Posture Release Imagery

If you would like to hear a short interview of me conducted by Robert Rickover from http://alexanderaudio.com , click here.

Are you finding some success with the type-specific imagery available on this site? Have you experienced a variety of responses from the different forms (1a -red, 1b-blue, 2a-green, & 2b-yellow)? If so, then this post is for you. You are becoming a more advanced posture release imaginer! 

I will explain each illustration/chart a little bit and leave you to figure out the rest based on your current experience of the type-specific imagery and what is available to look at again on that page. If you have comments or questions, you can always email me or write something on the blog, which virtually nobody does.

This first chart above is divided into four sections. The individual and smaller creatures toward the outside of each section represent the specific type that section refers to. The depictions of overlapped creatures, which are larger, represent the tonal/shape variations of the left and right sides of each of the four types. In other words, the simpler dorsal-vental figures are not absolutely accurate. They have different tonal qualities on each side of the body. People are not exactly the same on the left and right sides. In fact, to some extent, we are opposite of each side. We all are, according to my thinking, one of the four types but those four types are actually more complex than the simple depictions represent.

See if you can imagine that, for instance, you are basically the 1a-red type but have a tendency to be more like a 1b-blue type on your left side and a 2a-green type on your right side. And try the other versions as well. This is not easy… but some success can give you a much greater experience of a nicely released and yet toned self. Along the way you may feel strange, crooked, and so forth, but with time you will see that these additions of lateral variation to the four types actually takes you to a deeper experience of them and their value. The experiencing of your own type, however, will typically and understandably be the least rewarding and will possibly be downright unenjoyable. Give that one up. You are already too good at living that form. 

The chart above is just another way of playing with the left side and right side variations that are actually part of the four basic types. The white version on the far right is the neutral model from which the various versions were formed.non-existent type, which is dorsally white, is merely the model from which the other forms were made. The upper row of types has influences on its sides of the types overlapped in the lower row.

This last chart I will let you just study. It may clarify something for you… and it may not.

Good luck.

The new illustration above and the image exercise I explain below started with my effort to depict a way to discuss developing a panoramic view of things. I drew circles or rings around the walking model and moved it around. I discovered that when the ring was raised above the head it felt oh so much better. It became my halo. It had a positive effect, like the large brimmed cowboy hats I sometimes wear. Tiping a halo/hat one way or another produces effects equivalent to images that play with the angle of the “director” segment in my imagery. The variations give me a “different slant” on things and increased fluidity in my head and neck (director segment).

This image has lots of possibilities. I suggest that you play with it while walking about and not just while sitting. Make the halo as big or as small as you like. I like it large, about the size shown above. The ring can be thick or thin. One you will prefer. Try it higher or lower. I like it about where shown and think you will too. The reason you have options here is because when you choose the most enjoyable characteristics of this image, you are choosing the most welcome changes in your postural habit structure. 

Basically, I would suggest experimenting with all of the following variations. When imagining one version, try to maintain that version for, say, 10 seconds or even longer. This allows accompanying body shifts that may “want” to take place to do so. It makes the experience richer. Short periods of experimentation can produce incomplete or distorted results. So here are the possible variations I recommend including:

Halo tipped forward, tipped backward, tipped to the right, tipped to the left.

Next, a halo that is tipped forward AND to the right, forward AND to the left, backward AND… and so on.

Later, give yourself two halos that are side by side. Imagine the left one tipped forward and the right one back… and visa-versa.

Later yet, with the two halos, imagine the left one tipped forward and to the left and the right one…

You now can figure out the various combinations. I suggest that each of these experiments will tend to change your countenance and your carriage, to use old useful terms. I also suggest that you might want to wear your halo or halos when you go out for brisk walks. It can make a gray day quite a bit brighter.

Good luck.

P.S.  I neglected to mention that you can certainly imagine the halo or ring to be level ! In experimenting with the other versions I believe that you will discover, however, that your sense of level may go through a bit of change. 

If you have played with exercises 1 and 2 on the type-specific imagery page , this chart below may give you assistance to kinesthetically experience the stages of the dorsal/ventral wave more clearly and completely. One of the “reduced” images below may help you overcome some difficulties you may be having. The colors are merely for identification of the types with other imagery. Where the creatures have full dorsal segments, imagine them as white (not colored) and fluffy.

In the imagery shown here, there is no need or usefulness to imagine yourself as horizontally four-legged. Merely imagine the shape, texture, and tonal qualities that these caricatures suggest being placed on you body where they coincide… eyes to eyes, forelimbs to arms, hind-limbs to legs, tail to “tail” section, and so forth. 

