Sit Up Straight - Be Good! Control Your Lower Nature!

This post is very blunt.  I don't know any other way to say all this. I see so many suffer from lack of understanding this. I did, for years, so again, I speak with passion and understanding. I was raised as a minister's kid, and I took all that good advice and preaching deeply to heart.  In some ways it was good, but in many other ways it really messed me up. Because I did not rebel, and took it all to heart, I suffered for many years for it, until at age 44 I entered a Feldenkrais Training  Program.  Near the end of this post I get to the blunt part - I sort of approach the topic by twists and turns. 

This topic is unusual and rarely discussed: sexuality, toilet training and defecation as it relates to a functional pelvis, sitting posture and our attitudes about all that, and the implications. When this material becomes clear, a load is lifted off your shoulders. Life makes more sense. It can bring light and awareness where before there was subconscious cringing or outright repulsion. 

Now, just because I wrote this post, don't think as a body-worker I discuss such things with clients. Well, maybe with long term clients I know very well.  No, and with the hands-on work my hands of course never ever go near the floor of the pelvis. Some people are so terrified when they read this, thinking I work in that area directly, they would never dream of making an appointment to actually see me. That area, however, is "worked" but indirectly, through movement and positioning. Please relax. I have professional boundaries, I am kind and thoughtful and my thoughts are about Feldenkrais and movement, and you are in charge of the sessions; what you don't want, I don't do. You stay fully clothed during a session.  Even so, I suspect that out of every 10 persons who read this, and would become clients, I will probably lose 3. If that is you, I would beg you to get involved with a good therapist. 

As Moshe Feldenkrais said, and I agree 1000%, the worst thing  your parents (or society, or the voice in your head) can do to you is demand that you to sit up straight. First, it means you learn  to think, sense and feel the spine - your very core of life and support and movement - as something to hold stiffly straight. It destroys the natural curves of the spine. It makes good posture and functional human movement impossible. It makes the pelvis immobile or dead to life and movement and postural support  - I see this in practically every client I have ever had.  

The tailbone, the bottom of the spine, is in the very center, the heart of the pelvis. When you think "pelvis" your first thought, your clear awareness, should go to the tailbone, not sex or defecation or urination or childbirth or soft tissue. People who can do this don't need Feldenkrais (usually). They  become the outstanding athletes; even the coaches don't know why some people are just "more talented." For sure, the best athletes have never, ever taken to heart the insane advice sit up straight. True, the independence and perhaps rebellion that allowed them to stay strong and independent of that very harmful advice will also frequently manifest as sexual promiscuity. But their sexual behavior is not the cause of the freedom of movement  in their pelvis (although it may be related), nor of their athletic ability. They just refused to listen, refused to obey, when people were telling them this crazy thing about sitting up straight, don't slump, don't squirm in the chair. For the most part they sit in the back of the classroom, as far away from the teacher as possible - probably a wise choice. For that I honor them. For the rest, well let me think about it. 

A dead pelvis is mainly the result of sitting hours and years at a desk in school, working the eyes and brain and hands, with a dead-to-movement pelvis, combined with lack of good movement and play while growing up, and not getting involved in sports at an early age.  The pelvis just sits there. Sitting up straight by stiffening the spine and chest just puts the final nails into the coffin.  If that were done to any wild animal, it would go nuts, it would know it would be a death sentence. I doubt you could train any animal to do such an insane behavior. Our pelvis is our power center, our strongest muscles attach there. What kind of horrible personality distortions do you think will happen if you immobilize them, for years on end, all the while thinking you are being good? Now, I am not saying you need to be a sexually active brute, God forbid, I am speaking about personal power, movement, athletic ability, poise, being able to sense the root chakra  in meditation, and no pain in the lower back. It has nothing, or very little, to do with sexuality.  

Our trouble is when we think of the pelvis, we think only of sex, or the toilet.   So, if we are trying to be good and nice,  we usually do not allow ourselves to even sense that area (of course some persons with more sensible upbringings don't have these issues, not in this way). Again, learn to think of your tailbone when you think of your pelvis, train yourself to do that. That will benefit you.  Learn to sense and move your pelvis from your tailbone (for most folks this involves many years of Feldenkrais. So many people have injured tailbones, which compounds the issue). The pelvis is just an intellectual concept for so many. A childhood of supinely succumbing to sit up straight be good don't squirm will tend to  launch you into a lifetime of struggle, back pain, body aches and stiffness as you grow older, neck pain, failures, unnecessary fatigue and more. You'll probably even end up angry, since you tried so hard to be good, while others who don't try so hard, have much easier or more successful lives. The hard truth is - those others were making a more intelligent effort. I am being very blunt - giving some hard truths in a direct way. Psychological counseling will be sometimes good, but more often frustrating, if this crucial somatic issue is totally ignored. 

Most every post on this blog, up to now, as been about the damaging effects of stiffening to sit upright, and how to go about it in a better way. Please read all the posts prior to this date for that information. Today, as you can see, we cover a different aspect. 

