Tips to Improve Your Sitting Posture

1.Revise Your Idea of ‘Good’ Posture

The majority of people have an idea of what good posture is and if I ask them to demonstrate will put in a lot of effort to haul themselves up into a position that is held, usually over arched in their lower back with their shoulders pulled back. Sitting is dynamic. There is soft springy tone and there is also movement.

2. Find Your Sit bones

These two bones (if you are siting now you could put your hands under your bum to find them), are the bottom of your pelvis. The pelvis consists of two bones connected at the back with joints at the sacrum, and at the front by a cartilaginous joint, the pubic symphysis. These two bones are like your feet in standing, they support you.

Notice what happens to your sit bones if you collapse into a slump; and what happens if you haul yourself up into an overarched posture.

3. Rocking on Your Sit Bones

Now you have located your sit bones, play with rocking forward and back on them. Allow your whole torso to come along for the ride. See if you can find a place where you are easily balanced.

4. The Balance of Your Head

Your head is heavy. Around 5kg for an adult human head, really well designed to carry your clever brain. Your body is also really well designed to support this weight. You don’t need to pull or push with your neck muscles just let your head be easily balanced up away from your sit bones.

5. Soften

Now you have found a better relationship between your sit bones and head. See where you can soften. Note there is a difference between soften and collapse. Back to point number 1, we want a soft springy tone so sitting can be a balanced, poised and easy activity.

Photo by Federica Campanaro on Unsplash

How a Technique that seems to be about Posture can help with Stress and Anxiety

If you have ever experienced stress or anxiety (there won’t be many of us who haven’t), you will probably recall a feeling that came with this. Even thinking about this now you may notice somewhere in your body that tells you that you are feeling stressed or anxious. Maybe your shoulders have become tense or your breathing has changed. Perhaps you notice your heart rate increase or a feeling or ‘butterflies’ or discomfort in your digestive system. In extreme states of stress you might become irrational, angry, feel unable to breathe or think straight, feel faint, nauseous or unable to sleep.

The Alexander Technique will teach you some simple tools to help change some of these symptoms of stress and anxiety. Changing these symptoms can allow your mind and body to return to a calm and balanced state so that you can begin to break the cycle and change your reaction to the stressful situation.

The Alexander Technique can never take away the stressful situations of life, however what it can do is give you tools to change your reaction to the stress. So you can have a real choice about how you can be in these situations.

This can be really empowering. The situation might be stressful but you don’t have to be.

Photo by Yosi Prihantoro on Unsplash

What Do I Mean By Posture?

Often when we think of posture we think of something held in a certain position. In fact the word posture is derived from the Latin verb ‘ponere’ meaning to put or place and from the noun ‘positura’ meaning position so it’s not really surprising.

However in the late 16th century when the word came to England it was used to denote the relative position of one thing to another.

Using the word posture in this latter way for me is better (although still not a perfect description), as it creates the idea of the possibility of movement. Posture can then be used to describe a snapshot of any movement from sitting, standing to running, pole vaulting, pirouetting or playing the piano. And this snapshot is the only still you can have. Our bodies are constantly in movement, the smallest of moments even, as our heart beats, our blood flows and our body breathes. In order to create an idea of good posture however we can tend to stiffen, tense and hold our breathe often before collapsing again. Or maybe have no awareness at all apart from discomfort or pain.

The idea of the relative position of parts however can be used in anything we do and doesn’t have to be stiff and held, not floppy and unresponsive either, just alert, lively, balanced, poised and responsive.

Perfect Day for a Rainy Blog

It's pretty rainy out there today. A proper wet, puddly, soggy kind of a day.

What happens to people when it rains though?

It looks like they want to pull their head so far down inside their jacket like a tortoise retreating into its shell. This seems to be the case even with a hood up or under an umbrella. As if being lower to the ground somehow avoids getting wet.

Sometimes a makeshift cover will appear from a piece of clothing or a bag in which the person will scrunch themselves down to get under (even though they could choose to lift it higher to fit themselves under).

Then there’s the running as if to dodge the raindrops. 

I like this quote from Tsunetomo Yamamoto, The Hagakure: A code to the way of the samurai

“There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you will still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything.”

Running with Peaches

I am always interested to watch the quality of a runners arms. I find it can give so much away about a persons running but arms are so rarely considered an important part of running.

Two of the most common things I see are thumbs sticking up as if thumbing a ride.  This to me is an indication of tension right through the arms, shoulders and chest.

The other thing I see is abandoned arms that are just not really involved in the running and a bit too floppy. Try running with your arms by your sides and you will see how tricky this can be.

Arms need to be part of the whole movement of running. Not overly tense or held but freely moving as part of the whole coordinated movement of running.

So whats with the peaches?

Well next time you are running begin by just noticing whats happening in your arms. Are they tense and held tight to your torso? Are they not really part of your running, just floppy and not really involved.

Then just imagine you have 4 soft juicy peaches, one under each armpit and one in each hand. You are going to need to allow some space between your torso and upper arm so that you have room for the peaches, maybe this allows you some more freedom at that upper arm joint.

And you don't want to squash them in your hands. So you need just enough tone so that you don't drop them but not so much they will squash. Don't worry too much about the position if you prefer your hands to be be more open that's fine, it's more about the idea.

And that's it that's all the tone you need.

The Gym – Getting exercise and insight at the same time.

I have recently joined a gym. I used to think I didn’t really like going to a gym and it’s true I would rather be at a dance class but that’s not always possible and I enjoy getting some exercise. Well now I really enjoy it, I am getting exercise and learning a lot at the same time. 

Today I was using the chest press. I had this funny little twinge in my left elbow. Not a familiar twinge and nothing so uncomfortable that I thought I should stop, so I continued but came back to allowing my neck to be free so that my head could move gently upwards and allowed my jaw to release... and the twinge stopped… as if by magic.

So how come?

Well everything is so interconnected.  What I am doing with the coordination of my head and neck is so inextricably linked to my whole way of using myself. So of course that little bit of extra effort I used in my neck and jaw to lift the weight caused something to twinge in my elbow.

Lucky I have the amazing knowledge of The Alexander Technique.