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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What are your feet doing?
Are you sitting comfortably? So what are your feet doing?
If you're ever sitting in a cafe, restaurant or office, take a glance at the people around you and notice what their legs and feet are doing... Some will have their feet flat on the floor, but many and indeed most will have their legs entwined around each other, or around the legs of the chair, or stuck out in front of them, or on the desk or hooked back under the chair with only their toes on the floor. Some may be wagging, twitching, drawing circles, tapping, kicking an imaginary ball or trembling with uncontrolled twitches.
You may be wondering what relevance your feet and legs have to our ability to sit 'comfortably'. Well we don't need a degree in anatomy to understand that our legs are joined to our body in our hips and are not a separate part of us and consequently will have an influence on the working of our whole body. There are always compensations from one part of our body to another. Tensions in one part will affect another.
It won't be surprising to hear that our legs are a very heavy part of us; how heavy will be determined by our overall size, shape etc, but suffice to say that they are heavy and you wouldn't like to have to carry one around for long without putting it down. If we are sitting and our feet are not flat on the floor in front of us so our knees are at right angles, a whole lot of extra strain is put onto our hips so we become very stiff. Only when our feet are as I have described do we have a chance of reducing the strain in our hips and also our lower back which is more than likely to adopt a C shape curve; the opposite of the inner curve that it would naturally adopt if we were healthily well poised.
It's a good idea when sitting to see if you can release your hips so that your legs are free and 'relaxed'. Put your feet flat on the floor directly under your knees. Then with your hand, see if you can gently move your knee from side to side; see if your hip is loose. If it feels stuck or stiff, see if you can make it loose by thinking it free. To help you with this, get yourself onto your sitting bones (they hurt if you're on a wooden bench for more than 5 minutes!). bring yourself upright so your body is directly over your hips, free your neck by letting your head roll forwards a millimeter or so on the top joint between your ears and think tall. Bring yourself up to your full height without straining. (Use the Alexander Technique if you are familiar with it.)
Having brought yourself up tall so you're sitting on your sitting bones (most easily done on a hard dining room chair, not a sofa) try again with your hand to move your knee from side to side. Is this easier now? OK, now when sitting upright with your feet flat on the floor, move your body forwards from your hips so you're leaning towards the top of the far away wall; keep your full height while doing so. You should be bending from your hips, rather like a 'drinking bird'. Now bring yourself upright again. When sitting, it's a good idea to move backwards and forwards like this, periodically to help keep your hips free. It will help your back and your overall posture. It is also more than likely going to help you feel more comfortable when sitting and maintain healthy poise.
