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!  

 

Chair Sitting 101

Your life will become SO much easier when you learn how to sit in a chair. In my case, for at least 35 years I was sitting to study or meditate by tensing the back and spine, to ENSURE that I never slumped, which I was warned against strongly. My mental dialogue went like this: If I slumped, I would be "like a bum" or "the energy will not flow in the spine" or "slumping posture creates depression and lethargy" or "only irresponsible lazy people, and teenagers, slump - never do it!". I was persuaded by all these arguments. I've now learned that those arguments do not tell the whole story. There is some truth there, but the other side of the coin has merit, as well. So, like most everyone else, I was stiffening to sit. And, that was especially true if I had fear of any kind: such as somebody watching me who had authority over me (like a boss or parent or teacher), or if I was facing a deadline and I had to "concentrate hard".

This little-know information will absolutely change your life. At first, though, you may be confused by it, since much of what is here will contradict what you think is true about sitting posture.

In ancient India a sage named Patanjali described the spiritual yoga path as consisting of 8 graded steps, each of which needs to be mastered before moving to the next step. His first two steps involve moral living. His third step is called asana which can be interpreted as learning to sit comfortably erect. I've known that for at least 40 years, but it was not until about 15 years ago that it finally dawned on me that perhaps there was something for me to learn there, before trying to move on to the next step. Perhaps there is more to sitting than stiffening the spine, lifting the chest, pulling the shoulders back, keeping the chin level, and then trying to relax (which I could never do very well). I would always collapse into a slump unless I tensed my back or used a back rest. It took a Feldenkrais Training to rescue me from this dilemma.

During my Feldenkrais training (1990-1994), and subsequent years working with various mentors, and later my own clients (who actually mentor me more ways than I know) - I learned that my habitual way of sitting was one of the most damaging habits I had created in this life. I would never have believed it, if I had not experienced it in my own body. I gradually learned how to sit - in a chair particularly - with minimal or zero chronic tension in the back and along the spine. And, what I learned allows me to find long-term comfort even if the chair is poorly designed. It is not something a person can learn from one day to the next. I have never witnessed this. However, in the course of an hour, a situation can be created where a person is sitting in a chair without back tension - fully erect and without a back rest. But the client cannot reproduce this on their own. Old habits are stronger.

Test yourself: Sit as you normally do long periods of time - to study or meditate or whatever. Place your hand along your low back. Press or poke hard there - how soft are those muscles? Is it painful? Do that all up and down the spine - you'll need a back-scratcher or some other tool to do this. Or ask a friend to help you. If those muscles are painful to touch, rock hard, or like hard rubber or wood, then you know you have many things to learn. When I do that now to myself, the muscles are buttery soft, and there is no pain with hard poking. If you were my client I would tell you - "your life has been too much of a struggle up to this point, in my opinion. Life can be much more pleasant than you know. Do you work like this? Do you meditate like this? To meditate that way is like spending years telling yourself to relax your hands, while strongly clenching your fists. It is crazy making. It tends to create depression, rebellion, fatigue, and progress in meditation is likely to be very minimal.

Sitting stiffly is body language for stress and worry - even panic. It's what you'd do if suddenly a threat to your physical well-being presented itself. When you create that type of body language, and with great persistence continue in that way for many years - it is almost inevitable that you'll sooner-than-later attract to yourself unpleasant circumstances: abusive supervisors or bosses, abusive coworkers, negative environments of various sorts, chronic anxiety or worry, depression, exhaustion. Your body language can absolutely draw those things to you, no matter how hard to you try, by positive thinking, meditation, etc to avoid them. You may think it is your fate, or your karma, or that they are necessary learning situations for your personal evolution. That may be true; However one of the "karmic lessons", for sure,  that needs to be learned is how to sit more sensibly, learning to use a little intelligence and common sense.

