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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Attitude
James Dean
It's always a pleasure and a delight to see a young person interested in helping their posture as a means of them making the most of themselves. In some ways, it's harder for them than when we're older because there are not only the 'usual' reasons for postural problems, there is also 'attitude'.
We develop postural habits from as young as four or five years old, copying parents, pop stars, friends, film actors, as well as getting stressed. The combined effect is a deterioration in our co-ordination and along with it, postural discomfort, a reduction in our abilities to perform in activities such as sport or music and a loss of stature and even our sense of self worth.
Along with these influences, we also have the current trend of 'hanging out', being 'chilled' to the point we are actively and determinedly collapsing our stature and poise to look 'cool'. James Dean has a lot to answer for! So when a young person comes for an Alexander Technique lesson and is considering a short course to put things right, then I am delighted, as I was this morning.
Some people, not only develop postural tendencies without their awareness, but actively cultivate an outward appearance or manner that they feel helps give them an identity. Another current popular attitude of many young people is to feign a lack of interest with everything. But are they really as uninterested as they would have us believe, or just play acting? If we look closer, we may see that they are also suffering from a loss of balance and natural poise. In some cases they have purposely disengaged their supportive muscles to create their chosen slouch and ‘don’t care’ identity. Many are hiding behind a mask of contrived persona that has no relation to the real person underneath, possibly to simply compensate for a lack of self worth. However, if they were truly coordinated, balanced and centred, they would feel so much more confident in themselves. They would feel more secure in their true personality and abilities, and have no need for such contrivance.
How nice it is to see someone who doesn't appear to be carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders, standing tall, relaxed and free. When we collapse down in to the slouch, not only do we appear emotionally 'down' we probably feel it. Check out Peanuts for some wisdom! But if we are 'going up' with relaxed tall stature, we feel more secure, exude more confidence, we start to feel 'up', and there is a damn good chance that things start to go our way.
