Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE
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Stand like a child
Standing in the bathroom this morning, I noticed my feet and it occurred to me how far away they were from my head…..and indeed how far away my head was from my feet. As far as I’m aware, there hasn’t been much change in this distance for as long as I can remember, but the size of my poor small bony feet in relation to my 169cm height alarmed me and I quickly sat down on the edge of the bath. Now I should say at this point that my feet are a relatively normal size 43 and wouldn’t cause many people much loss of sleep. But their 27cm length isn’t much to balance on when I’m standing. And given my heavy head and upper body weight, it occurred to me how precarious was my situation. If you’ve got a second, take a quick look at how far away are your own feet and you’ll see what I mean.
Being a biped and standing on two rather than four legs could be seen as a distinct disadvantage when it comes to balance but it’s pretty handy when it comes to having two spare limbs to carrying the shopping, briefcase and the baby. There is a high risk of getting severely off balance…...and most of us are.
During our lives, we develop tensional habits that cause us to stoop, slouch and lose our natural childlike poise. These habits tend to interfere with our co-ordination and our ability to balance. We don’t fall over however, because our autonomic nervous system kicks in to compensate, so we stiffen our ankles, calves, lower back and neck and a whole lot more besides. We therefore become stiff and experience discomfort and physical deterioration.
We can help ourselves enormously if we can be more upright. Leaning forwards, particularly when we’re hurrying or anxious that causes us to stiffen unnecessarily. Avoiding leaning will encourage our body weight to fall vertically down through our ankles and we’ll find standing less of a strain. If we emulate a three year old toddler by being loose and tall we’ll find that our balance improves, and our relatively small feet aren’t really a problem at all.
