How do you think of posture?
For many people, it’s a thing. Good posture or bad. People with good posture have their shoulders back, and head up. Bad posture is associated with slouching. Good is a perfect ratio between the head, neck and shoulders. Something to get, to have, to keep. Shoulders and head not too forwards, not too far back. Just right. Sounds a little like a fairytale to me… What if this way of thinking is taking us into the woods? Making it a thing doesn’t fit with the way humans actually work. Nothing we do is static. Even when we’re still, we’re moving. We have to, to breathe.
Dynamic Posture
What if Dynamic Posture is really what we should be looking for? Or “acture”. Which is a term Moshe Feldenkrais coined, but never took off. Moshe meant an ability to adapt. To shift according to need and circumstance.
After all, you don’t want the distance between your head and shoulders to be the same if you’re picking up something from the floor, or if you’re screwing in a lightbulb into the ceiling. They both need completely different things. To do one posture for both would make the very difficult, if not impossible.
For many people, that’s part of the problem. If the back is stiff, it can’t change its shape. The spine is supposed to change shape in order to support the head and shoulders. One area that’s often the culprit is between the shoulder blades. Then the shoulders can’t be comfortable either.
Good posture is the ability to move in any direction without hesitation or preparation.
It’s adaptability. It’s the ability to run away from a threat at the moment it’s perceived. It’s what kept our forefathers alive 40,000 years ago on the savannah.
If you only think about the shoulders in isolation,
it’s unlikely you’ll get to the root of the problem. It’s often is a combination of factors. We’re complex creatures after all.
the Feldenkrais Method with Emma Alter 