My bare feet go flap-flap-flap on the kitchen floor before breakfast. The sound of it rests along the back wall of my attention as I flick my mind over the tasks ahead for this day. And muse about how much nicer it would be to laze on the couch with a book instead. It’s been triple digit weather in Los Angeles for way too long, and such heat wears a body down!
Read MoreYour midline exists before you are born. It’s visible as the “primitive streak” by the 14th day of pregnancy…
Read MoreA few years ago, yoga instructor David Thornton, asked me whether I’d been thinking about the chakras when I described the posture zones in The New Rules of Posture. Here’s what I wrote to David: I understand the chakras to be energy vortices located along the body’s central energy channel that affect all aspects of the person—body/mind/spirit. The chakras have spiritual or emotional content that impedes the free flow of energy through the core of the being…
Read MoreIn my last several posts, I’ve been drawing your awareness to the front of your spine. Releasing the tensions we hold within our bodies at this depth can restore mobility, ease and freedom we didn’t know were missing. Upper-cervical-facet-jointsIn this video you’ll practice a movement meditation that can restore mobility at the joint between the top of your neck and your cranium. This area so often expresses stress as rigidity, and is exacerbated by long hours spent in front of computer screens…
Read MoreBegin in a seated position as you did in Part 1 of this exploration. Imagine that each of your vertebral bodies contains a light source. When you inhale, the lights brighten; when you exhale, they dim. Imagine that the 24 vertebrae and sacrum can each project a distinct beam onto a wall a few feet in front of you. Each time you breathe in, your spine subtly extends, and that makes the light beams on the wall spread slightly apart from each other—visualize that happening. Breathe slowly and steadily. After every exhalation take a second to sense the weight of your body on the chair and your feet on the floor…
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 MoreA great many well-meaning teachers, psychotherapists, gurus, and friends have suggested to me or to others that when we’re under stress we need to take a deep breath.
I don’t agree.
Read MoreIn my DVD, I speak several times about the importance of propelling the body forward with the back leg and foot, allowing toe-off to be complete. It’s common, in places where space is at a premium (e.g. crowded sidewalks, corridors between work cubicles, small kitchens) for us to pull ourselves forward with the leg that swings forward, rather than propelling our bodies forward from the back leg. When the body is drawn forward from the forward heel, the hamstring muscles don’t complete their potential for movement which is to extend the hip enough to take the leg behind the body. When the hip doesn’t fully extend, the hamstrings are robbed of the opportunity to let go during the swing phase of the walk. This is the scenario of perpetually tight hamstrings…
If we can really let our bodies accept support from the ground and simultaneously widen our perspective to include our surroundings, then that balanced perceptual field automatically optimizes posture—as well as doing a lot of nice things for our mental outlook…
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…
If you read between the lines, you probably sense that under the banner of “The New Rules of Posture,” I’m actually sharing a somatic practice–a physical path to self-knowledge. Here’s what I wrote in The New Rules: to improve your posture you need to 1) “create new sense memories for what feels balanced and stable…” and 2) view “your posture as an ongoing perceptual process by which you orient yourself to gravity and to your relationship with the people, objects and events in your world.” Not something you do once and forget about. It’s a practice…
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 MoreThis video blog shows shares a way to relieve upper shoulder and neck tension by resting your arm over a ball. The one I used is a dryer ball, but I first learned this exercise with a tennis ball. Any small ball that fits comfortably into your armpit will work…
Read MoreTo “heal your posture” I always invite you to practice perceptions rather than positions. I don’t advise you about the set of your shoulders or the placement of your head, but rather try to help you discover an internal sense of balance, and presence with a capital P…
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