Posture of Life

[Christoph]

http://web.mac.com/somathai/iWeb/soma%20tai/Articles.html

Posture of life

By Derek Notman

 

Our posture, how we hold ourselves in the world, is an essential window to our health and well-being. We can do so much for ourselves by simply considering and working with our posture.

Working on posture is not about "standing up straight" or forcing change through effort. It is not about holding ourselves a certain way and straining to do so. What it is about, is feeling our body deeply, opening up to it as it is and allowing room for change. We must first acknowledge the tension that holds our shoulders hunched forward before we can feel what it is to allow them to drop down and release back.

 

As human beings, we have an innate sense of verticality. It is this sense that lead us to ultimately find our feet as infants and cast aside our many failed attempts on our quest toward walking. There is a drive within us all to stand tall, to reach toward the sun and align with gravity. Like a flower or a tree, we hear gravities call in our DNA and answer with our bodies.

However, as we age and encounter the world injury and traumatic experiences, leave physical and emotional scars that begin to shape us. These injuries and insults to our being create a pattern of tension in the body that if unreleased can begin to literally bend us out of shape and degrade our movement patterns. Instead of moving in accord with the bodies design we begin to move in accord with the injury or trauma's demands. This may be necessary for a period of time until the injury is healed, but once healed we must return to our proper design and function. Often times compensatory patterns of movement developed during times of injury are never released and so we adopt a less efficient way of moving and being in the world.

Unfortunately if this scenario is not altered and the individual is not returned to proper alignment and function, the pain will persist and migrate as a cascading set of events takes place as a result of the continued misuse, which exacerbates the imbalance present. Old injuries unhealed grow new injuries over time.

 

We must also consider all the moments of tension that we encounter constantly, but of which we are rarely cognizant. This is the back round of pressure and stress that we hold on to as we sit in traffic, the office, or ride the train to work. It is a constant drain upon our posture, function and energy. Often we develop associated patterns of tension and habitual postures as as way of dealing with these stresses. Unfortunately, once habituated, these postures and tensions exist below the level of our conscious awareness. We become unaware of our reaction or tendency in the situation, we do not see that we are straining our neck when we look at our computer screen, or that we are clenching our jaw in traffic, but wonder why our neck and jaw are bothering us. It is a case of the overlooked obvious, we fail to see how we are in these situations, because we become identified with the tension pattern itself. Clenching the jaw literally becomes part of our experience of sitting in traffic. We loose track of the fact that we are doing the clenching.

By consciously working on restoring our design posture and bringing to light the hidden deposits of tension and stress we all harbor, we allow for our bodies natural healing function and energy to manifest.

 

There is a childlike glow and joy that comes from feeling comfortable in our bodies. We feel connected with the energy of gravity and get a greater sense of the earth beneath us. Our carriage and gate become effortless and our movements, refined and graceful.

Posture is the key to performance, whether it is in a board room, or on a golf course, an organized and balanced posture is an asset and essential ingredient to good performance and presence. To be open, at ease and aligned in what one does and says is a powerful way of being in the world. Posture is the process of letting life enter into us, opening our body to the constant downward flow of gravity, aligning with it, letting it wash through to plant us firmly upon the earth.

Edited December 5, 2007 by Christoph

[gendao]

Yes, posture is so critical.

 

But, it is tough to fix because it is a physically-ingrained habit.

 

It's taken me years to slowly fix mine (and still not quite done). I had normal posture as a kid, then developed a horrendous slouch after going through some tough times. But yes, the stubborn patterns can be broken and your spine straightened and lengthened. It just takes time...

Edited December 4, 2007 by vortex

[Taiji Bum]

Great post! But could you please put spaces between the paragraphs. That was well worth the read though.

[Cameron]

Christoff.

 

You and my other Tao brothers have been taken off of Cam ignore.

 

Let's help build a better world together and stop bickering.

 

Best.

[joeblast]

Having a bad back, I can totally attest to the criticality of correct posture I must always be mindful!

[Christoph]

A series of injuries left me with very distorted posture and chronic pain for 7 years.The daily pain was also closely related to depression.

My problems were worsened by physical therapy and ingrained deeper by strength training.

Nothing was working and the pain and injuries kept accumulating all over my body....first a shoulder dislocation then torn trapezius muscle,daily and often severe neck pain,left side back,right side back knots and adhesions,ankle pain,rib,serratus anterior,left wrist,severe elbow tendinitis for 2 years ect.

 

I have 95% solved 7 years of pain in 8 months of daily training.

 

If this resonates with anyone then you owe it to yourself to look into www.solution4pain.com.

 

Its been amazing for me and my body has nearly returned to its original blueprint allowing me to do things I have not been able to do since puberty.

[gendao]

I have 95% solved 7 years of pain in 8 months of daily training.

 

If this resonates with anyone then you owe it to yourself to look into www.solution4pain.com.

 

Its been amazing for me and my body has nearly returned to its original blueprint allowing me to do things I have not been able to do since puberty.

Wow, could you give us a synopsis of what the MBF therapy is in a nutshell?

 

I was impressed by this guy's story and his in-depth postural analysis pics.

 

Now, I've gone to a chiropractor and done my own stretches to correct some major problems, but still have some of those issues like a tilted pelvis on my right side, higher right shoulder and pronated feet. So, I'd love to be able fix them.

