The Crook Back Book
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About this ebook
Grant P Cunningham
Grant Cunningham was born in New York City in 1950 and immigrated to Australia in 1971. He has collected live animals in the wild, been a zoo keeper, research assistant in forestry, natural physician, sculptor, surfer and diamond hunter. He has also written a number of popular books including THE CROOK BACK BOOK, INNOCENT BYSTANDER, THE MARKS WE MAKE and THE LITTLE BOOK OF MEDITATION but hopes this will not be held against him. Isn’t it funny . . . here I am a writer and I do not like writing about myself. Yet I am told you are curious about me and there it is. I must I must I must . . . I was born in New York City General Hospital on the East River in 1950 to a large Irish Catholic family. Had a chaotic family life built around love and alcoholism, with wee bits of madness and some jail time too. The family moved to Westport, Connecticut around 1955 and ended up at Edgewater Hillside on The Old Mill Pond with the swans and the clams. Industrial grade Catholic guilt and the pursuit of the American Dream. Indeed we were McCall’s Magazine family of the year in 1956 just before the whole act fell apart. Divorce, madness, jail. The whole deal. I was raised by my brothers and sister Lee and I owe them my absolute love and affection. They have it. My father dried out with AA when I was 11 and I owe him and them my mind. I lived with him and my bother Noel in New York City for a few years. John was a Harvard boy and he gave me to the Jesuits while reading William Burrough’s THE NAKED LUNCH aloud to me when I came home. It was a fine and terrible thing to do to a child for which I am profoundly grateful. Ta Jack. My bother Sean and I were speaking not long ago and he mentioned that the thing about having alcoholic parents is that they promise to do this or do that or take you here or pay for that, and they don’t. Oh, they mean to when they say it but . . . So what it does is to train the children of drunks to realize that if they want something or to do something they better do it themselves because nobody else is going to do it for them. Not bad training really. Keeps all the equations about life simple. I attended either 12 or 17 different schools ( l lost count ) before I graduated from Berkeley High School in 1968 as a hippie and a rebel. Was living with my brothers Kevin, who was in the Marine Corps and stationed at Treasure Island, and Noel. Went to all the venues, saw all the bands with a lovely PhD student named Janice who took me to every Janis Joplin concert in the Bay Area. Country Joe and the Fish were the local band in Berkeley, Credence Clearwater Revival were up the road in El Cerrito, the Pointer Sisters were in Oakland and Santana were third billing at the Fillmore Auditorium and the Avalon ballroom. Traveled to Africa to collect live specimens of mammals, reptiles, amphibians and insects for the Steinhardt Aquarium and the California Academy of Sciences. Bill Gaynor and Ted Pappenfuss. Reality in Africa drains one of illusion. There is illness, there is death, there is war, there is this thing we call life and it is not as we would wish but rather as it is. I was 18. Got back to the States, worked in Mike Malkin’s singles bar on 77th Street, got itchy feet and immigrated to Australia. Good move. I was 20 years old and Australia is where I have lived my adult life. Worked for the Forestry Commission, Taronga Zoo, started a leather craft business with Errol, lived naked on an island on the Great Barrier Reef with Sue, went back to school to study osteopathy and found an isolated house by the sea where I have remained since 1977. Fancy that. Time to write and sculpt and, lucky me, have a family. The good woman Donna, three lads (Bracken, Liam and Brean) and the ocean. Got to help a few people, write a few books, make a few images. A small life. Works for me anyway.
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Book preview
The Crook Back Book - Grant P Cunningham
The Crook Back Book
Smashwords Edition
Copyright Grant P Cunningham 2014
Illustrated by James Thompson
Written by Grant P. Cunningham
WHAT THE MIND OF MAN CAN CONCEIVE
HE CAN ACHIEVE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The exercises in the Crook Back Book fall into three sections. The exercises are separated to allow for the vast differences in age and
individual problem.
THE SITTING EXERCISES
The Sitting Exercises are for those of us who are unsure of their ability due to age, trauma, or illness. If
you are unsure of your ability, start here.
SOME BACK TALK
THE STANDING EXERCISES
The Thompson Method. The Standing Exercises are for those of us in good overall health and are more confident of their ability.
SOME MORE BACK TALK
THE FLOOR EXERCISES
The Floor Exercises are for those of us who feel more comfortable exercising on the floor, like the author.
THE LAST OF THE BACK TALK
INTRODUCTION
ON HAVING A CROOK BACK OR CROOK NECK
Welcome! Join the crowd! We are all subject to back and neck pain.
Certainly very few of us escape back or neck pain before we are thirty and almost none of us go further without it. It is the price we pay for having such a superb piece of genetic engineering within us. But the spine, like us, has a few flaws in it. And you should certainly not feel bad or guilty about this!
We are clods of the earth, you and I, and each of us is reminded from time to time that our toes must relax into the soil that grew us.
The man that jokes and laughs at your pain will certainly groan at his own when it arrives. And with back pain or neck pain, you can rest assured he most certainly will!
The important thing now is to help yourself. Do not sit and suffer any longer. That has gained you nothing but further pain. Let's get up and do something about your pain!
So, simply then, this book is about teaching you to teach your spine to move again. In a way it is a trick and like any other trick it takes practice and patience to master it. But it is not difficult.
Basically we are going to bridge the communication gap between you and your spine, which bears you.
We are going to work as a team, you, James and I. James will supply the illustrations, I will provide the direction and you will supply the labour. And together we will do something very positive about your spinal pain.
The exercises are simple, the explanations clear, the illustrations precise and the result, I trust, very satisfactory. I will be here to talk you through each exercise and each problem that occurs with each exercise.
It is important that you learn to feel for your spine, to use your receptive senses to find out what it needs. Then to seek the exercises your spine needs and to perform them with love, care, and respect.
WHO CAN USE THE CROOK BACK BOOK?
Whether you suffer from one of the many forms of arthritis, have hurt yourself at work or play, or are simply ageing, the Crook Back Book can offer you greatly increased spinal mobility and an improvement in the quality of your life.
However, if you suffer from osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, or if you are in any doubt, don't be a duffer. Take the book along to your doctor and ask his opinion. You will find that done as directed the exercises of the Crook Back Book are both gentle and safe.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR THE IMPATIENT
If you are one of us who dives straight into things and