When sitting up straight is combined with "BE GOOD" the usual message, if you are a girl, is keep your knees together (which collapses posture forward, causing stiffening of the spine and chest to sit erectly - most women suffer from this), don't have sex until you are married and can support a child. Be modest. If you are a boy it means don't be immoral, be good and spiritual and celibate, until you are married.  Such a culturally entrenched and even religious moral message cannot be bad can it? It is well-intended , but sadly the results can be opposite to what is intended. 

In order to have any hope, any possibility, of channeling the youthful hormones into non-sexual avenues, or as some say, transmuting or uplifting or transforming the sexual energy for sure the pelvis must fully exist - as something to easily, naturally sense and move - in a person's consciousness. If a body part is unconscious, tension becomes chronic there, and the resulting bodily, emotional and mental distortions end up controlling a person's behavior. 

In other words - the harder you try to obey and sit up straight be good the harder the time you will have controlling that energy. When you can - God forbid! Am I legally allowed to do this? - let the "sex" hang down with gravity, relax and drop the floor of the pelvis, wear looser clothing,  let the belly not be held so tight, sense the tailbone as the essence of the pelvis - you enter a kinder, more sane and gentle world. Sex is considered in our internal milieu in the right perspective. It has absolutely nothing to do with becoming promiscuous. Quite the opposite. To get a pelvis like that, you need to do some serious Feldenkrais work, or at least learn to squirm intelligently in your chair! And you'll need to stop using over soft or curved-bottom chairs that compress the tailbone. You need a chair that is hard and flat enough so you can clearly rest on your sitting bones.  

Much of what our culture, and too often our teachers and parents, teach us is like poison to our posture, to our movement and our future prospects. Particularly that is true of anything  to do with posture and movement: those who give the advice have never studied the issue, not even for a moment, but still they speak with assumed authority!  Sadly, TV, video games, movies and computers aggravate postural immobility, pelvic immobility, staring eyes and stiff ribs in the young. We all have to get a lot smarter, quick.  Feldenkrais is like an antidote to the poison we have all ingested - wrong advice about how to be good, how to sit up straight. Really, it just takes a little bit to straighten out the whole situation. It's like a dish that is has no salt - just a little salt make it delicious. If I seem to be ignoring Yoga, or Tai-Chi or Qi Gong, or dance, it is because in past years I have recommended those things to clients, and the results were generally not good. We always had to go back the Feldenkrais basics to create the necessary changes. You can do all of those things while still holding on to harmful chair sitting behaviors, for example. You can do all of those things while keeping your chest stiff, thinking that is a good thing,  or unconsciously drawing up the floor of your pelvis, as most people in fact do.  

We want to enter a world where we don't have voices in our head telling us to do something insane like sit up straight be good when such advice actually does exactly the opposite of what is intended. Using muscles to stiffly hold the spine will guarantee that someday they will give up and you will have serious almost intractable postural distortions. The rigid pelvis that went along with the package guarantees that sex will always be mysterious, dark, inviting, something perhaps delightful, but uncontrollable, unconscious. Maybe it is that way anyway, but we don't need to exaggerate it!  It  will probably control you, more than you want, to one degree or another, if sitting up straight is a priority for you. That's almost guaranteed. The first advice I would give a man who was obsessed with pornography (if I were asked, which of course I never will be) would be to start somatic work with his pelvis. If I ran a 12 step program for sexual addiction, I would be sure this was on the agenda. 

Of course sexuality has to do with desire, diet, culture, belief system, exercise, parental example and training, religion, spirituality, habits, environment etc. I have written this blog to highlight what almost everybody else is ignoring - the somatic aspect. 

The somatic side of things is often the controlling factor in our lives and in society as well. The puzzle is why so few recognize this! Any neurologist will confirm that most of the brain activity of every person concerns movement, and what is related to movement. It takes a lot of work by our brains to allow us to function in gravity - and be coordinated, balanced, locomote, etc, even while we do other things. If  you arbitrarily impose bizarre  constraints  on how the low brain should do all that (something it knows all about without our conscious interference) the effects will not be good. And if all the "good people" in a society are taking on body posture ideas that actually disempower them, that society will take on major distortions as well. 

Toilet training is a clear example. If we are trained even a few weeks too early, before we could voluntarily control the sphincters, we learn "control" by tensing the entire pelvis, and by drawing up the floor  of the pelvis. This is our first, and perhaps most impactful mentoring for a lifetime of being uptight. We  thought  we had to do that to please our parents, and to be good. So from then on, to be "good" means tense, don't sense, don't allow natural feelings, anywhere in the pelvis. Instead - control it with constant effort. That effort becomes unconscious, yes, but it is written into the body language of almost everyone I see walking down the street, every day. You won't be able to see this until you first have learned to release the floor of your own pelvis down, and let go of all that effort. Then it will suddenly be clear to you what everyone else is doing. 

