Mary Derbyshire - Agility at Any Age: Discover the Secret to Balance, Mobility, and Confidence (Alexander Technique)

When Im Sixty-Four

Do you wish you could turn back the clock to a time when you could move with better balance and ease? Are you convinced that aging inevitably brings stiffness and pain? Does fear of falling prevent you from enjoying the activities you love, like golf, tennis, or gardening? You know that you would feel younger if you could move more easily and with less pain and stiffness.

Everywhere you turn these days, you are told to exercise and move. We all know the benefits of exercise: exercise for a healthy heart, exercise to improve bone density, and exercise to promote brain health. But what if movement in and of itself is painful and difficult? If you have difficulty getting out of a chair, how can you ever be expected to go for a walk? If your knees hurt or your back aches and your neck is stiff, how can you be expected to move more when everything about you is telling you to move less!

This is all very real, and you are definitely not alone. I work every day with seniors who are trapped by this dilemma: the more they hurt, the less they move, and the less they move, the more they hurt. They begin to think, This aging thing really, really stinks. They start to believe in one of the greatest lies of all time, which is this: Getting old means you are doomed to a life of pain and stiffness. Getting old means you must abandon those things that you love to do because it is too hard to physically do them.

We all have the image etched in our brains of the hobbling old granny or grandpa stooped over a cane or a walker, barely able to move. This image is false, and it is cruel. It is a preconceived idea that can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you are not careful.

You do not have to age that way! You can move easily into your senior years with balance and poise. You can learn how to move more freely and with an increased range of motion.

Certainly as we age, our bodies definitely change. Our eyesight and hearing may diminish, and our range of motion may decline. Our balance becomes less certain. We lose confidence in our bodies and choose to do fewer and fewer things. Fear of falling consumes many of us and forces us to opt out of a lot of activities. In my practice, this is a common observation.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that medical costs for seniors falling down are $34 billion annually. The CDC also says that one out of three seniors falls every year. Clearly, balance and the lack thereoffallingare an enormous problem that needs to be addressed. This book is devoted to finding those solutions.

There is a way to turn back the clock. There is a skill you can learn that will teach you how to move better so that you can function better. The principles described in this book will teach you to move more easily with less muscular tension and improved balance, mobility, and ease. You can learn this skill. It is fun, effective, and really quite easy.

http://mderbyshire.com/we-dont-move-like-we-used-to/

Think about when you were a child. Chances are, when you were young, you ran, skipped, jumped, and tumbled with no effort and certainly no pain or stiffness. How many kids, after playing outdoors for hours on end, complain about a bad back or a sore knee? None that I know of!

Have you ever stopped and asked yourself when your ability to enjoy this joyful, free-flowing movement ended? When you look around, do you notice that some people move more easily than others? Think about the people in your life. See them walking or sitting or talking and expressing themselves.