Posture and the Alexander Technique: Posture that works
Page 2: The truth about posture
Page 3: Four reasons for NOT sitting up
Page 4: Posture that works
How are you to get good posture?
The first essential
Don't make any effort to be straight. Any such effort will only make your head/neck joint even stiffer — and that will increase your need to pull down. The biggest reason for bad posture is the very effort you make to correct your posture. That's a simple mechanical fact, as I have already shown.
The next step
Earlier (on page 1) I mentioned the reason why your head/neck joint won't budge. It's an effect of unreliable kinaesthesia. This is the real core of the Alexander Technique. Now is the time to investigate.
Posture that works is simple: stop relying on that unreliable kinaesthesia.
Do I hear you ask “how” — or “why”? I'll explain it all, but it will take time. Long journeys are best travelled in stages. Be easy on yourself. If you get tired and lose attention, please take a rest and come back to it later. Now let's go.
Here you are back again.
So what's the secret?
We've just found that the real problem of posture is:–
You are dragged down as part of everything you do.
The pulling down feels like a necessary part of your movement — so essential that, if you are not allowed to do it, you can't perform the movement. The result? If you so much as breathe, you tighten and pull down. (And, since it feels like a normal part of the movement, you don't even notice it happening). [from “Unreliable Kinaesthesia”]
In this posture article, you discovered that this pulling down starts with the head/neck joint. This stiffening of the head/neck joint is one of those things that feels “so essential that, if you are not allowed to do it, you can't perform the movement”. To stop doing it, you are going to have to …
choose to allow your movement to be fundamentally wrong.
because …
Unless you do, you will never again move freely and easily.
[from the conclusion to “Unreliable Kinaesthesia”]
Practical conclusions
Horses for courses: no attempt to improve your posture is going to do the job properly unless it removes the reason it isn't right already. If anybody claims to improve posture, check whether they are even aware of this reason.
Alexander Technique teachers are. (Although they may not be able to express it as clearly as I have done). This reason, debauched kinaesthesia, is FM Alexander's essential discovery. The stature of his discovery can be judged by the fact that over 100 years later most posture “experts” still haven't got the message.
No written account can do the Alexander Technique justice. If you think I have made an even half-way decent case, you will need to test it. You can do that by getting yourself to an Alexander teacher. One lesson should be enough to make up your mind for you.
Find an Alexander teacher: in the UK or in other countries.
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