This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Swimming, is published on this website in a PDF format. It is very detailed and practical, and it will give you the physical tools you need to take the limits off of your ability to swim with ease, power, pain-free, and with speed without wearing out your shoulders.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
Primary Control is the basis of organized, coordinated, powerful,and fast swimming in the Alexander Technique. When a swimmer is swimming with the most organized, elegant, and powerful movements possible, then the head is leading the swimmer’s spine forward into lengthening, as the arms, hands and shoulders move from a decompressed, lengthening, and aligned spine. (I’m writing this article from the free stroke perspective, but the principles are the same in all four strokes.)
This means that all of the nerves that radiate from the spinal cord have no pressure on them. So, the nerves can send the signals from the brain for movement and/or muscular support in swimming, without being slowed down by the vertebrae and muscles pinching the nerves.
The brain and spinal cord always organize the movement that the body produces, but when the Primary Control is interfered with by muscular tension and compression and poor posture, then that organization is poor organization. THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE IS ALL ABOUT THE QUALITY OF AN SWIMMER’S ALIGNMENT AND TECHNIQUE.
The Alexander Technique recognizes that a huge amount of wear and tear and physical pain in swimming is caused by how you use your body, not by which stroke you are doing and how long you are swimming.
The assumption in the Alexander Technique is that we are born with an innate ability to move with beautiful Primary Control, and that babies crawl with the head leading a lengthening spine naturally, given that the baby is healthy in a healthy environment.
If you were to observe a 1,000 swimmers swimming, you’d be hard put to see one swimmer with beautiful Primary Control (given that none of them had done any Alexander Technique work). What does swimming without a compromised Primary Control look like?
The swimmer swims with a completely mobile lengthening body. The swimmer’s neck is free and the swimmer is aware that the head is leading a lengthening spine forward, which means that the swimmer’s head is leading the body across the pool.
This means that the swimmer is completely engaged in competing without compressing any of the joints in the body. This fully forward mobile lengthening organization of the swimmer’s body, gives the shoulders and arms of the swimmer an expanded torso to release out of, so that the swimmer can effortlessly generate the power and speed, without joint compression, that he or she wants from his or her body.
When the swimmer’s body is organized by the Primary Control, then the swimmer is free to place all of his or her awareness on a swimming technique that isn’t being compromised by a compromised Primary Control. In other words, if the swimmer’s body is collapsed or over-tense with poor head/neck/spine organization, then the pure specific swimming technique of the swimmer can never be what it would be, since it is not backed up by a balanced body.
WHEN THE FOUNDATION OF COORDINATED ELEGANT HUMAN MOVEMENT IS COMPROMISED, THEN THE SECONDARY TECHNIQUE OF A SPECIALIZED ACTIVITY, LIKE SWIMMING, WILL NEVER BE AS EFFORTLESS OR AS FAST AS IT COULD BE.
