by Joan Frost Due to my mother’s lack of understanding regarding nutrition, as an infant I was fed boiled condensed (pet) milk to grow on. It didn’t work so well. I didn’t get to my feet until 18 months old and when I finally did, my legs buckled so that my knees and ankles caved in. In Ireland, they called this the “green stick syndrome”. I don’t know what they called it in America, but it was not uncommon in the ‘50’s. To remedy this, I had to sleep on my back every night wearing a brace – two shoes turned out 180 degrees from each other with a bar between. This put my legs into a frog position. I wore the brace every night from about 18 months to 3 years old. I have no memory of this time, but I do remember for years going to the doctor for walking exercises to deal with my very pronated ankles.
There was a problem with this mechanistic remedy: I was very pigeon-toed. The brace forced total outward rotation. Since my hip-joints couldn’t structurally accommodate that, where did the adjustment go? To the next level up – my lower back. I became extremely swaybacked. Standing equaled pain.
I must have had a weak back. When I was nine, while on my hands and knees playing with my sister, she jumped on my back and something “went”. It was my upper back. From that time forward, I couldn’t sit unsupported for more than 20 minutes before my back became hot, then numb. I gave up my piano lessons.
I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t sit. Any length of time with either and I was in significant pain. My mother took me to chiropractor after doctor. Nothing helped. I was a stoic girl – I dealt.
In college, typing papers was agony. But when I moved, I felt better. I enrolled in the dance program at the University of California at Santa Cruz and started learning about my body. I discovered my psoas muscle and my lower back lost some of its exaggerated curve. My lower back pain diminished. My upper back? It didn’t change much at all. I was always in pain behind my right shoulder blade and every few weeks it got acute.
I graduated from college and moved to New York City to immerse myself in the modern dance scene. A California friend discovered the Alexander Technique and told me I should take some lessons. She said my neck was very forward. I reached back to feel my neck and discovered she was right! I resisted studying, though. Why should I? I could have five dance classes for the price of one of those lessons. She persisted. Finally, after about six months of urging, I agreed. I called Missy Vineyard and made an appointment.
I don’t know what happened in my first lesson. I just remember taking a floor barre class afterwards and not being able to lift my head off the floor. I did return for another lesson. Again, I didn’t understand what was going on, but it seemed as if Missy knew something true about my body that I didn’t yet know. The closest I could liken to my experience was readings I had done in Zen and eastern philosophy.
Not far into the lessons, I started sticking out my elbows. Missy set me straight. I was confusing elbow width with upper back width. Amazingly, my upper back began to change! My pain started to lessen! I had started studying the Technique to keep my friend quiet. It had not occurred to me that it would affect the way I felt. By the time I was in my 20’s, back pain was a fact of my life and I took it for granted that that’s the way it was going to be.
I had ten lessons with Missy, then she moved to Baltimore for her husband’s medical residency. The effects of those lessons lasted about nine months, then I felt I had lost the sense of it. I asked around for and found another teacher and continued my Alexander journey.
[author] [author_image timthumb='on']http://www.acatnyc.org/main/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Joan-Frost.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Joan Frost was certified to teach the Alexander Technique by ACAT in 1983, joined ACAT’s faculty in 1984, and was Director of Teacher Certification from 2001-2008. Joan has also taught the Technique at The Juilliard School, The New School, the Diller Quaile School of Music, and at Sarah Lawrence College. For years she was a lecturer for The Arthritis Foundation. Currently, in addition to training teachers at ACAT, Joan maintains a private practice in Manhattan, in Rockland County, in White Plains, and in Stratford, Connecticut. Find her at her website: joanfrost.com.[/author_info] [/author]
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Accenture is prominently positioned in the “Winner’s Circle” in the latest HfS Blueprint Report, Salesforce Services 2017, for its excellence in both execution and innovation.
HfS calls Accenture “Salesforce’s largest partner, focused on digital transformations, with market-leading Salesforce services capabilities.” The report calls out several key strengths of Accenture, including being the clear leader in scale, offering a depth and breadth of services, investing in differentiating capabilities and being committed to helping clients to self-sufficiency after deployment.
The HfS report said clients have highlighted that Accenture is able to provide the right resources wherever and whenever they require them. Accenture was also called out for innovation, such as working closely with Salesforce to develop services to support new technologies, including Einstein, Wave Analytics, and IoT.
“Our top positioning as the leader in the ‘Winner’s Circle’ of this HfS report is recognition of our innovation and excellence in delivering Salesforce to our clients around the globe,” said Saideep Raj, Senior Managing Director, Cloud First Applications, Accenture.
The HfS report assessed 12 service providers of Salesforce services related to planning, implementation, management, operations and optimization.
Source: © 2017, HfS Research Ltd. Source: HfS Blueprint Report: Salesforce Services 2017, by Khalda De Souza, January 2017.
The report recognized Accenture as the leader in Execution, based on the quality of the account management team; the scale of design, implementation and management capabilities; flexibility; and overall delivery capabilities.
On Innovation, Accenture stands out for its vision for Salesforce effectiveness; investment in proprietary tools, accelerators and solutions; and capabilities for providing accessible and actionable data to customers.
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