Then we go to school and learn to sit still, and stiffly straight in chairs, while "paying attention." So we learn that to concentrate, we must immobilize the pelvis, be uptight and stare straight ahead. From then on, unless a person has strong counteracting behaviors or attitudes, the pelvis becomes more and more hypnotized into rigidity. Yes, we know we have a pelvis. Yes, we can feel it. If we sit down, we feel our pelvis - yes, of course. What I am referring to is the ability of the pelvis to naturally, without thinking or willing, actively, dynamically support the weight of the torso, to respond with precision appropriately second- by-second to minor changes in the carriage of our head or the movement of our arms, and be a place from which we can initiate movement, and not just be a passive participator. If you have a pelvis like that, congratulations, you are a most unusual person. You'll go far in life. Obstacles will fall at your feet. 

The lumbar spine and pelvis are designed most easily to move in flexion and extension. People associate that movement with sexuality, rightly so. However, it need not have an exclusively sexual connotation. Because of this stigma, many people are shy to move their pelvis in flexion and extension, even to adjust their sitting posture in a chair!  When bending down to pick up a box or any object, few people allow their buttocks to stick out ("rudely") behind them. Yet, that is the only way that integrity of the spine can be maintained while lifting.  Most people keep their tailbone, their pelvis, tucked under (body language for cowardice) for fear of being rude or suggestive. When I teach people not to do this, their back pain usually goes away. Granted we have all been trained into this since childhood, but still, it can only be called absurd.

It is entirely possible to do aerobics, yoga, tai chi, any kind of sports activity - all the while with under-utilized pelvis, or worse yet, a pelvis that is doggedly remaining in the "tucked-under" mode. The harder you work at sports or yoga, like that, the more trouble you will create for your body. Without the pelvis tilting movement available, chair sitting becomes a trial and pain-inducing, we cannot have personal power or real integrity, we cannot have a relaxed chest and we cannot even have relaxed shoulders or necks. We cannot sense our tailbones - and this alone can create a tendency towards chronic anxiety. Untreated tailbone injuries aggravate this situation. With a pelvis like that, everything else has to compensate - we become ungrounded, over-tense, uptight and all the joints over-compressed. That means lots of pain, eventually. No matter what the medical diagnosis or treatment for joint or muscle pain might be - if you work this angle as well, you'll get better results.  

That America has the world's highest rates of constipation and colon cancer is certainly not unrelated to these issues. We are trying to be so polite and proper and good that we are literally killing ourselves in the process.  

When the only place in a society where there is any hope of normal pelvic movement is sex, then sex will take on an artificial glow of desirability, even of necessity or normalcy for all people of all ages in all conditions. Never in he history of the world has that been an accepted truth, not in any ancient culture that I have heard about, yet we seem to be moving in that direction. Morality aside, it strikes one as absurd, just taking it at face value.

Because normal pelvis movement has taken on an overly-sexual charge or connotation, those people in society who are trying to be good or religious or moral or spiritual - won't allow themselves to do that movement (except maybe if they are able with a marriage partner, during sex). It is considered unclean or at least improper. So they hold themselves uptight as a way to be correct or good.  They'll even walk with a pelvis like a stiff board, the legs just swinging as if on immobile hinges. This can quickly wear out the hip joints.

Sadly, and paradoxically, such people will be more or less impotent in both their personal and public lives. The bottom of our spine, our tailbone and pelvis, is the very foundation of our life, our energy, our power. When we never sense it, and hold it all immobile, for whatever reason, we are continually affirming to ourselves and to the world that we cannot fully commit to any action, that we are neurotically, unconsciously committed to unreasonable or dogmatic ideas, that we are blocking our own personal power for some weird reason, that we are easily influenced by other people, that we are not in full control. Living like that - and I've experienced it - is like rowing a boat upstream, and the river is flowing fast. It is a lot of work, you get nowhere and often get swept downstream. 

Children can be our teachers. Rather than fear that they will grow into wild animals, with uncontrolled instincts - and therefore we demand they sit stiff or still and straight and concentrate to do homework, etc -  we should encourage them to sit and eat and play on the floor, encourage outdoor play, sports, involvement  with Feldenkrais, crawling, creeping, dance and minimal chair sitting. They need to be taught how to sit in a chair intelligently - such as I have outlined in these articles. Paradoxically, if kids are denied a functional pelvis while growing up, in their teenage-hormone years, it is highly likely they will be powerfully attracted to anybody with a functional, moveable pelvis.  It will seem so natural, so right, so normal, and "what my parents taught me was so stupid". And they'd be right. Yet, that person may be the last person on earth you want your  child to hang out with!  

 

Head Forward Posture and Perceived Skeletal Support

How tightly do you hold yourself? Can you relax from the inside? Can you stand and sit and clearly sense your soft tissue resting on your bony skeleton? If not, don't worry - not many people can. But it is easy to learn, and the benefits are outstanding and permanent. Once you learn it, you will shed years of turmoil, aches, troubles and tensions written in your body. You'll go through life with more power, poise, grace, more energy and better perspective. 

