tuning your instinctive reactions?

The problem with any method that helps you re-tune your instinctive reactions is this: When you start doing things in a non-habitual way, it often doesn’t feel right. It feels like you’re doing something wrong.

Trying to improve the way you do things and finding it feels wrong, even though your teacher tells you you’re doing it right, is very confusing. Who are you to believe, your teacher or what it feels like? How are you ever going to stay on track outside of your Alexander Technique lessons?

You really could do with a way to work out for yourself whether you’re on the right track or whether you’ve got things muddled up somewhere. You could do with some principle to check yourself against. It’s terribly hard to keep going when there’s a niggling voice constantly telling you you’re doing it wrong. What’s the solution?

The Tube Principle is the solution

That’s where the Tube Principle comes to the rescue.

In this article, I’m going to tell you exactly how to use the Tube Principle to help you sort out your arms and hands.

Before you start on your arms and hands, though, you need to consider your head, neck and torso. Unless you start with your head, neck and torso, your work on your arms and hand will not bear fruit. If you do start there, that start will already have some beneficial effect on your arms and hands.

To learn how to start with your head, neck and torso, you need to read my other Tube Principle articles. If you don’t already have those articles in your inbox, you can purchase a pdf document containing all the Tube Principle articles I’ve written. Just reply to this email and I’ll send you the details.

The Tube Principle for your arms and hands

The first step in applying the Tube Principle to your arms and hands is to think of your two arms as two extra tubes, attached to your main body-tube.

Next, you need to work out what your arms and hands should be doing. You need to become very clear about what it is that you intend them to do. (We often refer to these clear intentions as ‘directions’: you give yourself the ‘directions’ you need for your arms to work as they should).

Using the Tube Principle to discover the appropriate directions for your arms and hands is as easy as finding the convex and concave sides of the arm- or hand- tube.

Finding the convex and concave sides of your arm-tube

So which are the convex and concave sides of your arm-tube? We’ll look at your shoulder, upper arm, elbow, forearm, wrist, hand and thumb — each in turn.

Your shoulder

The convex side of your shoulder is the point of your shoulder, the outside. The concave side is deep in your arm-pit.

Your upper arm

The convex side of your upper arm runs from the outside of your shoulder to the outside of your elbow (for your right arm, that’s the right side of your elbow). The concave side of your upper arm runs from your arm-pit to inside of your elbow. (Try tracing these lines to help you visualise them).

Your elbow

In your elbow, the funny bone is on the convex side and the crook of your elbow is on the concave side.

Your forearm

Forearms are a little more complicated because of our ability to twist the forearm.

For simplicity, let’s consider your forearm in a clap-your-hands position. In this position, the convex side runs from the outside of your elbow to the back of your wrist. If you turn your hand so that the palm faces upwards or downwards, the wrist end of the convex side turns but the elbow end doesn’t — so the convex side is now on a twist. However you twist your forearm, the convex side still runs from the outside of your elbow to the back of your wrist. The concave side is the other side.

Your wrist

This is straight-forward: the back of your wrist is the convex side and the underside of your wrist is the concave side.

Your hand

Your hand is actually two tubes, not one: the thumb is one tube and the rest of your hand is the other tube. You could consider it as five separate tubes, one for each digit but, for most purposes, two is enough. The convex part of your hand, apart from the thumb, is the back (the back of your hand and the backs of your fingers). The concave part is the palm of your hand and the fronts of your fingers).

Your thumb

The convex part of your thumb is the side furthest away from the fingers. It runs all the way from your wrist to the outside edge of your thumb nail. The concave side starts with the webbing joining your thumb to the rest of your hand and runs up along the near-side of your thumb to the inside edge of your thumb nail.

Now that you know where the convex and concave parts of your arm-tube are, you can begin to apply that knowledge to persuade it your arms and hands to work properly for you.

How to apply the Tube Principle to your arms

You apply the Tube Principle to your arms in exactly the same way as you apply it everywhere else. You allow a softening and spreading on the convex side of the tube so that the soft tissues can spread around towards the concave side and come together there.

Remember to start with your head, neck and torso. Then, go on to apply the Tube Principle to your arms as well. Go directly to the part of your arm that hurts and give your Tube Principle directions for that part.

For instance, if your wrist is the part that hurts most, encourage a softening of the convex back of your wrist and a spreading round of the soft tissues in your wrist so that they come together in the concave underside of your wrist. (If you have carpal tunnel syndrome, that will also give you more space in the carpal tunnel).

Next, from your wrist turn your attention to your forearm, your hand and your thumb. In each part, follow the same pattern of softening and spreading from the convex side, allowing freed-up tissues to ease around towards the concave side and come together there. If other parts hurt as well, do the same there.

Sometimes you will feel immediate relief

Sometimes you won’t.

Sometimes you won’t be sure whether it feels better or not. Either way, if you followed my instructions, you’re doing fine, just keep going. If you get confused, go back and check what you did. Did you identify the convex and concave sides correctly? Did you spread from the convex side into the concave side and not the other way round?

You see, you’ll find your habits are very good at persuading you you’ve got it wrong. So, unless, on checking, you find that you really did get it wrong, stick with what you were doing.

Final word

The Alexander Technique always works if you stick with it. So stick with it (and use the Tube Principle to check you’re doing it right). You don’t want to wreck your side-gate a fifth time, do you?

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The Smiling Back Method of the Alexander Technique
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Philip Pawley

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