Row 1 shows the four stages of hopping. (When combined with lateral wave impulses, it also shows stages in galloping, which is a combination of the two waves). 

Row 2 shows just the “director” segment of the waves. You can concentrate on getting just the director segment imagery in place for the particular “stage” or posture type you want to experiment with. The effect of a well-imagined director segment should carry over automatically to the remainder of the body.

Row 3 suggests that you try concentrating only on the first part of the face and the hind end. This approach, as well, will tend to promote the appropriate tonal patterns in the unimagined or less imagined shaded areas.

Row 4 as an image is comparable to exercise 1 of the type-specific imagery. The missing parts are to be imagined as just that, totally missing. Full dorsal areas are to be felt as dorsally fluffy though firm and “totally present.” Areas that are imagined as “not present” or absent become less firm and seemingly more gentle.

See if this helps in experiencing a pattern that is in all of us… in one form and to some degree. There should be one postural pattern that feels the best to you… since you are definitely “getting outside of yourself” and becoming your “opposite” when in that character. 

Good luck.

I have the constant desire to find another image or metaphor to explain the dorsal/ventral relationship.

The “dorsal” surfaces of these buildings are the roofs and walls. The “ventral” portion is the foundation and ground. Be silly with me for a minute and imagine that the buildings have “feelings.” If well built, they generally would not “feel” much except sturdy and secure.  They would notice wind, rain, and snow… and some sense of weight (but not strain). The foundation would sense the most weight, the roof hardly any… especially on the curved roof.

So you should endeavor to shed the weight you feel on your neck or shoulders. Move it down to the hips and toward the ventral side of the body. If you feel it at the hips, try to shed it toward the groin, then to the back of the legs, and finally completely to the bottom of the feet and ground. If and when you are working on some of the imagery exercises here and you experience lightness on the entire dorsal surface an weight on the ventral surface… don’t think of it as weird. Think of yourself as well built. Think of it as right to feel this way… and not something to be embarassed or shy or doubtful about feeling or showing. A building can remain graceful and stately even as it ages, develops some leaks… and other troubles.

I must be wanting to build again.

I have always liked the phrase, firm but gentle, and have often appreciated people who seem to have these combined qualities. It is something to which we should aspire, no? They are qualities better to have than “spineless and brittle” or “evasive and harsh,” right? They need not always be in 50-50 proportions, of course. 90% firm and 10% gentle might seem best in some cases and the opposite in others.

I seems that a person could change their postural habits and many of their ways over time just using this concept as an exercise for change… by going about their body and imagining changes, here and there, along this continuum. For instance, maybe your legs could use a little more gentle and a little less firm… and maybe the arms need the reverse. Or maybe the right hand needs more of one quality and the left hand the opposite… and the feet need the reverse. Maybe your eyes and eyelids could use some tonal changes using these words.

The possibilities are numerous and the process is not complex. Does your neck feel a little too firm or a little too gentle? Just imagine a shift there from one to the other. It will not be long before the whole body feels and is positively affected.

Remember, I am suggesting that you change the sensations you have. Do not wallow in what they seem presently to be. Sensations can easily be unreliable but habit is reliably affected, and usually positively, when sensations are imaginarily changed.

This exercise suggested here should perhaps be called “tactilizing” or “kinesthizing” instead of visualizing. No visual imagery is necessary.

I do, predictably, offer a couple of visual depictions of the dorsal and ventral surfaces below that suggest how to visualize firmer or gentler body qualities. For those familiar enough with Posture Release Imagery, the continuum from very firm to very gentle illustrated here should make sense.

Use whichever approach you want.

John

Success with Posture Release Imagery requires some curiosity and willingness to experience sometimes odd or seemingly “wrong” sensations. It also requires a little tenacity because, for various reasons, the imagery exercises may fail to “work.”

I have already written some directions for executing many of the various imagery exercises you will find or have found in the .pdf articles and on the universal and type-specific exercise webpage’s. However, here are some more suggestions and some probably repeated ones to help with increased success with the imagery.

People are different in their ability to imagine Posture Release Imagery. However, you can get more effective with it over time if you discover and remove blocks to success you may have in front of you. I do not know what all blocks might be, but I will start with the most obvious advice and add whatever else I can bring to mind.

The most obvious suggestion is to eliminate any “multi-tasking” you might be doing as you are trying out an image. Driving a car and text messaging, for instance, is not an appropriate activity to be involved in while doing these exercises. While driving a car without doing other things, it may be possible to lightly refresh or remind yourself of an image with which you earlier have had success. That can be valuable (and not dangerous) in that circumstance. Things like listening to music when you work on the exercises I do not consider helpful. I see them as a possible or probable hindrance, but others might think differently.