It involves many things - lots of private sessions or many group ATM lessons are needed, for most people. Although for some people just a few sessions do the trick. It depends on how fast you learn, how many injuries and surgeries you have had, how chronically your head is jutted forward of your torso, your psychological state, how adventurous you are, how much you can trust life and your own body to create beneficial changes. It is not so much about just relaxing as it is usually understood. You benefit most from working with movement and clarifying balance and surrendering to support while moving since those are the arenas where our habits of compression and tension reside. Have you ever noticed that after a massage you feel good for some hours, then it is gone? You did not necessarily learn anything about how to configure yourself, how to organize yourself and move in better ways, how to have more choices. You only learned, perhaps, how to relax on the table, and for a little while standing up. Many of my clients tell me that my Feldenkrais Functional Integration work lasts for days and weeks, they keep on feeling the changes. That is because The Feldenkrais Method works with movement, self-image and awareness - not just rubbing muscles, relaxing or stretching muscles, aligning bones or whatever manipulations however clever.  

Head forward posture is one catch-point. If you have this, it means you are doing lots of unnecessary work to hold up your head, which is not resting quietly on top of your spine (which you should know by now is exactly half-way between your ears). With head forward posture it is almost impossible to perceive whole-body skeletal support. There is too much work going on, constantly, with the neck, shoulders and upper back - all because of the head being forward. If you have lived with that for years, you have come to expect that life is hard, lots of effort is needed to get through a day, fatigue comes quickly, you have definite limits. All that can change, and quickly!  In my opinion, if you have this condition, you would be exceedingly wise to give high priority to correcting it as soon as possible. Yes, that is possible (in a future post I will be covering this topic in detail), even for an elderly person with dowager's hump - but for them the changes come more slowly, usually. Not many have the patience to continue with the process until there is a full resolution. At least, I have not seen it.  

If  you have this condition, any little improvements you can make will give you huge benefits. It is a lot of work for the neck, back and shoulders to hold the head up, when it is not lined up over the spine - and instead juts forward, however slightly. 

You'll feel cooler, calmer, the muscles at the base of your neck will not be as sore. You'll have better brain function, more self confidence, and a nervous system that knows how to be quiet. Best of all, you'll easily begin to feel the body resting on the skeleton. That's nearly impossible if the head is jutted forward.  Until you can feel the head resting on the top of the spine, this is very difficult. That is where it begins - to feel the body supported by the skeleton. We need to be able, at will, to sense the weight of the head resting on the top of the spine, which - again -  is exactly halfway between the ears. 

What is it like to feel the body resting on the skeleton? You have seen such people. They stand quietly. Their bodily movements are graceful, minimal effort produces just the movements they need. It is relaxing to see such a person, even at a distance. They are not holding themselves so tightly with their own muscles, internally. Most people do that, a lot. It is all wasted effort.  It communicates as body language power, grace, poise, efficiency, quiet responsiveness. 

Like so many other Feldenkrais-inspired transformations it affects the core of who we think we are. Most of us have accepted who we are, with all our limitations and quirks and strengths. And others have come to expect us to be that way, as well.   We little realize how much we can change, by working with movement and awareness, which is how our early self-image was formed. In my private practice, I usually see the transformation from tense-uptight-holding to resting-on-the-skeleton after 6 months to 2 years of regular sessions. Yes, it can take that long. A four year Feldenkrais Training Program would also definitely do that for you.

Chronic aches and pains go away, as well - since we are no longer holding our bones so tightly. Our movement is not so compressed - it becomes lighter, more flowing, with less compression. We feel taller, we begin to understand what it means to move into length. 

I'll finish with two hints, about how to correct head-forward posture. First, when you look down at your cell phone, or at a plate of food, or a book, while sitting, what do you do? Try it out, and be clear about what you are doing with your head and neck. If you discover that you are jutting your head forward and slumping down, that is useful information. Try out another way to look down: keeping the chin in, relax the back of the neck letting the head rotate on the axis-point between the ears, and use the eyes, rotating them downward strongly, instead of jutting the head forward and down. Let your eyes do most of the work, stay tall, be poised, keeping chin in (very important).  You may need to get new reading glasses, since you'll now be farther from the book. That is the first hint. 

Here is the second. Have you ever noticed that at a health club, lots of the veteran, bulked-up weight lifters all have their head nicely lined up with their spine? Almost none of them have head forward posture. Of course, they may have other issues. When I first noticed this (since I myself have suffered from head forward for many years, and while Feldenkrais ATM gives good relief, it takes many hours a month to maintain that relief. I wanted a quicker fix!) I recruited a personal trainer and followed his advice. Within about 6 weeks, my head and neck were better than ever, and it was permanent. It is mostly about strengthening  the upper back, back of the neck and shoulders. It involves a lot of rowing, pulling down, pulling in type movements. So, the hint is: find a personal trainer and follow his advice for at least 6 weeks. See what happens. Be sure to follow a balanced, whole-body program, not just a program for the upper back, neck and shoulders. But the emphasis can be on correcting head forward posture. 

