What's Bad About Good Posture?

Want to improve your posture without undue tension and strain?Making improvements in our posture is a very desirable pursuit, and the usual paradigm focuses on muscle strength and stretching. Another approach is to bring a clearer focus to how optimal skeletal alignments can naturally allow movement to be easy, fluid and effective.But what happens when our habitual posture leads us towards undue stress and tension in our very effort to improve posture? As humans we are all born and learn how to move with perfect posture. If you want to re-learn how to regain this natural posture it's essential that you commit to learning how to re-tune your movement sense.One holistic definition of good posture and movement is the ability and awareness to allow the natural flow of breath during the activities of everyday living. What is the main 'thing' that may interrupt this natural flow of breath you ask?The answer: The way in which we respond to 'things' and events. There is nothing good or bad about 'response', to be alive is to simply to be and respond. Posture isn't just a habit, but it's an embodied outcome of how we subconsciously react to everyday happenings and stimuli. We may have 'learned' to swing between fight or flight responses as we go through our daily activities, then our posture and movement simply follows suit.We all still have perfect posture, but if this perfect is some how fixed in accordance to our subconscious habits (fight/flight response), then this can hurt, really hurt. Once we learn to observer our posture/movement habits in a constructive, fun and engaging manner, then we learn to engage a natural process that can lead to continual improvements in posture and movement. Having good posture then becomes a skill that we choose to practice, not something that we beat ourselves up about.


So, if you want to stop hurting and regain the natural posture that is your birthright, try committing to re-learning where your natural joints of movement are. In a sense you learn to commit to who you are, a big idea, yes! It can only be achieved through the little tinny things of everyday living. This way we set our whole self up for tiny and paramount bits of learning through out the day. Hence, our nervous system doesn't get tired, afraid or overloaded. Learning and renewing in this way is a universal principle, age-old, common to all cultures, practical and logical.Pain in your back, neck, shoulder or wrist affects the way you move and feel, so every activity that you engage in becomes a possibility to undo the tensions that caused the hurts, you become your own teacher. It takes a little practice with a qualified Alexander Technique practitioner to get there. But it's a wonderful investment in your wellbeing and health.Now we are moving towards a mind/body paradigm of good posture. After all, part of being a human is to be a creature of habit, yet within that we can easily cultivate the habit to choose how we move.