Imagery can be used while in many different postural positions and while moving. Being on hands and knees, for instance, could be useful while imagining the archetypal organism that demonstrates the ideal dorsal-ventral surface relationship. However, since imagining is not the same as imitating (which interferes with good imagery), it is not that important to position your body anything like the image you are imagining.

Sitting up in a chair is the most secure position to be in while still being basically upright. This is usually the position of preference. Sit toward the front of the chair so you are not resting on the chair back and where the seat is not slopping backwards.

Standing is less secure but can be the place where changes that are more exciting take place… for that very reason. Some imagery calls for standing and some is just easier to imagine in that position.

Moving is not a crime while doing the imagery. Moving that is either repetitive, like easily walking in an unobstructed environment or simple light movement, can sometimes be a useful way for an image to “jiggle” its way into our body structure. When not particularly moving, some of us can be physically “fixed” while doing an image exercise, therefore preventing the changes. Without being wild, “throwing caution to the wind” can be a useful thought to allow pass through your mind. We hate to give up our habits, even for a few seconds, and so the willingness to allow something new to visit your sensory world is important.

Lightly moving body parts and facial features can be occasionally helpful. However, if you tend to be fidgety, try not to move in that way so much. But when you are trying to imagine and you sense yourself motionless while nothing is happening, maybe a twitch in the face, a small wiggle of the fingers, toes, or “tail” may get you responding to the image.

Some exercises can be useful to imagine while you are easily standing and sitting. I heartily recommend playing with some of the imagery while jogging, hand-washing dishes, raking, and so forth.

Besides the body positions to imagine in, there is the question of where to “position” the image itself. This requires experimentation, since individuals’ abilities to imagine vary and vary over time. Generally, the basic image instruction is to imagine that you actually are the archetypal creature depicted (with some allowance to imagine three dimensionally though my drawings generally lack in that regard). Alternately, you can imagine that you essentially have the creature’s qualities on your body, without totally changing shape to do so. That can reduce the impact but may be necessary.

However, images can also be imagined, with some success, to exist outside and away from your body, in the upper right, lower left, or elsewhere in your imagined visual field. In this case, you can then secondarily allow the tactile-kinesthetic qualities to land on your body surface. For instance, a white fuzzy dorsal surface can be imagined visually outside yourself and imagined (“felt”) on your body surface as well.

Finally, at some point it may be very fruitful to imagine that “ideal” creature is inside of you! If the creature is imagined to be small enough to comfortably fit inside yourself, the image can become a pleasant influence upon your structure and movements, without requiring you to give up your actual (and habitual) attributes all at once. You can be your old self, but a source of structural strength and ease will be inside, working away on a less than comfortable shell. The more you pay attention to a new “inner self,” the more it changes your outer self.

These are just ideas that may help with imagery you have already worked with. Some of these suggestions may allow images to take on new life. Undoubtedly, other approaches or hints that I cannot think of right now exist to help people to greater success with PRI.

I may be able to clarify more if you have questions of me or you have suggestions for others and me. Feel free to write.

“Suck it up” may seem like an unsympathetic order if someone is barking it at you when you are complaining or crying. But if you use it as a form of self-discipline imagery, imagining your entire ventral surface gently being sucked up into the body (with your dorsal surface expanding to accomodate), it is quite a healthy exercise. Give it a try and see what you learn and how it makes you feel.

All of the imagery on this site may seem to be only for when you are not moving or not moving much. But once you get the hang of an image, there is no reason not to use it when active… and many good reasons to use it then.

Let’s get out on the dance floor. We’ll make it a couple dance… and we’ll make the image: two “lamb and eggs.” (The basic “lamb and egg” image exercise can be studied on the universal imagery page, exercise #2.) Notice that in this version the dorsal surfaces “keep their cool” as in the one person image but the ventral eggs become elastic and quite attracted to each other when in the right proximity. Remember that virtually all of the ventral surface is in contact with the egg and the parts that are not in contact (the undersides of facial features) are still to be imagined as drawn towards the egg.

Might make for a nice tango or swing dance, no?

Always remember, hold the “bag” at the bottom if you would rather be a bouquet of flowers than a bag of bones. This relates to the healthy relationship between the dorsal and ventral surfaces of the body… and to my most basic advice, which is to calm up and tense down. (See the universal imagery page for an illustrated description of our dorsal and ventral surfaces.)

