I recently was visiting the grounds of Castle Howard in Yorkshire and it struck me that all of the statues displayed good posture and if we created statues today would they display the same obvious traits of good posture? I think not! Well why is this and what is going on?
Well during our lives we develop all kinds of traits, mannerisms and signs of poor posture. Although as an Alexander Technique teacher I am not keen on the term posture as this tends to lead us to impressions of sitting or standing ram rod straight which is unnatural and creates stiffness. Instead we want to be balanced and poised, which is also useful as this can be retained during movement and activity rather than just relating to the acts of sitting and standing. This is what Alexander teachers call "good use" which means you are using your body in a coordinated way. It not only looks better but allows us to function and live better. So in referring back to the statue which we could say he displays good use.
I was able to consider manner of use further on a recent holiday to China.
China represents a huge dicotamy of the old and the new. On arrival in Beijing one of the first things you notice is the dominance of technology and the use of mobile phones. Everyone is glued to their screen and walking around with their head bowed to their screen.
The people in the image above illustrate poor use. In modern society dominated by technology people are constantly complaining of stiff necks and sore backs, is it any wonder if we use ourselves like this. The most recent figures compiled by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed 2.9 million people had problems linked to their back or neck, up from 2.6 million in 2019. However it is not the technology that is causing the problem its the way we use ourselves that is causing the problem. The picture below shows someone using their mobile while in a squat. Surprisingly both photos were shot at a metro station. Notice that the lady in a squat has her head in allignment with her spine just as the Castle Howard statue.
So I'm not saying that everyone should squat to use their mobile phone but we should attend to how we sit or stand and keep our heads in allignment with our spine. We don't want to dip our heads to look down at our phone by bending in the lower part of our neck / upper spine. So a liitle experiment first of all whether we are standing or sitting just sense the support of the ground or the chair, think of our spines lengthening and being aware of the space around us. Think of the space behind you, in front of you and above your heads. Already you may have observed that you are more upright and feel a bit taller. Then we want to use our eyes to look down at our phone by imagining that there is a rod between our ears and the top of our head pivots around this point. You can practice getting the sense of the balance point of the head by using your eyes to gently look up and then to gently look down. Practice this a couple of times. Next time your want to look down at your phone apply this technique to use your eyes to dip your head. This way we can have good use and good posture.
