Balance or poise: Would you rather be stiff as a statue or poised like a trapeze artist?

Do you walk in fear of slipping on wet surfaces or tripping on raised paving stones?

If so, then you need to forget balance and learn poise.

What's the difference?

Place an empty bottle on the table. Try knocking it over.
Notice you need to push it a fair way before it topples.
That's because it's balanced and pretty stable. It has a wide base.

Now turn it upside down. As long as you're careful, it balances — but you have to be more careful how you place it. It's less stable because it has a narrow base.

Finally, take a spoon and try to balance it upright on it's handle.

You can't, can you?

That's because it's only got a point to balance on. No matter how carefully you place it, as soon you let go, it starts to fall.

What happens when you stand up?

Do it now.

Are you stiffening your ankles?
Chances are, the answer is “yes”.
(If you don't notice the stiffness, that's because it's just what you always do).

What would happen if you didn't stiffen your ankles?
You'd begin to topple over.

Then what?

Either you'd stiffen again to regain your balance
… or you'd fall over.

That's what happens when you “balance”

Balancing requires you to stiffen to avoid falling over.

Stiffness is built into balance. To stay in balance, you have to stiffen. It's not negotiable.

What about poise?

The bottle was balanced, not poised.
… and the spoon? You couldn't balance the spoon, so it fell over.

But what if the spoon had a self-corrective mechanism?
What if, every time it started to topple in one direction, something shifted some of it's weight in the opposite direction?

Before it had fallen any distance, it would stop falling that way and start to fall in the opposite direction instead.
Constantly correcting its fall, it would never fall over.

It would be poised.

… but a spoon could never do that

A juggler could poise it upright on the palm of his hand.
… but the spoon would have to be alive to stand poised by itself.

Inanimate objects can never do that.
They can't be poised.
Either they're balanced or they fall over.

But you're alive

Unlike the spoon, you can correct your fall by redistributing your weight.

So why don't you? Why do you stiffen to avoid falling over?
Why aren't you poised?

Actually, that's not fair. To some extent, you are poised. If somebody pushes you, you don't fall over. You take a step back and regain your balance.

You just don't rely on the process enough.
Somebody with “good balance” would stand truly poised.
A trapeze artist would be allowing their body to constantly correct their fall.

They would be poised.

If you don't do this, you stiffen to avoid falling.
… and then hold yourself fixed in that position.

What does stiffening do?
It widens your base to avoid over-balancing.

“Widens my base? What do you mean?”

It's what you're doing with your feet and ankles.

The lower leg bones rest on the feet at the ankle joints.
A poised person is balancing on a very narrow base: those two ankle joints.

When the ankle is not stiff at all they're poised over two points.
Just as poised as a ballet dancer standing on the tips of her toes — even when the whole foot is on the ground.

When you stiffen your ankles

… you've the whole foot as a base to balance on.
It feels a lot safer because you no longer trust yourself to stand poised over two points.

You've a much wider base.

The downside is that you've stiffened your ankles to do it.
And when you stiffen your ankles, you have to stiffen your knees
… and your hips
… and your back
… and your shoulders
… and your neck.

You're either poised like the trapeze artist or frozen into balance like a statue.

How do you achieve poise?
We'll see how next week.

• If you liked this article, why not get my new articles as soon as they're written? Subscribe to Back in Action.
• Do you have an idea that would make these articles even better?
  Share it.