If your trainer is competent, for sure he will at the very least teach you this: For most weight lifting moves involving the arms and shoudlers, keep the shoulders down and the chest lifted. (that advice, alone, is worth it's weight in  gold, if you have head forward posture). 

If You Like to Pull Your Shoulders Back...

If you must continually do something with your shoulders, then do this: push your shoulders directly down (with not even a trace of pulling them backwards) while at the same time lifting the chest up, while relaxing the spine(don't stiffen and straighten your thoracic spine). As much as I dislike any type of "posture correction exercises" that must be done almost continually, this is one that will actually help you. It's an intelligent thing to do, if you must do something like that at all. 

 

If  you can understand that, and do that continually (if you must) instead of pulling your shoulders backwards, you'll be far, far ahead. Weight lifters do this. It makes them look macho, powerful and grounded. Most folks with shoulder trouble have elevator shoulders, they are continually hiking up towards the ears, day by day, year by year. It is very good to keep the shoulders down. It is extremely pernicious to keep the shoulders pulled back habitually. I think this post will absolutely convince you of that. 

Yes, many yoga classes, many exercise classes will teach you to pull your shoulders back, or to do shoulder circles. These are good, but not if pulling shoulders back is done 24/7. Then it becomes a neurotic disability, and even worse. I have found that most people with shoulder trouble have internalized such advice, to one degree or another, and they unconsciously pull their shoulders back many times a day, thinking they are being good in some strange way. Please study this post, and you will want to quickly destroy all traces of that habit, you'll be motivated to pull it out by the roots, and never ever do it again. 

In my private Feldenkrais Functional Integration practice, I occasionally see a person whose mission in life appears to be pulling their shoulders back. It's painful to see. I easily recognize the type, and can speak with some passion, since I myself suffered from "pulling shoulders back syndrome" for about 30 years - until I got involved in Feldenkrais at about age 45.  Thank God for The Feldenkrais Method, and thank you, Moshe Feldenkrais!  When I see pictures of myself from my Army days, or my US Postal Service days, it is excruciatingly painful. There I am - shoulders pulled way back, head way forward, going through life like that. I am speaking to myself, 30 years ago, in this post. If it is blunt, it is because that is what I would have needed to change that behavior. 

If you constantly pull your shoulders back -  stop it.  Please, stop it. Give up this insane practice and your life will improve. A pathway to better relaxation, more energy, and better posture will open. Who told you to do it? Go back and ask if they intended this as a vigilant habit - perhaps they meant it only as a momentary postural correction after which you fully relax and "be normal" ? That can actually be a good thing, if not overdone. Did they tell you to relax after doing it? That meant do not do it compulsively, unrelentingly. 

Yes, pulling your shoulders back while sitting in a chair does temporarily straighten your upper spine - and that is a good reminder. But it is one-time event, after which other things need to be happening:

• Feel the contact of your sitting bones on the chair. If you can't do this, your chair is too soft, or too rounded in (like a bucket seat). 
  
• Roll your pelvis to create the proper lumbar curve (ideally you'd want to support your pelvis just like that with a folded blanket, a foam wedge, or by sitting on the edge of the chair).
  
• Walk your sitting bones behind you to insure that your lumbar arch won't collapse.
• Relax your abdomen and belly enough so that you are not straightening your lower back, destroying your lumbar curve. Without a lumbar curve, there is not support for the upper torso, and this greatly encourages stiffening the chest or pulling shoulders back. 
• Fully relax. 
  
• Keep both feet squarely under the knees. If the feet are too far in front, it will push you into the back of the chair. If they are too far behind, they will encourage slumping forward.
• Keep your knees a good distance -at least hip's width - apart. Any closer and you'll automatically be propelled (however slightly) into a slump. It's because of the geometry of the hip joints: If the knees touch you want to slump, if they are far apart, you sit erect. It is easy to demonstrate this on yourself - just try it out. 
• Maintain stable, erect posture using a properly positioned or dynamically responsive pelvis and relaxed torso. (The pelvic muscles are very strong and have endurance - unlike the back muscles!)
  
• Breathing should migrate more towards the back and sides, rounding out the sensation. This means breathing must not be only "frontal" wherein the belly expands out and in with every breath. Abdominal breathing must be more dimensional than that.
  
• Feel that you are resting on, or supported by, your skeleton. This means, among other things, being able to easily sense the skull resting upon the top of the spine (at least be able to imagine it). This is located (for those interested in physical or spiritual anatomy) where the medulla/spiritual eye is located - exactly halfway between the ears, not lower! It means withdrawing the attention from the front of the face, the front of the eyeballs, the mouth and nose. Surprisingly, this shift in focus produces a slight - but highly beneficial -  mechanical adjustment of the carriage of the head, less protruded forward and more over the spine. 
  