Edited December 5, 2007 by vortex

[Christoph]

I was skeptical at first but now I can say that the info on that site is very accurate and has been my experience.It does take effort and dedication to get through the routine everyday but that is the only way to retrain your nervous system...no one can do that for you.

 

Egoscue is to MBF what kindergaden is to grad school.

 

It addresses the entire structure of the body through a series of exercises.For example the first exercise on my list is always one that is to correct foot pronation. I thought this odd at first since my main problem was back and neck pain.

 

AS your body adapts you get re-evaluated and given a new program.Each new program will hit weak areas...for example I was several months into it and when I was given a new routine I realized that I had a severe strength deficit in my right hip that I never noticed.Within 2 months it was corrected and I am now able to run sprints without knee pain for the first time since I was a child.

 

I wake up in the morning and nothing pops and cracks...I can touch my toes or do a but to heel flat footed squat right out of bed.It is amazing.

 

best wishes

[Buddy]

Christof,

First off, Derek Notman is a good friend of mine and posts on EF as somathai (He's a Yin Fu bagua guy). He introduced me to Egoscue so I am intrigued by your post. It's twice the price of Egoscue, so I am hesitant to shell out more money. That said I've been on Egoscue for over a year. How long does your menu take to complete. How often do you change menus? If you've done Egoscue, how does it differ?

 

 

***edit***

Looks like about 800 bucks for the first 5 months. Egoscue was $250 for that amount of time.

Edited December 6, 2007 by Buddy

[Christoph]

Christof,

First off, Derek Notman is a good friend of mine and posts on EF as somathai (He's a Yin Fu bagua guy). He introduced me to Egoscue so I am intrigued by your post. It's twice the price of Egoscue, so I am hesitant to shell out more money. That said I've been on Egoscue for over a year. How long does your menu take to complete. How often do you change menus? If you've done Egoscue, how does it differ?

***edit***

Looks like about 800 bucks for the first 5 months. Egoscue was $250 for that amount of time.

 

 

It has a money back guarantee other wise I may not have done it.He also gave me and hour long consultation first.

 

it is 100$ per menu.The first few lasted 2 -3 weeks each and took 40 minutes to do. The more you heal the longer in between. I have been doing my last menus for 2 months and they take 80-90 minutes to complete so as you can imagine they are rather detailed and all inclusive exercises.

 

All in all I have spent 700$ in 8 months and my next program will be my maintenance program as I am almost pain free now. Best money I have ever spent and I only wish I would have done it sooner instead of dicking around with other methods.

 

I hesitate to say more because this has started to sound like an infomercial but unless you have been horribly mangled and disfigured in a major accident it should not take more than a year to be healed. AS you can see in my first post I had a long list of injury and pain and my before and after pics are ridiculous.

 

best wishes

[bindo]

I've had good results with the Egoscue method, but I think I favor Somatics, by Thomas Hanna. I once had back pain for nine months, gained twenty pounds, was miserable! Couldn't sit or sleep w/out pain. Then I spent two hours learning somatics from the book and all pain was gone! Worth checking out and fairly easy to learn.

[Ben Koontz]

I just wanted to say thank you for posting this.

 

I have been very active, when I was growing up I played 3 sports every year, and as I got older, taller, and interested in computers, and video games, my posture has gotten a lot worse. I was 6'0 when I was 12 years old, and developed bad posture, for one, because I was always tilting my head down when talking to everyone else, and the other main reason is computers. I still am 6'0, I guess some people get their growth at different ages, I grew nearly a foot in one year, and I have stretch marks on my back from it, which doctors always thought was from gettin whooped by a whip

 

Currently in my life, it has become so bad, it gets to the point, where my back will get tired when I sit straight, and I will feel pain, and be forced to slouch down in my seat again. My body has become physically adjusted to slouching. This only occurs when I am sitting down. The military has helped me with my posture while standing, which is one of the benefits of that, and to be honest, since I've been holding the Kunlun posture in the sitting position, my body feels more at ease while I am sitting down at work. I was sitting in my chair slouching over in a bad position while reading this post, and I was like "doh!", but yeah thanks for the post

 

Ben

[mYTHmAKER]

Here's something you might try.

Bend forward slowly notice if you are pulling to on side or the other.

If you can't tell have someone stand behind you and observe.

Most likely you will be going to one side or the other.

If you are pulling to the left when you straighten up raise yourself from

your perineum spiraling back left and up to center.

If you are pulling right do the opposite.

This will help lengthen the shorter muscles and balance your body.

Most people pull to one side or the other.

This would be making corrections from your core.

Get this one right and other imbalances will correct themselves.

You can apply this principle while doing wu wei standing and various seated stretching exercises.

I also work on pronation in wu wei standing.

[Eric23]

I have horrible posture and slouching issues myself. Way back I started a stretching routine for my back that has morphed into a more of a yin yoga practice. While this keeps the back muscles stretched, loose and mostly pain free, the source still exists. For me, this posture issue was one of the major reasons for embracing Zhan Zhuang. The first area I feel the muscle burn is in my lower back. I'm operating under the presumption that pole standing will strenthen my back, and abdominals from the inside out. Not sure if it's working, but I feel like my posture is straightening out.