Chair sitting is not a simple thing. It is a deep study. For instance, consider this: If  you find a person who always has a soft, pliable chest and upper back (even if their habitual posture is a bit stooped, like Mother Theresa) and practically never stiffens their chest, for any reason, for anybody - that person is either:

• Highly trained in somatic work and emotionally integrated.
  
• An extraordinarily exalted being, a saint, an angel-in-the-body (Like Mother Theresa) who is always filled with tender and open-hearted practical compassion, wisdom and a power beyond our understanding - who never needs to resort to direct force. 
  
• Insane or continually drunk or on drugs or lots of muscle relaxants or psychiatric drugs.

If a group - or organization - of people all have the unwritten contract to vigilantly self-enforce good posture by stiffening unconsciously (I know such organizations), that organization, I'd predict, would not be a comfortable or relaxed  place in which to work or live, not for long (I have heard many stories to confirm this).  Unreasonable rules, pressure, worry, fear-motivated thinking and even abuse and nonsensical management practices would continually mysteriously surface. Tension and friction - under the surface, would be high. If everyone is constantly affirming a non-sense situation internally, it has to manifest outwardly.  It is sad that the only choice appears to be rigid stiffening or apparently despicable slumping. There is another way!

It is hard to describe how deep this habit runs in many people. One could say it has been their habitual way of thinking and being for many many past lives (if you believe in reincarnation). The very idea that it does not have to be that way challenges who they are, their very identity is shaken. Although this new and better way of sitting is very simple, to implement it takes great courage, skill, patience and persistence. 

Again, I'll share my lament that we don't all sit on the floor more often, cross legged, or Japanese style. If you sit cross legged - for one thing, the pelvis naturally goes into more extension, because the knees are separated by a wide distance. If you keep the knees together, as women in particular do in chair sitting, this creates a skeletal geometry to force the pelvis into flexion=slumping. I hope as America as a culture matures, chairs will be used less and less.  

When somatic education is undertaken, even minimally, many other choices appear, and the scenario internally and externally softens significantly - amazingly quickly. The most popular Feldenkrais book on Amazon.com is Awareness Heals by Steven Shafarman; it has a couple lessons on chair sitting - these are wonderfully effective in creating major positive shifts in a short time. If I ran an organization, I'd make it required reading.  

One problem is that most people who stiffen to sit, do not know they are doing it. It has become such a deep habit! It is as if somewhere deep inside their chest and upper back, there is steel-reinforced concrete, covered up by layers of unconsciousness.  It often takes years of working with a client before the rib cage will soften and ribs can differentiate and move somewhat! During that time their personality undergoes a positive transformation, gradually. 

It takes clever strategy, lots of repetition and variety and skill and months of intensive work and willing cooperation to bring such a person to understand and embody the idea that not only can they fully relax their torso at will, but also that they can learn how to sit, stand and walk with minimal tension there. That's why it is necessary to find a good somatic teacher, or take regular ATM (Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement) classes to keep you on the right track. You cannot correct what you don't even know you are doing.  

When I see clients sitting stiffly while meditating, I'll ask them: "Patanjali's idea of asana, which he says must be mastered, what is your understanding of it?" Most clients say either Hatha Yoga, or learning to sit to meditate in a comfortable posture. Then I ask - have you ever spent any time scientifically studying, or taking classes, or even seriously thinking about chair sitting, what is involved and how to do it? The answer is almost always "No." 

"Would you be willing to learn how to sit comfortably erect without back tension?" Of course they all say "yes". I point out that it is highly unlikely that Patanjali would have included asana as one of his 8 steps if there was nothing to learn except "stiffen the spine and sit up straight. Or if it only involved "find the right chair."

Chair sitting takes times to learn. It needs to be understood and approached scientifically. It boils down to some very simple things, but that does not mean easy or quick. Yes, of course, the right height chair is the best starting point. But there is lots more. A crucial thing is: what kind of attitude and understanding to you bring to chair sitting? The purpose of this post is to upgrade that. If you approach sitting with the idea that there is some fixed, ideal posture, or there exists an ideal chair that will solve all problems - you'll hit a dead end, sooner or later. The truth is, as any neurologist will confirm (and any healthy child will demonstrate) - the brain and the body is built for learning, and human movement (not static posture - which actually never can exist) is what occupies at least 95% or more of the brain's electrical activity. 