• Allow your chin to stay level in a relaxed way (by relaxing the back of the neck, not by tensing the front of the neck as most folks do).
  
• Avoid protruding the head forward (imagine a feather brushing against the chin. This inhibits the universal tendency to jut the head forward - which is what we are accustomed to do while reading or using a computer). 
  
• Avoid using force to retract your head back over your torso. That is damaging, and there are better ways to go about that - a future post will cover that topic). It is more than enough to just inhibit the tendency for the head to jut forward. Be content with that.  
  
• Avoid over-tensing the belly (which causes slumping). A little belly tension is OK, though. 
  
• Imagine that your tailbone is sinking to the floor (for this you need a hard flat-surfaced chair, with minimal cushioning. Otherwise your tailbone is compressed. A foam wedge with a hole for the tailbone can also be used (Tush-Cush is the brand I prefer). 
  
• Let gravity create - moment by moment - just exactly the appropriate lumbar curve to effortlessly support erect posture in the upper torso. This can happen automatically, but it takes a freed-up tailbone that hangs down without touching the chair or being pressed upon by foam or other cushioning, and some months or years of Feldenkrais mentoring. It depends on how dead your pelvis has become (relative to the job of dynamically supporting an erect torso in gravity) and how willing you are to change. 
  
• Imagine growing taller - but without effort - from the top of  the head.
• Relax the hands - imagine quiet hands. Tension in the hands means tension in the shoulders, and slightly lifted shoulders. This will distort the posture, interfere with breathing, compress the neck and more. Quiet, restful hands are so important. 

There is a lot to learn, and the sooner you begin, the better. All of these things can become automatic, in time. But there are no shortcuts. If you go through this list every time you sit, taking one or two items, your sitting will improve greatly. Pulling your shoulders back and lifting your chest seems like an expedient shortcut, but actually it is a dead end, if it means you think you don't have to learn all these other things - at least a little bit! Let's use our intelligence.  Long continued relaxed erect chair sitting is a fine art form, not a matter of brute-force-will-power-endurance-tense-back! it takes time to learn, and it won't happen just by reading that list (above) and practicing each item for a few moments (this is not so true for sitting cross-legged on the floor, where the foundation is more stable and the lumbar curve is automatically produced). More intensive mentoring is needed, over a longer period of time. Pulling your shoulders back - then relaxing -  is simply a momentary reminder about not keeping the chest locked into a depressed slump (a reminder we all need). 

For chair sitting, a distinction needs to be drawn between sitting dynamically - as when we move our arms and turn our head often, as when we are working at a desk or eating - and when we want to sit statically (more or less) as in meditation, reflection, quiet rest. 

To sit dynamically, a hard, flat surface is needed so that the pelvis can articulate on the two sitting bones. The sitting bones must not be immobilized by cushioning or by a bucket seat. 

To sit in a chair motionless, as in meditation, it is essential that the pelvis be so arranged that the lumbar curve is properly positioned and stable. Otherwise there is no support and the back muscles must over-work, and the shoulders-pulling-back syndrome is encouraged. One solution is a foam wedge, such as the Tush-Cush or using a blanket to create an equivalent configuration (this is done by placing a folded-square blanket on your seat, and rolling or folding in the back two corners diagonally, to create elevation for the sitting bones, and a "hole" for the tailbone to remain suspended). 

I frequently witness folks who are determined to sit upright, without any support - as if it were an act of manhood, courage and necessity. Perhaps they have been told that it is important for meditation to never let the spine touch any support.  They are very determined. But all that admirable effort is being spent on pulling the shoulders back, stiffening the chest, and tightening the back.  Their neck is locked tight, keeping their chin level (instead of just relaxing the back of the neck to let the chin drop naturally to chin level posture). Relaxation is impossible, true meditation is hindered. They are not efficiently using their time, even though they think they are making a heroic effort. It is a form of mental laziness - they prefer not to do the real, internal spiritual work, focusing instead, blindly, doggedly on  the simplistic and futile (no thought required) battle to sit erect. Just a little intelligent analysis or deep thinking about sitting posture in a chair would give them a way out of the dilemma. It is like butting your head against a wall twice a day, and years later, wondering why you have not gone anywhere. Here is a case (if ever there were) where Moshe Feldenkrais' words apply: "Use your skill, not your will." To acquire good posture and good movement, it is the only way. 

When I attend events where people are asked to meditate in chairs, I cringe. Because I know what will happen. I wish it were more like India, where people sit cross-legged at such events. Anybody who meditates should try to learn to sit more on the floor, to sit cross-legged. At least do that at home when they meditate.  But, we westerners have a disability that way. Unfortunately, it is not possible for all of us to sit cross-legged, to say nothing about lotus pose! That's mainly because the hip joints are not genetically programmed. They are formed only through weight bearing as the bones are forming. If a baby never does weight bearing, there will be no hip sockets. Did  you know this? If a western child never sat cross legged when younger, their hip joints will be so configured as to make it impossible - later on -  to sit cross legged - even with years of hatha yoga and strong determination. Their bones are configured differently. 

