Movement and Grace

When I was sixteen I was getting ready with my siblings and cousins for our school ball. We had a few group photos first, and then the individual shots were taken. One of my siblings told me my butt was sticking out. That was the start of my sway back. Lordosis is the technical term for it.

Nobody has ever really told me what causes it – whether it’s a deformation of the spine, or the muscles holding the spine, whether its fixable or whether I have to just keep putting up with it indefinitely. All I know is that it means my lower spine is curved too much and my back muscles go into spasm on a regular basis. And lately my back has been stiffening up when I try to sit and stand. I feel like an old woman.

Over the last ten or so years, I have tried a number of things. A chiropractor who xrayed me and then smashed my spine into place 3x a week for a goodly amount of money, Alexander Technique classes, Massage, Naturopath, Iridologist, Muscle Testing, more Chiropractic sessions, Pilates, Yoga and Bowen Therapy.

Out of all of them, yoga seemed quite promising, as did the Alexander technique. I have found a new chiropractor who my sister recommended, and I really like her. Last week she did muscle testing on me, and found out I have excess levels of several chemicals in my bloodstream, meaning that my liver isn’t doing a good cleanup job at the moment.

I also went to a bowen therapist last week who also does reiki and some other techniques. She said my left side is a lot tighter than my right. She loosened up a lot of muscles in my lower back, which felt like heaven, but it only lasted a few hours, then my back insisted on undoing all her good work. I could actually feel the muscles twisting themselves back into knots. Theres something compensatory going on there but I’m not sure what its compensating for.

I went to field days in Hamilton, where this guy tried to sell me some dvd’s about learning to move like a child – because children move with perfect grace and in harmony with gravity. He made some comments about chiropractors which I didn’t appreciate, since I like my chiropractor, and I couldn’t see or make a judgement on the value of what he was trying to sell me, since I know nothing about the “Milicich” method.