Human movement involves appropriate response to any possible change in present circumstances.  It is always ongoing, except during complete unconsciousness. Specifically it involves: balance, support, environmental mapping, memory, counter-balance, keeping movement options open enough so security is not compromised, coordination, reciprocal inhibition of opposing muscle groups, vision, hearing, carriage of the head, and much more. It is vastly complex if you study it, as movement scientists do. A lot of behind-the-scenes brain work is going on in that arena, and the only way to quiet it down, so to speak, is to learn strategies for better balance, clear support, properly arranging the body, and not doing crazy things like stiffening (which actually makes elegant easy balance more difficult). 

Correct posture must come from within; it comes from playful exploration and making mistakes,  while gradually becoming more competent. This comes from movement exploration. It cannot be imposed. Good posture comes from good movement. Period! Movement lessons, somatic work - it the best way to go about it. If you want good alignment, correct sitting posture, no slumping - then start taking Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons. External guidelines and vigilant self-enforcement of good posture are dead-end shortcuts.

You may have been told to line up your shoulders and hips, or to hold in your abdomen. Do you really think that is a natural way to go through life? Feldenkrais teachers will never, ever give such advice. Yet, they get wonderful results. How?  

Sitting in a chair or on the floor is best conceived as frozen movement, or very slow-motion movement. The body is always engaged, as long as it is upright and awake, in weight bearing, balance and counter-balance, proprioception, etc. You may think you can so stabilize or fix your sitting posture that no work is required to stay there, but you are wrong. We are not made of concrete - we are made of many cells, filled with fluid - and there are no joints in the body that fit together like stacked bricks - not one joint. Do you think no intelligent, ongoing work is required to balance erectly an unstable collection of little water balloons (called cells)? The human body is an unstable machine, built for movement, not static posture. All this is not to say that you cannot sit quietly, apparently perfectly motionless, fully erect without a backrest, almost fully relaxed, while concentrating or meditating. But the angle of approach to achieve this desired state is through movement education, not brute-force stiffening. Please, if you can learn just that one thing, just believe it for now, and act on it, it will change your life. 

Scientists who study movement have very sensitive machines that can detect nerve impulses to muscles, and even the slightest muscle activity. In the early part of the 20th century, they believed that the human body had "static" since there was always a little "buzz" or "noise" in the nervous system, which had apparently no functional purpose. Later, as their listening devices became more sensitive, it became obvious that this "buzz" was actually intelligent ongoing activity: The brain was sending messages - four times a second - to every joint and proprioceptor, asking "where are you" and "in what direction are you moving" and "where is the support". Calculations were then made as to what movements were needed to remain erect in weight bearing. All this is so automatic we are rarely aware it is happening.

You can actually demonstrate this for yourself. Sit in a chair. Reach one arm directly out to your side. Notice, you did not fall over even though your arm was held out to your side. Why not? Because your body automatically did some counter-balancing activity, shifting some weight in the opposite direction. Try it again, but this time freeze your body so that no counter-balancing can happen, as you were a bronze statue, frozen in good posture. As you extend your arm out to the side, you'll tend to fall over to that side. Your body has a vast collection of such automatic behaviors; it is almost like a software program. This program is going to be running whether you want it to or not - for billions of years, our nervous system has evolved in gravity, in weight bearing, to be functional and cope (meaning: to fall over is not allowed, you'll soon die) so it is best to cooperate with it and learn to speak that language: the language of stability, movement and balance. Particularly this requires a pelvis that can instinctively, dynamically support the torso in real time. You are not going to correct this situation overnight! Sadly, most of us have trained our pelvis to be like a dead weight down there, cradled immobile in a soft or rounded bottom chair. Then, and only then, does sitting in a chair make sense, and eventually become easy and elegant. Paradoxically, by working with movement, we more quickly and effectively learn to sit motionless, relaxed and erect - apparently in "static" posture.