Let me share what goes through my mind (when I happen to open my eyes) as I witness people meditating in chairs. I wish I could interrupt them and say: "Look, your tailbone is tucked under. You are collapsing into your pelvis. You have no lumbar curve. There is no postural support at your base.  Your back and shoulders are doing all the work. You'll go crazy doing this year after year. Stop it! Instead, if you don't have a foam wedge or blanket to support your pelvis into a more rolled-forward configuration, use the back of your chair to stabilize your pelvis in the right configuration. Just push your pelvis up against the back of the chair. That is 100 times more intelligent than struggling as you are doing. Yes, that will cause you to be touching part of your spine (upper sacrum or lower lumbar) to the chair, but this allows your torso to relax, and that means you can make progress in meditation. The way you are doing it now, it is impossible. It would be much better to simply lean against the back of the chair, than to continue as you are doing.  How can you relax, while continually tensing? How can you feel your spine, or work with energy in your spine, when all the muscles alongside your spine are as hard as rock, and painful to touch? How? Better to compromise a little bit your admirable determination to never let the spine touch the chair. Alternately, you can sit on the forward edge of the chair, to allow the pelvis to roll forward by gravity. That may be an even better choice, since you don't touch your spine to the chair." 

When I see such a person as a client, I'll ask them to sit in their best meditation posture, and feel their muscles along their lower spine.  They'll be hard as a rock. Then I'll sit next to them, sitting in erect posture also, and ask them to feel my muscles - same place along the lower spine. They are soft like butter. This is a surprise to them - always they seem shocked and confused, even disoriented-   because I have challenged one of their most cherished beliefs: "The spiritual path is mostly about using lots of will power to always sit up straight, especially in meditation, never relenting." 

It does make me wonder how much quicker people would benefit from meditation if they were not spending so much of their will power on a pointless struggle to stiffen  into erect posture. Spiritually speaking, aren't there better uses for will power?

Pulling shoulders back protrudes your head more forward. Look in a mirror from the side, pull your shoulders back, and you'll see your head grotesquely protrudes forward. If not, you are doing even more grotesque compensation activities with your neck and back muscles. When your head - which is about as heavy as a bowling ball - is always forward of your torso, it is mechanically  inevitable that eventually it will pull the torso into stoop-postured configuration. So, paradoxically, long-continued pulling your shoulders back causes exactly the problem you are trying to correct!

It not only creates stooped posture,  but over-tight neck muscles, frozen cranial bones, a depressed emotional attitude,  a frozen facial expression, impaired breathing, a narrowed airway, reduced blood flow to the brain, a frozen rib cage and much more.  In addition, it immobilizes your collar bones (clavicles), which severely distorts normal shoulder function. For sure, it sets you up for eventually getting chronic neck or shoulder pain. Pulling your shoulders back - and trying to keep them frozen there forever -  gives your body no choice but to tighten your rhomboid muscles, creating tremendous, unrelenting tension in that area between your shoulder blades, in your back. If you don't believe that is a problem of yours, just let someone poke you firmly, right along the inner border of the shoulder blades. The more the pain, the tighter you have been holding. 

Really, you cannot be a normal, relaxed human being with such an idea constantly in your mind and intention. One of the saddest sights to me is to observe a sincere spiritual seeker meditating, all the while keeping his/her shoulders pulled back with chest lifted. After awhile, of course, they will slump and rest - before they go back again to their "tension meditation" as I call it. They think such misplaced vigilance is what it means to be sincere on the spiritual path. It is sad because I suspect that eventually they will give up the whole project due to lack of results, pain, frustration and lack of ability to relax or be comfortable. Or, if they don't give it up, they will become a psychological case of one type or another. To continually perform an activity that effectively frustrates achievement of your goal cannot be good for the psyche.  To say it more bluntly, it is crazy-making. 

When I see a new client with chronic shoulder pain, and has this habit - I take a deep breath. Because I'll have the hard job of convincing them that they have created much or all of their trouble by doing this crazy activity for many years. They are usually deeply invested in the idea that pulling shoulders back is the only, best way to be a good person with good posture. They will fluently recite their mantras about what the MD told them, what the chiropractor told them, their diagnosis,  about why their shoulder or neck is the problem, about their long suffering, why the old medications no longer work, how many surgeries they have had, what their MRI showed, how hard they have worked all those years at pulling their shoulders back to have the best posture,  the new medication they are taking, etc. 

Such clients will test me to see if I know as much about all of those things as they think I should know. Unless I answer correctly and am also very convincing and get quick results, I will probably lose the client. One session, and they are gone.  They have to loosen their hold on those mantras, for this new way to work. For an elderly client like this, it is almost a lost cause, unless they are the type that has stayed young, has enthusiasm, is open minded -  and is willing to do some work.  Plus they need to be open to the idea that it is appropriate to spend a little money on themselves for such a project. All I can do is explain the situation, offer them hope, making the invitation to this new way of "therapy" as inviting as possible. Usually the invitation is declined, in one way or another. Some even find the idea repugnant; they want a quicker fix. There are plenty of people who offer that.

