Posture Release Imagery

“Calm up and tense down” is a short sentence that many have found useful. How about trying out this post’s suggestion, to sit while standing and stand while sitting, as another short postural words-to-live-by.

Imagine, and only imagine… as best you can… that you are sitting while you are in fact standing and, vice versa, that you are standing while you are sitting. This peculiar but straightforward image can help you to carry out both activities in a posturally healthier manner. 

Yet, there is more that can be learned from the advice. When you stand up from sitting on some occasions, do not completely stand… almost but not completely. Then give your body/self time to ease into more full standing on its own. Also, when sitting sometimes, prevent yourself from entirely sitting. This can happen muscularly even after you have touched down on the seat and are technically “sitting.” Then slowly allow your body a little more “sitting pleasure” if necessary. That should not mean that you have to slump, however.

The lesson here is that movement should be a loop… it should contain a bit of its opposite. Boomerangs loop and so should humans… when we stand and sit, throw baseballs, drive cars, anything. (Incidentally, overcorrecting to avoid an accident while driving is a major source of accidents. The loop movement, back and forth, has been lost.)

This advice does not mean that we should not extend ourselves  and “jump for joy” or endeavor to fold ourselves snugly up while squating flat-footed to the ground. I think, oddly and wonderfully, that the “thought reversal” suggested here can help, over time, in achieving both of those extremes in movement.

I hope you give this a good try.  

John

Many of us are aware (or vaguely suspect) that habit causes us neck, shoulder, back, or lower back pain, for instance. We have moved beyond blaming all of our pain on slipped disks, previous injuries, or “bad” knees, ankles, hips, or whatever. I am sure that sometimes these explanations are accurate, but not very often.

So we are now willing to “take some responsibility” for our pain… and our habits. But what exactly is the habit? Is it the way I move when standing up, sit down, pick up something, or whatever that causes the problem? Is it the way I do something? Well, yes, but no. 

Our habits are not in how we move, but rather in our “pre-movement” dispositions, inclinations, tensions, and flacidity. That is why most all of the imagery presented here is static in nature. It is not what is called motor imagery. (I can think of only one image that I have developed where movement is necessarily imagined in the imagery exercise. However, if you wish, you can be moving while imaging this generally static imagery.) Habit exists before it is noticeably expressed. Therefore, the imagery is designed to work on our structure…our posture…, which is in place whether we are moving significantly or not.  

So in any of the images you experiment with, when you sense the image changing your pre-movement/predisposition/posture, then feel free to experiment with moving, while still keeping the image in mind.

This website could just as easily be called pre-movementreleaseimagery.org or predispositionreleaseimagery.org. I’m afraid those names would reduce site traffic even more though. 

John

I’m finding it hard to get the time to add imagery, explanations, and comments. But for when I do get the time, I’d love it if someone/ones would email me or make a public comment on this blog about what you’d like to see here… as in more images, more explanation of the theories, or whatever. There is quite a bit more that could eventually end up on the site.

John

As economic and, possibly/probably, social conditions get worse, I am hoping that I can live up to my own directive, to “calm up and tense down.” Personal posture is just a microcosm of  a family’s, community’s, country’s, or region’s posture.

 John

We use imagery whether we try to or not. Our unconscious images, which you might call our ”self-images,” make up our attitude, our holding patterns, our postural habits. Every movement we make is colored by those attititudes,holding patterns, or self-images… and it appears that the only way to change those habitual patterns is by changing the images, by one means or another. 

The most basic principle of Posture Release Imagery concerns the ideal relationship between the dorsal and ventral surfaces of the body. Below I have an illustration of the yin/yang symbol (the Chinese symbol of the forces of the universe). Above it, I have my depiction of the most appropriate general response to these yin/yang forces of the universe. If you have played with the imagery on this site, the symbol might make sense.  It has to do with the ideal relationship between the dorsal and ventral surfaces of our body. In addition, I think that it essentially depicts the ideal Christian or, perhaps, Judeo/Christian response to life’s forces. So, if you haven’t already done so, search around this site, attempt a couple of image exercises, and get right with the universe!

John

P.S. I have a new exercise on the type-specific imagery page as of today.