While it should be obvious that we need to learn - and embody - something about movement, for optimal sitting - the unfortunate truth is that most of what is found in every culture - and what most people believe -  about sitting ignores movement. It's all about correct posture. You'll find things like: "pull your shoulders back....keep your shoulders in line with your hips....don't protrude your head......don't slump...keep your chin level and in....lift your chest.....and relax! (which is completely impossible doing all those things).  Often such advice will be packaged with certain exercises to stretch or strengthen muscles optimally for sitting. Yes, such an approach can give beneficial results, but they do not compare to somatic results, from what I have seen. 

For sure, the static, approach absolutely requires personal supervision from an experienced teacher who understands the essential dynamic nature of erect weight bearing - for there to be any real benefit. Otherwise human nature dictates that a person will just take the "easy-but-disastrous-long-term" approach of stiffening, alternating with full-on slumping to rest from all that hard work. It is best to completely abandon the idea of fixed, rigid sitting and begin to patiently work with movement; then you'll get permanent, and magical results, from the inside out - not imposed upon you. The results probably won't be as quick as you like, but they are permanent and entirely beneficial.

But it is also true that if our modern age gave us better mentoring about movement and posture such advice would be more palatable and useful. Instead of growing up playfully, climbing trees, running and playing games, today our children sit in front of a TV frozen motionless. We have jobs that require we sit and stare at a computer monitor. Postural fixity is the curse of the age. We need to take positive action to undo the damage that we have taken upon ourselves. 

Would you like to do a movement lesson, right now? Google "The Open ATM Project" and click on a movement lesson that appeals to you - preferably one sitting in a chair.  This will give you an idea of what we are talking about when we speak of working patiently with movement. Doing one such lesson a week, or even one per month, in time will remake your whole life. 

So again, in the long term, you cannot sit comfortably erect if you do it by stiffening the spine and tightening the belly. For starters that creates compression of the spine, restricted breathing, and compromised balance - to say nothing about the constantly tight muscles that are sooner or later going to get fatigued or sore. Neither can you be comfortable, long term, by depending on a special kind of chair or back rest. The body and the brain are not build to depend on things; we thrive on challenge, acquiring independence, learning to adapt, variety, diversity - rigid fixity in sitting is like a form of death, there is no life there. There has to be a way to sit comfortably, calmly, motionless in a chair with a relaxed body and without depending on a back rest, a lumbar support or some special kind of chair. Certainly, the answers has to be within us, not outside of us. .

Of course it is much better to sit on the floor in loose clothing, in whatever style fits you at the moment: cross legged, Japanese style, legs flopped to the sides, legs in front, using pillows creatively, etc. This ensures open hip joints, good skeletal support. and constant variety - a healthy thing, since our brains and bodies are basically learning and adapting machines. We're not meant to stagnate.

For specific details about what has to happen in functional sitting, please see my post titled "If You Constantly Pull Your Shoulders Back..." dated June 8, 2008.

Rib Cage -A Fresh Perspective

Learn this one, and you will never be the same again.  Your life will sparkle with joy, love, spiritual advancement, compassion, people will love you and you'll get RICH!! (OK I may exaggerate, but you move in this direction). A lot of our self-image lives in our chest region and our somatic anatomical self-image has a lot to do with how this area moves, and how it continually re-creates or affirms our self-image. If we think people are talking behind our backs, we stiffen our backs. We forget to remember the ribs can be supple, and they can relax after stiffening.  If we feel shamed or diminished in any way, we tighten (and perhaps slump) in the chest. How long do we hold that tension? We've all been told that we should lift our chest while sitting or standing in order to have good posture. We do this and forget to relax now and then. We even sleep with our rib cage and hard as a brick. We've all learned that our rib cage is built to protect the fragile heart and lungs - a strong, protective cage. Once we know that, we think that is all there is to know. Well, there is more to the story. 