   

It all begins with replacing ideas about postural correction with ideas about good movement. While improvements may come gradually at first, they keep coming for many years. It opens a whole new world. It gets better and better. Your age does not matter. 

As you pull your shoulders back, thinking you are helping yourself, you damage not only your posture. It can quickly become a neurotic habit. As compulsive behavior it serves no useful purpose. It makes you think there is always something wrong that needs correction. You are training your mind to be occupied with useless endeavor.  You are training your nervous system to be like a crazy man who spends hours each day yelling at a brick wall, to get out of his way. The brick wall is not going to disappear. But that man will certainly be unreasonable, yell at his friends and family, and be a real psychological case - in his "ordinary" life. I have actually witnessed this. One client was so invested, after 60+ years of pulling shoulders back - that I absolutely could not convince him to stop. It was part of who he "was".  That was his one, best claim to being a good person who has tried valiantly to have good posture all his life. Physically, he was a wreck. Emotionally, he was a firebug - overreacting to every little thing. If you saw him with his wife, as I did, you would want earplugs. They actually yelled at each other, as their normal way of communicating. 

As body language (if done compulsively) it communicates "I am neurotic and compulsive, I don't understand much about posture or movement,  I am  dogmatic, I believe something is wrong with my unrehearsed posture,  I want a quick fix - I don't know how to do intelligent, effective work,  I am being blindly obedient to whoever told me to do this,  I can be motivated by guilt,  I don't think for myself,  I must keep correcting myself because my posture is naturally bad,  I don't trust Nature, gravity is my enemy, my pelvis is held stiff, I am so determined to have good posture that I am willing to destroy my peace of mind, my body and relaxed normal human functioning."  All that is pretty blunt, and I apologize, but there is some truth there. Are these the messages you want to project?

While it is true that many of these issues are best addressed in therapy, it is also true that when somatic intervention is added, results come more quickly, and are more permanent. 

This body language is not clear to many people only because they also have poor understanding of what really comprises good human movement and posture. But there are certainly those who "have eyes to see." Even for those who don't consciously understand the message, the subliminal communication is there. It can attract to you unpleasant situations and also that element of society that thrives on abusing others, on draining and manipulating (through deception, guilt, control, shame, etc) others. We don't want to attract such people!

If your goal is to sit and stand more erectly, there are much better ways to go about it. The ideas in this (very incomplete) list take a little time and effort, but are well worth it (choose one or two that appeals to you):

• Take a movement oriented class in postural improvement.
  
• See a movement oriented bodywork practitioner, such as a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner or an Alexander Technique teacher.   
  
• Stand, walk or sit with a book (or a beanbag or a folded hand towel) on the top of your head a few minutes every day - work at a computer like that (use a folded washrag, not a book) This worked for our great-grandparents, and it will work for you, too. 
  
• Take up a martial art, find a convenient local studio.
• Study all the posts in my blog. You'll find many useful ideas for better movement and posture. 
• Find a good yoga teacher or personal trainer, and follow up on their advice.
• Sign up for Bikram Yoga  (there are many other good types of yoga, but this is what I know best, and I know it works). 
• Ask a friend or acquaintance who has admirable posture, how do they do it?
• Read a book about The Feldenkrais Method.  
  
• Learn to lift your sternum (meaning front of rib cage) without involving your shoulders,  and without tensing your spine and back muscles (you'll need mentoring). Hint: it  involves clarifying support, pelvic rolls, breathing, self-image, attitude, movement exploration, and creating healthy spinal curves, starting with your tailbone, working up.  
  
• Lie down, bend your knees and do pelvic rolls. 
• Reach up to a high shelf, look up at trees, birds or airplanes, at least twice a day. 
• Learn the The Pelvic Clock, a classic Feldenkrais ATM Lesson.  Do it daily for a month.
• Roll forward on your sitting bones while sitting, relaxing the belly. 
  
• Best of all, take an Awareness Through Movement- ATM  class once a week. 

I deliberately omitted take ballet or other dance classes from this list, since most of the former and current dancers I have seen in my practice are holding incredible tension between the shoulder blades, and the upper rib cage. They've learned to vigilantly "stand tall, lift the chest"- and stay locked like that forever. That is the anchor around which all their flexibility and amazing movements occur. This is not true for all dancers, of course. But it is true for most beginners- and even many veteran dancers who are not at the highest level. Dancing is usually performance oriented - not healthy-human-movement oriented. There is a difference. 

For a time you may feel like you are slumping, without the constant correction of pulling your shoulders back. It is worth waiting for a few weeks, enduring that feeling, while you start doing more sensible and effective postural corrections.