Car designers seem to devise seats to support the lowest common denominator of posture, believing that people need soft seats that cradle the derriere, and backrests that ignore the capacity of your spine to support itself.
Read MoreWhen you sit with your thighs slanting downhill, your pelvis automatically finds an orientation that supports a neutral lumbar spine. When a chair is too low, your pelvis rolls posterior so your weight rests too far back—on your tailbone—and your spine above becomes compressed.
Read MoreTo roll forward onto an upright pelvis often requires a manual adjustment men would rather not make in public. He told me about friction between the fabric of jeans, an undergarment, and the skin of the scrotum. Especially when the weather is warm . . .
Read MoreWe dipped into pelvic dance, the ancient feminine communion originally meant to prepare women for pregnancy and childbirth. We explored the possibility of dancing from our ovaries, from our cervices. If we could dance that way, could we not also walk that way? But where and when, in current culture, would that feel safe?
Read MoreWhen you’re feeling self-confident and assertive, there’s an automatic uplift to your chest, spine and neck—your posture automatically organizes itself for the better. But no one feels terrific all the time, right? By teaching yourself the physical sensations that correspond to a good mood, you can use your body-mind connectivity to good advantage. Body awareness helps you cultivate positive outlooks in humdrum situations…
Read MoreVince Vaughn hasn’t signed up for online coaching with me, but if he does, I’ll be ready! This actor is frequently cast as an unconscious oaf who goes through a humanizing rite of passage. He’s good at it, and his fine serious talent shines through all the silliness. The other day I rented “Delivery Man.” Because Vaughn is in nearly every scene of this movie, it became impossible for me to ignore the way he moves. One could assume his lumbering gait is due to his 6’5” height, or is part of his characterization. But I think his gait is an artifact of a spine that, lacking normal curvatures, doesn’t properly rotate…
Read MoreThe attached video is a holiday gift to my subscribers—a de-stressor practice. But it actually has a further purpose. When we walk, our spines are designed to move in two counter-rotating helical patterns. This movement is the basis of our contralateral walking gait; it’s why our arms and legs swing oppositely when we walk…
Read MoreRecently, coming home from a walk, I was confronted with eight heavy boxes stacked up at the base of the steps to my house. They were not my boxes, not my responsibility, and without going into all the details, carrying them up the steps was not my idea of fun. I had walked a long time and was ready to rest. It was beginning to rain, and these boxes that were not mine would become a far worse inconvenience were they to become drenched. So I schlepped them up the stairs, one by one…
Looking back at my recent video posts, I see that I’ve been focusing on the pelvis and hips. That’s not so surprising, because experience has shown me that if your pelvis is balanced and adaptable, then many other aspects of good posture will follow. In my book and DVD I call the pelvis “The Root of Posture.”
This video adds another detail to our pelvis investigations. It introduces anatomical information that can help change the way you sit, the way you connect to your deep corset muscles, and the way you stand, walk and dance…
Read MoreThis started out to be a video blog about the way short, tight hamstrings impact your posture. But in order to stretch your hamstrings effectively, you’ll need some information about your hips joints. So, first things first…
Read MoreOn page 110 my book, The New Rules of Posture, there’s a sidebar about coughing. I’ll quote it here, to save you the trouble of looking it up. “The relationship between your diaphragm, pelvic floor, and core support is graphically demonstrated in the act of coughing (or laughing for that matter). If you cough with your pelvis rolled back, you’ll feel a tendency to puff out your belly and bear down into your pelvic floor. If you cough while sitting in a slight forward pelvic tilt, you won’t feel the same pressure on your bladder…
Read MoreToday’s blog entry attempts to answer a reader’s question about sitting support while also sharing something from my current class.
Shawn’s question was about lumbar support for sitting and why I recommend the Zackback sitting strategy that advocates sacral support instead. My reply to Shawn went something like this: For sitting in the car I like to work my sacrum back into the corner between the seat and backrest and then place the Bucky “Baxter” just behind my diaphragm
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