For starters, your ribs on the left are separate from those on the right. They can actually move independently. Can you even imagine such a thing? Probably not. Well, you could, if you were taking an ATM class regularly, or seeing a Feldenkrais Practitioner. 

From today forward, as you exercise, walk, do yoga or sit quietly - if you can have in the back of your mind that your ribs can be soft, that there is an independent left and right side to the rib cage - then you will be slowly progressing in the right direction. Most folks, because they don't understand this, are moving in the wrong direction. The older they get, the tighter becomes their rib cage. And also, the more their pain (shoulder, neck, hip and knees  - the major joints that overwork when the rib cage is like a brick), their long-held resentments, their anger will be increasing. It is an unfortunate way to grow older, yet very common. 

We need soft ribs to be human and kind and open hearted, but we also need (always available) hard ribs, lifted chest - in those moments when we need to set a boundary, or when we need to muster extraordinary courage or will power, or when we need to be physically strong in the ribs, as when we are carrying a backpack.  That is normal and healthy!  Actually we need to have many choices available as to how we configure our rib cage, moment to moment. It is not so simple as soft vs hard. But in this blog I am writing about both extremes, mainly, since the concepts are more easily understood (by contrast) that way. But there are many shades of grey.

Life is hard today, it is like a cement mixer. If ever there were a time where boundaries need to be set, to protect our own well-being and comfort - it  is today. Just look at the world! So it is almost inevitable that most people end up with rigidly held rib cages. We put that on, like a costume, in order  to survive, and "be tough".  It is not wrong to have a rib cage like that. Better that than to be run over by life, by others, by circumstances! The main point is that we need more choices than just that one compulsive behavior. 

So many people today are turning to meditation, to acts of charity, to yoga postures that "open the heart" and to other spiritual practices. If they were to add to all that a little somatic work, they would get quicker and more lasting benefits for their efforts.  

There is an aboriginal tribe that actually can hold objects, like a wooden spoon, between two ribs. That is normal in their culture. What is normal in our culture is to consider the ribs like a sturdy cage, unmoving, held stiff in good posture. Trouble is, that reduces circulation, muffles or deadens heart feelings, creates insensitivity to the suffering of others, and more. 

Everytime you use the words rib cage or hear them spoken, you reaffirm the concept of rigid holding of the chest. I propose that everytime your hear or read the words rib cage - from this moment forward - you replace it with a more functional concept, such as:

• Rib accordion
  
• Rib slinky
  
• Just plain ribs
  
• Supple chest or supple upper back

We tend to think of a military chest as admirable. Well, you need to have a chest like that to kill people. That's a fact. F.M. Alexander, the founder of The Alexander Technique was a somatic  pioneer in the early 1900's. He was teaching people how to have effortlessly erect posture, with a relaxed and lengthened spine, soft ribs and easy breathing. He was also one of the early teachers of  Moshe Feldenkrais, founder of The Feldenkrais Method (You can't go wrong if you study the Alexander Technique, I recommend that to anyone who wants better posture). Well, when he visited England he found an opportunity to teach some soldiers (with the permission of the British Military) his method of standing  tall. He was horrified at the usual military methods: Lift the chest, pull the shoulders back, keep the chin in and level - and now stay that way forever! What happened? Well, his experiment was successful - the soldiers had wonderfully elegant and tall posture -  but ended quickly. The British military did not like soldiers that no longer had the killer instinct.

True strength is like a blade of grass in a storm - it will survive, while the oak tree will fall. A person with authentic strength has a supple rib cage. They can take a blow - physical, mental or emotional - and absorb or roll with the punch. A person with a stiffly held rib cage (whether in chronically stooped posture or admirably erect, it does not matter), will be damaged. When life deals a hard blow, he will suffer much more than a person with a supple rib cage. 

