Pain is a joker

Years ago, in another life it almost seems, I’ve attended a workshop by an Orthopaedic specialist, in Shanghai, China. I think the presenter was from Australia, and was living in Hong Kong at that time. Unfortunately I haven’t heard from him again; and forgot his name, too (maybe it was Marshall “Snow”, or something). During the one day workshop he kept repeating the phrase, Pain is a joker. What he meant is – in prevention and rehab – you should not try to chase down and fix pain at a certain location, but instead look at the client systemically, and fix the client’s overall posture (there was no talk about movement patterns, yet… also, fixing “everything” probably makes for more items on the invoice as well, I guess).

Let me break a paragraph here, because short paragraphs seem to be all the rage right now.

For example, if you try to fix something at location a (for example the neck), then pain might come forth at location b (for example your back)… you jump to fix location b, next thing you know pain’s at location c (for example your knees). The moment you think you’ve fixed the pain at a certain location it just keeps coming back again at another. That’s why the Orthopedician said, Pain is a joker.

That was in 2009. I found it interesting, because to me it was some sort of indication that the medical professions are starting to catch up with the status quo in alternative therapy. Moshé Feldenkrais found out the same, but somewhen in the 1920ies – AND created hundreds of elaborate lessons to address a person as a whole. Instead of trying to fix, for example, a knee, by strengthening and lengthening the muscles directly in charge of the faulty knee, Moshé Feldenkrais developed movement based lessons that help integrate the knee into the movements, thinking, sensing and feeling of the person as a whole, and thus give the knee a chance to heal up, function properly, and contribute well to that person as a whole.

You still with me? How long’s a piece of string? How long’s a piece of blog post ought to be? What’s too short, what’s too long, what’s just right?