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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Incorporating posture changes into our lives
Child with healthy poise while 'at work'. *
An early morning client who has just had a few sessions said that she is finding it rather difficult to take the free and upright quality of poise that we are working on away from the quietness of my teaching room, into her normal busy life; the hustle and bustle of the office and modern city living is not an easy environment to maintain 'relaxed' posture.
This is an interesting point as there are a number of aspects that are worthy of consideration. I pointed out to her that as she has only had two previous sessions which were spaced a week apart, it was just a little early to expect transformation in her life. Habits are long established and ingrained, so will not disappear so quickly.
However, while the Alexander Technique lesson is about learning how to be more aware of balance, how to release unnecessary tension, to encourage lengthening and widening of stature, it is not a meditative quality or something that can only be achieved in the rarefied atmosphere of the quiet teaching room. It is a technique that helps us make the most of ourselves in any situation and is an active process. The technique is not something that a practitioner (teacher) does to us, but something we come for sessions to learn how to apply for our own benefit. We are not in a trance but clearly thinking, being alert to what is around us as well as the condition within us. It's thinking in action. The quietness of the teaching room gives us the opportunity to focus a little more on our posture more clearly without distraction, so we can get the hang of the process. We eventually build into the session such activities as walking, bending, desk work, climbing stairs, carrying and even golf swings, horse riding position (yes I do have a saddle in my room) and anything else that's appropriate or helpful. The objective is to eventually learn to maintain the new poise, the freedom and looseness and the tall broad stature in any activity we undertake. Sounds difficult? Not really; there are reasons why.
It's not that difficult because we have the 'Postural Mechanism' to do the job; we have the instinct for poise from birth and our body 'knows' how to be healthily poised if we can stop the bad habits from interfering. Good poise will 'happen' if we don't interfere with it. That's what we focus on in Alexander Technique; inhibiting the harmful interferences. Let me explain more...
When we are toddlers around 2-4 years old we have wonderful healthy poise. We are born with the instinct for good poise from birth which we've inherited through evolution over millions of years. We're born with the instinct for survival as any creature, and we've got the instinct for poise and movement. Have you ever seen a young foal being born, either in life or on film, as they land on the grass all sticky and wet; they can't see but in a few minutes they are trying to stand up? For a horse, cow or sheep they need to be able to follow the mother out of danger if predatory animals are around. There may not be many lions or tigers roaming wild around the UK now, but the instinct is still there. Like monkeys and gorillas humans can carry our young, affording children take a year or more to stand up and this longer process of crawling etc helps with our hand/eye/brain co-ordination. But we're born with the same instinct for poise as other vertebrates and this is with us until we die.
The other thing that we've got is our 'Postural Mechanism' which is an arrangement of muscles designed to maintain upright poise without any strain. As children we were able to maintain our posture without effort, free, flexible, expansive and well balanced. But our many hundred muscles were not affected by the habits we pick up as adults which affect the synchronisation of our musculature. The habits undermine us so we do not move easily in balance any more and we struggle against the effects of gravity. It becomes all hard work in a way it wasn't when we're young. But our muscles and bones are all in the same place; it's just that we're older and a bit bigger, but essentially just the same. It's just that we're using what we've got differently; it's our habits that are interfering.
We cannot 'do' good posture. It will happen if we allow our body to function normally without interference. In Alexander Technique sessions we tap into the instinct for poise and we revive the healthy working of our Postural Mechanism. We re-learn what we had as young children; it's just that we do it consciously.
While it is also undoubtedly true that the office and our frenetic way of life, the stress and noise of business can seem to not encourage healthy poise. In truth, it is for us to encourage ourselves by the simple means of a little awareness. Learning this may take a little longer than just a couple of sessions, but it builds up with every session. As we revive our instincts and utilise the mechanisms within us in the way they're 'meant' to be used according to evolution, it can be surprising how quickly we can start to feel and behave differently.
* Photo - me aged 3