A little child can do a forward roll - and adults usually cannot,  unless he/she learns to move again like a little child (not as hard as it may seem). Stiffening the chest is part of being "adult" and I'd even guess it is a major factor in aging. For sure, I can say that when a client learns to soften their chest, they look many years younger.  When an adult learns again to soften his chest enough to do a forward roll, his life will improve in amazing ways. I learned this from a Dr. Brady, who  wrote a book about 1953 summarizing his life work as a medical journalist (I can't remember the name of the book). One whole chapter of the book was dedicated to forward rolls  - he said that whenever a patient learned to do this (using lots of pillows on a large soft bed) many of their symptoms went away - including even serious diseases, mental depression, and more. 

Few persons today have supple ribs. Some little kids do, before they learn to read, before they go to school - provided they have not been using video games, watching TV, using the computer, and have not been abused in any way. That is rare, today. Long time students of the Feldenkrais Method have fluent rib cages - able to soften or harden as appropriate or anything in-between. Any person with deep emotional sensitivity, with spiritual advancement, who also knows how to set boundaries, with real practical compassion  - all have  supple, intelligent rib cages (not hard like bricks). Just look around and see if it is not true. Mother Theresa was such a one. Even a small gesture with her hands, her rib cage responded like a soft sponge. When she reached with a hand, her heart was in her hand, somatically speaking. In other words, her ribs participated in the arm movement of reaching. Most people with "better posture" hold their ribs completely rigid when reaching out an arm. Although she was hunched, she nonetheless had good movement in the ribs. 

When the ribs are tightly knit, tensely held, our self-image of that area and all our movements becomes severely distorted.  We even forget we have ribs (that always happens when a body part is held unrelentingly tense for decades). When you lie down on your back or on your side, is it immediately clear to you that your torso is supported by (resting upon) your rib cage? For me it was not. When I first consciously sensed my ribs while lying on my side, about 16 years ago, during an ATM class,  I was shocked. How can this be? I was, up to that moment, always thinking of "my back, my chest, my torso" and never the ribs. I knew the ribs were there, intellectually, but somatically there were gone. Or, consider abdominal breathing: with tightly held ribs, for sure you are going to get a distended belly from that practice. The ribs need to participate appropriately, no matter what kind of breathing you do. 

You'll find soft and fluent-to-many-configurations rib cages more often amongst women than men. But if you find an emotionally mature man with a rib cage like that, he will be extraordinary - combining the best of the feminine qualities like compassion, understanding and love with his masculine nature. Such men are exceedingly rare. 

Imagine a married man with a wife and two young children. He loves them, but, alas, he has fallen in love with a very beautiful 18 year old woman, who just graduated from high school. She also loves him - and his money!  He intends to divorce his wife, leave his kids, take the money, sell the house and move, leaving his previous family destitute.

How would he go about preparing to actually execute such a deed? By going 4 hours a day to the health club, doing all those exercises with a stiffly held, rigidly lifted rib cage. 

This actually happened. I heard the story from a Feldenkrais Trainer - the man came to him, before the divorce, because  he was having pain (I think in the shoulders). The Trainer was struck by his very tight, military chest, and was also puzzled as to why he was working out so many hours at the gym. Later he understood, when he found out what the man had done. It made perfect sense.  And by the way, a stiff chest is almost always the "foundation" for chronic shoulder trouble, for chronic heart disease, for chronic emotional troubles, for breathing issues and lung trouble. But this information is almost like a closely guarded secret amongst the somatic community. One only hears this in private conversations between practitioners - vague suspicions that have not been proven. We don't want people to think we are unscientific, or on the lunatic fringe, so we keep it quiet. Yes there are good ways to treat these issues, with therapy, medicine, diet, etc - but if they are combined with somatic education you'll get better results, quicker and longer lasting. 

