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 MoreJumping off from the subtitle of The New Rules of Posture, I spoke about fascia, pandiculation, tensegrity, ergonomic chairs, spatial orientation, and manspreading. If you enjoy it, please share!
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 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 MoreLooking at computer screens creates a habit of narrowed vision. This use of the eyes draws the neck forward, stiffening it, and interfering with overall body balance. Mary Bond, author of “The New Rules of Posture,” suggests this exploration to heighten body awareness and improve alignment. Cultivate Two Way Vision: Stand comfortably. Now focus your eyes tightly on an object in front you…
Read MoreThanks to a reader of The New Rules, for inciting me to write again about breathing. It’s a HUGE topic, so this post is a distillation. Here’s my reader’s query: Here in Germany, singers, yogis, and tai chi practitioners are hotly debating the possibility of two types of people with different body organization. The focus lies on differences in breathing: exhalers and inhalers. In my understanding, their spatial organization corresponds to what you call earth-orienting and space-orienting, respectively. In everyday breathing…
Read MoreI love my accountant. The walls of his office display a 40-year collection of IRS cartoons, and he does everything he can to keep our yearly meeting light. But there’s nothing like an hour’s contemplation of tax code intricacies to make your head spin and put kinks in your center line. Money, when you have to part with it, compresses the body. Which is how I walked out of the office…
Read MoreWhen you think about your spine, it’s likely your awareness goes to your back. Perhaps you visualize the bumpy projections of the vertebrae you feel if you lie down on a hard surface. But your spine has a front surface too. It’s composed of the bodies of your vertebrae. These are round and thick, each one cushioned above and below by discs. Your spine has depth–the front surfaces of the vertebral bodies project 1/4 to 1/3 of the way forward into your trunk (2/3 of the way inside your body from the front surface). Located just behind your vital organs, the front of your spine can be an emotionally vulnerable area…
Read MorePosted below is Pack Matthews’ TEDx talk. He talks about the health offascia, the “sitting is the new smoking” research, and the research linking longevity to one’s ability to sit and rise from the floor without using hands or knees–and gives a great demo of this! Pack is the inventor of the Soul Seat™, a great option for people whose work requires that they sit all day. The design invites you to squirm and stretch while you sit. I’m putting one on my next letter to Santa!
Read MoreBecause I entitled this video blog “Secrets of the Shoulders”, I don’t want to just tell you what the secrets are. Watch the video to be introduced to bits of your anatomy you may not know you have: your corocoid processes. You’ll find out where those are, and what you can do with them. It’s a little tip that I’ve found useful and hope you will too. Once you get the feeling of letting your “corocoid eyes” look forward into the world, see how it feels to walk around with that feeling…
Read MoreThis week I read an article about a young woman who does not experience pain. The article contains messages of human generosity and connection woven through the story of a genetic anomaly. It got me thinking about pain as a gift, as something to be thankful for in this season of giving thanks. Pain can signal danger and the need for protection—we can’t ignore that kind of pain. But I’m thinking more about the mundane, ignorable pain of getting up from the computer after sitting there too long, or of having to roll too gingerly out of bed in the morning…
Read MoreLooking 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…
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