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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How's your neck these days?
Six year old tightrope walker
During lessons in the Alexander Technique, I'm often asked what's the most important thing to do to help our posture? Without a shadow of a doubt, the most helpful thing is to free our necks from tension as often as we can.
Tensing our necks is a universal habit linked to our fear reflex and startle pattern. Such tensions get ingrained from as early as four or five years old, yet it is most unnatural for any creature to stiffen their neck all the time. But our habits cause us to do so, consequently affecting every activity we engage in.
As young toddlers at the age two, we would not stiffen our neck, and nor would we pull our head back off balance as we would surely fall on our bottom. When we are so young our necks are so slim and neck muscles not developed, but our head is very large in proportion to our body and we actually have to balance it....almost juggle this large head on the top of our spine rather like a juggler with a ball on top of a stick. It can be so free, yet never fall off! This is a natural quality for the head and neck to be, as can be seen in any vertebrate creature, dog, horse, cat, cheetah, lion, squirrel....you name it. As adults we should also have this free quality.
If we were to put a neck splint (surgical collar) on an acrobat tightrope walker there would be no discomfort but this would prevent his head from moving at all. If he tried to walk a tightrope in his normal manner he would fall off after a few strides as he needs to let his neck be free so his head weight (around 4-5 kilos!) can adjust and compensate for his bodily movements. He needs his head to be free to help him balance. Any athlete will also benefit in their performance if their neck is free. And if you're in a meeting room presenting a new idea to a group of management, you too will benefit in composure, confidence and breathing if your neck is free of tension.
Learning how to free your neck is not put into words easily. Lessons in the Alexander Technique where there is hands-on guidance helps us learn this most effectively and thus help our overall posture. But let me see if I can explain in words that will hopefully be not too misleading.
The relationship of our head, neck and back is all important. We need to allow our head to balance freely on the top of our spine at a point between our ears; this point is much higher than most people would realise.
To free our neck we must firstly bring our attention to it and our head balance. We must ensure that our head is not pulled backwards by muscle tension in the back of our neck. For most of us, it will be helpful to allow our nose to drop a few millimetres so that our head rolls forwards on the top of the spine. Don’t drop your neck forwards like a giraffe, nor tuck your chin in. Remain upright. Our neck is a continuation of our back and should be relatively upright.
We’re allowing our head to roll forwards slightly on the very top of our spine at a point between our ears. Gravity will do the job for us. Think of your head teetering, freely. You need to ‘wish’ it free. It should be a clear wish that has meaning and which can bring about a change. We need our neck to be free all of the time. There is normally no reason for us to be tightening our neck muscles. This isn’t a fixed position and we should not ‘hold’ our heads in a position that we think is correct. Let it balance freely like a young child.
Keep thinking your neck to be free periodically throughout the day. Avoid trying to 'feel' if it's free as your sensory awareness is probably not sufficiently accurate. Don't worry either whether it is free or not; you will not determine this easily and it can be cause of worry. Just free it up anyway; you will never be wrong that way. It is most important that you make no physical effort at all, as this will only cause tension. Thinking is the process that creates and sends messages from the brain through our whole nervous system to communicate with our muscles. If you're thinking, the messages will be getting through. Trust it and give it time. You may not notice a difference right away, but just keep thinking and it will be gradually having an effect.
Free your neck and you're starting a process that can change your whole posture and sense of well being. We can free up throughout our whole body in a similar way, by ‘telling’ and intending ourselves to become freer. Habitual tension will remain unless we intervene. Tell your shoulders to free and loose, and also your arms and legs. I'll discuss these other aspects of posture another time.
Have a great day, keep smiling.....and free your neck. :-)