When I see a person with "admirable" posture, a stiff and lifted rib cage - I think to myself:  He/she is not feeling his deepest, truest feelings. He does not know who he really is. Poor man, he thinks good posture is the main thing. He  has sacrificed his humanity for that. I don't care how much money he has, how much power he has, how much others admire him - he is really a very poor man. Probably he does have money and power - but look at what he has sacrificed!

So what does this have to do with left and right sides of the rib cage? Well, if you able to keep thinking that way, and exploring movement that way (guided movement classes like ATM are good for this purpose, and also see a practitioner privately for some sessions) amazing things begin to happen:

• Your image of the rib cage softens.
  
• Mysteriously, shoulder pain will diminish, as will knee, hip ankle and back pain. 
  
• You begin to be able to actually move left and right sides independently. 
  
• Spiral movement - the best, most organic kind of movement - opens up to you. A brick-like rib cage cannot participate in spiral movement. All the other joints suffer for that.  
  
• Life becomes easier. 
• You'll  be more emotionally intelligent (this is a very elusive, difficult quality to acquire without some kind of somatic intervention)
  
• You will become more soft-hearted, kinder, personal relationships will smooth out. 
  

As with all other somatic concepts, this one requires practical application over a prolonged period of time to be fully embodied. There is a whole lot more to learn, and sense and embody, than what I have covered here. You'll be amazed at everything that is involved in learning to soften the rib cage. Early developmental movements need to be revisited. Many challenging movement-learning situations need to be confronted, and more, to fully soften the ribs. A four year Feldenkrais Training Program will give you the opportunity to experience those things. In fact, Moshe Feldenkrais once said "Soften the ribs, differentiate the pelvis" was a good concise definition of his work. That covers a whole lot of ground.   

The truth is, you'll get minimal benefit just by reading material like this, then forgetting all about it. The only way to understand The Feldenkrais Method or any other kind of somatic work is to get involved. Sign up for a class. Find a teacher. This is not only because the concepts may be strange or difficult to learn. Mainly, it is because we acquired our habits of tension and holding (usually) when we were very young, while we were interacting with our parents, siblings, teachers and others.  It is how we thought we had to be, in order to survive. These habits are very deeply etched - it is who we think we are. What has been learned in a social setting - as a matter of survival  -  will most easily be changed only in another, more helpful (meaning safe, comfortable, pleasant) social setting. 

Another way to say this: during an ATM class, if everyone is learning to soften their ribs while doing a specific movement, the group energy will help you to give yourself permission to do the same thing. You'll get breakthroughs and insights you could never acquire alone, at home, even if you were on the floor everyday doing your very best to do ATM lessons from a recording.

And, while it is true that yoga classes have many postures that help to make the ribs more supple, there is a difference between yoga and somatic work. I love doing yoga, this is not a criticism of yoga,  I am just drawing a distinction.  In somatic work you are continually presented with strange new movement or postural challenges and situations. You get very good at creatively finding solutions, within your own  body.  You develop a natural facility to create comfort, to reorganize your body appropriate moment-to-moment no matter what is happening. It is not quite like that doing yoga. where you are learning specific postures, with specific directions. How easily does that transfer to daily living? True, there is some transference, but if somatic work is combined with yoga classes, results will come more quickly. It is like the best of both worlds. That is how I like it. 

Consider backwards bending. In yoga you will perform perhaps dozens of postures like that. In an ATM class, over the years, you'll explore thousands of variations - spirals, sitting, standing on the knees, cross legged, in early developmental configurations of creeping and crawling, one legged, standing, lying down, chin in, chin out, in chairs, lying on your side, head turned left or right, eyes up or down, combined with side bending, dancing, reaching up, holding the breath, reverse breathing, normal breathing - the variations are endless. The focus is not on developing flexibility or the ability to backwards bend, as it may be  in yoga. It does happen, but the focus is instead on being functional,  being alert, supple, adaptable - becoming more mature, more fully human. At the same time you learn to not be invested in holding on to inappropriate movement patterns or tensions acquired in the past.

