Moving Beyond Back, Neck & Shoulder Pain in Warm Water
What swimming can teach us about moving with more ease, confidence and choice
If persistent pain has made you cautious, tense or unsure of your body, the problem may not be a lack of effort. You may already be trying too hard.
The shoulders lift. The breath tightens. The jaw clenches. Before you even move, your body is already preparing for danger.
If you have lived with back, neck or shoulder pain for months or years, you may know this pattern. You try treatment, exercises, stretches and better posture. Some of it may help. Yet movement gradually stops feeling natural and becomes something to monitor, manage or endure.
I know this territory both professionally and personally. I am an Alexander Technique teacher, Pain and Posture Specialist and trainer with Live Well with Pain. My work combines the Alexander Technique with contemporary pain science, movement education and practical ways of regulating an overprotective nervous system. I help people who have often tried a great deal already to move with less strain, less fear and more choice.
Until recently, there was no research to back up this advice. This new trial shows for the first time that swimming can improve low back pain.
Encouraged by the results and then talking to the researchers further about it, Steven, the founder of the Shaw Method, and I are developing a small programme for people living with persistent back, neck, shoulder and posture-related discomfort. It will combine simple land-based exploration with gentle practice in warm water.
One glide that changed the possibilities
I recently met Mandy Hudson during a Shaw Method teacher training course. Mandy lives with significant pain and fatigue.
Her first lesson did not begin promisingly. Access to the pool was difficult, she was angry and tense, and she was not convinced by the teacher who seemed to be talking when she simply wanted to get into the water.
Then Steven guided her through one glide.
““That glide lengthened me in a way that I hadn’t experienced before. It was effortless.””
Mandy already knew how to swim, but her movement was dominated by her stronger right side. The glide gave her a different experience: less wobble, less effort and a sense of her whole body working together. That experience was enough to make her curious.
Over time, Mandy says the work changed not only her swimming but aspects of her movement on land. She began reaching naturally with her left hand and found that the awareness she practised in water could sometimes help her walk and manage pain more easily afterwards
This is Mandy’s experience, not a promise of what another person will feel. What matters is the principle behind it: confidence can begin with a new experience, not another explanation or instruction.
Mandy: the glide that felt effortless
What Mandy describes is not only relief in the water. It is the discovery that support and skilful guidance can make a different way of organising the whole body available. Learning through that kind of direct experience, rather than forcing a correction, is at the heart of the Shaw Method.
Why I am working with Steven Shaw
Meeting Steven made the overlap between our work immediately clear. Steven is the founder of the Shaw Method. His approach grew from his background as a competitive swimmer, his own experience of chronic neck and back pain, and his application of Alexander Technique principles to swimming.
For more than 30 years, he has helped people of different ages and abilities develop a more enjoyable and intelligent relationship with water. His work brings together swimming, breathing, hands-on guidance and whole-body awareness. He has particular experience of working with people living with long-term joint and back pain.
The Shaw Method is not simply conventional stroke correction. The water becomes a place to notice habits, reduce interference and discover a better organised response. This is why it has so much in common with my approach to persistent pain.
The problem with trying harder
A lot of movement and swimming instruction still sounds like this:
Get the technique right.
Hold yourself properly.
Try harder.
Practise more.
There is nothing wrong with technique or practice. But for someone who is already bracing, more instruction can become more work for an overloaded system. The body stops feeling like one connected whole and becomes a list of separate parts to control.
What feels like weakness or poor technique may sometimes include unnecessary tension and compression. When some of that effort softens, breathing, balance and coordination can change without forcing the body into a new shape.
What water changes
Water gives us another way in. It supports the body, changes our relationship with gravity and offers immediate sensory feedback. Breath, balance, buoyancy and movement have to work together.
This is why something as simple as floating can be powerful. It offers a direct experience of being held. When the body feels supported, it may have less need to grip or protect so strongly.
Try this now. Let your exhalation slow down, as though you were breathing out through a straw. Imagine yourself in warm, comfortable water. Let your eyes soften. Allow your head, hands and arms to be buoyant. Notice whether the image changes anything, even slightly, in your breathing or sense of weight.
That is not a treatment or a test. It is a brief invitation to notice how an experience of support can change the way you organise yourself.
Breathing is one of the clearest places to feel that change. Both Steven and I are interested in changing our relationship with the breath, rather than issuing more instructions about how it should happen. That leads directly into one of the Shaw Method’s central practices.
Breathing without grabbing for air
Many swimmers rush the inhale. The head lifts, the neck braces and the person tries to grab enough air before the next stroke.
Steven often reverses the emphasis. Rather than forcing the breath in, he helps people allow the breath out. As the exhalation becomes quieter, the next breath may arrive with less urgency. Less panic. Less fighting. More support.
For people with neck, shoulder or back pain, these moments matter. Protective habits often include lifted shoulders, rigid ribs, a clenched jaw and held breath. The water can make those habits easier to feel. Because it is also supporting you, it may make them easier to explore without immediately forcing a correction.
What we are developing
Steven and I are developing a small programme for people living with persistent back, neck, shoulder and posture-related discomfort. It will combine simple land-based exploration with gentle practice in warm water.
The aim is not to fix painful body parts or turn people into better swimmers. It is to help people:
Notice unnecessary bracing.
Experience support before effort.
Explore breathing, balance and whole-body movement.
Build confidence gradually.
Carry useful discoveries into walking, sitting, working and everyday life.
The intention is that participants leave with a clearer understanding of their own bracing and breathing habits, a direct experience of moving with more support, and one or two practical ideas to explore in everyday life.
Would this suit me?
You will not need to be fast, technically accomplished or able to swim repeated lengths. Much of the exploration can happen through standing, walking, supported floating, simple glides and gentle movements rather than conventional lane swimming.
If you are already a confident swimmer, that familiarity with water may give you more space to explore finer changes in breathing, balance, coordination and stroke without focusing on speed or distance.
If you are less experienced, the work can be simplified and supported. You will not be expected to keep up with anyone or make it to the other end of the pool. You will, however, need to feel reasonably comfortable in warm water and be able to get safely into and out of the pool.
This is not a learn-to-swim course. If staying afloat, putting your face near the water or managing fear would currently take most of your attention, please contact us before booking. We can discuss honestly whether the workshop, some individual preparation or a different swimming-confidence course would be the best starting point.
Interested in exploring this?
Join the priority list for workshop dates initially in Golder’s Green and Putney, venue details and early booking. If you are unsure whether your swimming confidence, pain or mobility makes the workshop appropriate, send us a question first and we will help you decide. You can take a look at Steven’s site here too.
From fixing the body to restoring relationship
For me, the deeper possibility is not better posture or a more polished swimming stroke. It is restoring relationship:
With water.
With gravity and support.
With breathing.
With movement.
With yourself.
Stroke by stroke, you can notice what helps and what gets in the way. The shift might be from ‘my body is fragile’ to ‘my body can be supported’; from ‘I must hold myself together’ to ‘I can let support organise me’; from ‘I have to try harder’ to ‘I can pause, notice and choose’.
Pain may or may not change immediately. Sometimes confidence changes first. That matters, because movement no longer has to feel like a fight before it can become useful, meaningful or even enjoyable again.
Would you like to explore this with us?
Join the mailing list above to hear about introductory workshops, the developing course and practical ideas for moving with less strain and more confidence. Or get in contact with me for more inf
