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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Damp stains and posture
It's amazing how we can get used to things, good and bad so we end up not noticing them at all. I look at my newly decorated walls and think how strange they look now that all the dark damp stains and peeling paper have been made good and the walls are pristine fresh cream and my curtains are now dressing the window again for the first time since January when all the problems of water leaks started. Can it truly be eight months since the water came rushing through the ceiling as an ironic consequence of scaffolding and building works going on outside? It still remains a mystery how the problem could not be resolved until the scaffolding was removed! ....something to do with the structure leaning on the damaged roof parts, preventing repair....Sigh.
I had truly got used to the damp stains, and only made passing excuses for the mess in the corner to new clients who had not visited my practice before. Eventually I didn't even do that and only explained if asked, which wasn't that often and I sense that some people actually hadn't noticed.
But it got to the stage that I didn't notice either; I had got used to the stains, the folded curtains occupying one of my leather armchairs, the picture off the wall and propped up else where, my violin and music stand displaced and the bookcase shifted away to one side. How can one get so used to such mess and disturbance? Isn't it extraordinary how we can be inconvenienced and put upon by circumstances and after an initial displeasure and moan, if the situation continues for a while we just get used to it? How adaptable is man (and woman)?
The same can be said for our postural and health situations. How is your neck or back pain these days? If you do have a little discomfort (which I sincerely hope you do not) do you just grin and bare it, ignore it or just accept it as daily life? Maybe you're so used to it you don't notice except when it twinges more acutely.
If we were to suddenly experience some new sensation with regards our posture ie. an injury or muscle strain, we would certainly notice it and think we've got to get this sorted out and maybe seek some help. More often than not, such postural conditions as a stoop, slouch, limp, spinal twist can just creep up on us over the years and we don't notice them developing. If they came on overnight, we'd certainly notice as we would an injury. It's only when someone comments or we glance ourselves in the shop window reflection or see a holiday snap of us that we exclaim, "Help! I've got the same stoop as Dad has!" 'Like father like son' as the saying goes. We may feel 'normal' but clearly we have a postural tendency that is not healthy, yet we can go through our day unaware of it, unless we are suffering pain. But often then, we'll not associate the pain with our overall postural condition and wonder why it's there. Or we're so used to it that it can exist unnoticed.
Interestingly when we first come for Alexander Technique lessons, we may have such postural tendencies as I've described and be aware that we need to make some improvements, but the actual session can throw us a few surprises. Despite knowing that our posture isn't great and that we need to do something about it, we still feel 'normal'. But during the session with the hands-on guidance from our Alexander Technique teacher, we begin to change, our balance alters, we may become more upright, our shoulders open out, we become more 'grounded', freer in the joints, our head balance changes so our neck is looser. And with such changes, guess what.... It feels strange. "Surely this can't be right!" But the sensation of this new poise being 'wrong' is only in relation to how we normally feel, which we've got used to over many years. Our old posture, wrong and unhealthy as it is, feels normal or 'right' yet we know it's faulty. And when we experience better posture and balance having been guided properly, the new situation feels completely wrong. However we may be reassured when we notice that our breathing has become freer and deeper and we feel calmer and more relaxed, looser in our joints and maybe lighter on our feet. There are sure signs that our condition has improved, but how strange it feels!
During a short course of sessions, we get to experience the new way on every occasion and gradually this new and better poise starts to feel right and our old habits, which we may revert to less frequently begin to feel wrong. At last, our sensory appreciation of our situation is becoming more accurate! It's clearly a good thing when the poor posture feels wrong and better poise feels right! However, this is certainly not the case for many of us at the start.
I guess my newly painted walls and newly curtained windows and smartened up teaching room will begin to feel right soon. It's all so startlingly different! :-)