 

In yoga, for example, you might always be looking up as you backbend - that sort of makes sense, because it makes the back-bending easier. In real life, however, you might need to look down while back bending. So, in an ATM class we practice that also.  You never know what is coming next in an ATM class, so you learn to be on your toes. You develop that facility. Is that true for your yoga class? In a well-taught ATM class, you simply cannot zone out, you will be left behind, and you'll feel a little embarrassed. You quickly learn to pay better attention. You become amazingly intelligent, facile, at arranging your body to meet the needs of the moment that way. 

In 1988 I had a full extension whiplash; I  was rear-ended at high speed by a big, lunky old Chevrolet driven by a distracted mother on drugs (going to pick up her child). I was looking up into my rear view mirror just before the collision.  So, I learned in that moment to have stiff and guarded ribs while looking up. So what do you think would happen, if all I ever did was yoga back bending, while looking up? Questions like these get you thinking in a somatic fashion. 

 

Let me say that a yoga class is a wonderful place to relax, to feel nurtured, to give the body helpful and restful movements, to calm and slow down the mind, to work out kinks in the muscles, to strengthen the muscles, to improve balance and flexibility, to reacquire the natural breath rhythm and much more. I myself take a yoga class regularly. I love it. But it is helpful to be clear about the  distinction between ATM and yoga. Somatic work is like seasoning on food - if you add it to yoga, gym workouts, sports - it makes it more palatable. You'll get better results, you'll have less trouble with your body. You won't hit any dead ends.   

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. 

Somatic Relaxation

In the realm of human movement, the word relaxation does not quite fit. In common usage it is heavily weighted with  the idea of inertia or disconnect from whatever might usually need to be done - duty. It is seen as a sort of relief from over-work. In the somatic sense it needs to take on a dynamic quality - efficiency of movement, minimal effort, a quiet readiness to do whatever is required, moment to moment. That is what is seen throughout Nature - if any animal, bird, or insect were to think "let me relax and forget about everything for awhile" that creature would soon be dead. Nature apparently does not approve of "relaxation" in that sense. 

Our brains and or bodies are constructed the same way. Our ancestors were certainly mentored by Nature to be competent - or else we would not be here. All of our ancestors survived wars, cataclysms, floods, disease, to reproduce and raise offspring.  This was certainly not achieved by "taking it easy, rest and forget everything - just relax" as commonly understood today.  Even a little of that would be like a poison pill in a harsh environment. No, there had to be a constant sense of relaxed watchfulness or readiness to do whatever was necessary, moment to moment. 

When this is understood - that our brains and bodies are built to exist in a dynamic balance between comfort and challenge, between rest and activity, then we begin to understand what somatic education is all about. 

A bird is asleep on a twig. The twig breaks, the bird falls and flies away. Even while asleep, the bird was in a state of relaxed readiness.  A deer is chewing grass, head down, apparently relaxed and at ease. Yet, it is listening for sounds of danger, it has an expanded sense of awareness, and every moment or two, it will look up and see what is going on. The deer is ready to bolt at an instant's notice. 

In the realm of movement education, the idea is to improve balance,  refine movement, fill in the self image, eliminate parasitic or contradictory muscle tension patterns, and have many choices for any necessary course of action, for any necessary movement (pain relief happens as a matter of course when this is done in the right way).  The idea of relaxation in the common sense goes in exactly the opposite direction. 

The testimony of anyone who has taken a four year Feldenkrais Training Program or who has taken Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement (ATM)  classes for some years is that the quality of rest - of "relaxation" that is discovered in that process is far more enjoyable and useful and helpful than the kind of relaxation the is commonly pursued in the world today. It reconnects us to our evolutionary birthright - a sense of ease in our bodies, a sense of resting on our skeletons, a sense of powerful readiness and many choices to face each moment. It encourages a quiet cortex, a quiet mind, that is not carrying baggage from the past. It is only with a quiet mind and a body in full rest, yet dynamically ready, that we can confidently and successfully face each moment appropriately.