“Habits are routines of behavior that are repeated regularly, tend to occur subconsciously, without directly thinking consciously about them.” Merriam Webster dictionary. . … en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habit (psychology)

The word has some other definitions such as: clothing worn by a member of a religious order or a substance abuse, such as drug abuse. All definititions, including words like “habitat,” suggest something outside of us. A nun is inside the habit that she wears and we all live in one habitat or another. It struck me that this is true of our habits as well. “We” live within an organism that exhibits our habits. At least that seems like the healthiest perspective to have. I certainly do not want to think of myself as my habits. How defeating a feeling that would be.

The more I thought of (and experimented with) the word, the more I came to see habit as something cauterized on my flesh and my surface… and my interior as empty… except for “spirit.” The “I” or “me” is that spirit within. It floats about, propagates, expands, and is extremely valuable as long as I can successfully see myself as distinct from the habits on the outside, which are presented to the world. The purpose is not to avoid responsibility for habits that may be have bad effects on you or others, but rather to visually and sensually experience them as distinct from yourself… long enough for them to melt and disappear for at least a moment that you might experience a new you.

For someone with the ability to imagine, this is not a difficult image to conceptualize… briefly. The problem comes when trying to maintain and increase the image for longer periods. To do so appears to improve body conditions by melting some habits away and increasing a sense of completeness, peace, and worth. This sort of thought, however, like other useful thoughts, does not easily become a habit itself.Increasingly, I see that spiritual and religious thoughts and images have great potential as body habit and posture altering tools, if only they were recognized as such.

Here is a different sort of image to play with… and contemplate. See if you can imagine that you are the figure on the far right of the illustration below. It is nothing other than a slightly complex kite with a few more joints and strings. If you can catch the thought/image for a moment it should give you a sense of an enhanced structure (better posture) without having to do anything (other than entertain a thought). In the image you are to think of yourself as nothing more than this kite man… with the strings (tension elements) running along both your outer edges (the dorsal-ventral seam) and on the belly (ventral) side of your body with a few sticks, like shown, to keep the strings under tension. As shown, imagine the head section and the tail section as both long and horizontal. Similar strings under a little tension along the dorsal-ventral seam of the limbs (not shown here) will add even more structure as well as lightness to your momentary habit-breaking experience. 

Not only do we tend to have “bad” posture, but we tend to make bad use of the word, posture. The two problems are undoubtedly related. The word posture, in its fullest sense, refers to many of our characteristics. It implies our attitudes, our inclinations, and even our perspectives. In a similar manner, even governments have “postures.” Posture is an actual, if not always visible, representation of our entire personality. It is descriptive. But the word posture is too often used in a prescriptive sense, as in good posture or bad posture. Somehow it has become fashionable to think that we can, rather mechanically, turn what we have decided is bad posture into good posture. No need to confront our attitudes, our inclinations, our perspectives, and our self-images… just change bad to good.

As a result of this short-sighted approach, the word, posture, is frequently considered “bad” to teachers and students in the Alexander Technique and other forms of mind/body intervention. I merely suggest here that we attempt to return the word to its appropriate stature, as a physical if not always easily visible representation of ourselves, reflecting all the richness and color, not just good and bad, which can be found in any personality.

The good part of relax is in the release it promotes. The bad part is the collapse it brings. With collapse, structure is lost as well as some tension. If it is an occasion when you are willing to collapse, then relax. Otherwise, just release. 

No relaxing for me today until evening. But that’s o.k. … release keeps me happy and engaged.

Function follows form in anything living. How an animal, for instance, is shaped determines how it functions. That is obvious. I also think that how it is shaped helps determine how it “feels.”

Animals that are generally more aggressive have different basic tonal patterns, whether they are large or small, than animals that are more oriented toward flight… running away from aggression. My purpose in this post is not to argue the point but to suggest that you try to imagine that you actually are different animals. If you use the general rules for imagining that I have described on my imagery pages you will find that animals do, in fact, have very different tonal patterns… and imagining being one sort may be very enjoyable and being another may not.

Imagining (remember, not imitating) being a giraffe will give you a very different experience of your body than being a buffalo, for instance. Time should be spent trying to imagine some of the smaller features on these animals, not just the general shape. By looking at pictures (which I should provide here soon, I guess), you can imagine the specific shape of a giraffe’s head, lips, nostrils, etc. or a buffalo’s head and shoulders and hind quarters.

A variety of animals I suggest to explore would include: fox, squirrel, buffalo, giraffe, lion, horse, cat, dog (of different varieties), sheep, goat, pig, and more. Birds can also be interesting to “be.” You may very well discover your enjoyable and posturally liberating “opposite” in the animal world.

I’m writing here to say that the latest material I have added to this website is on the “my-articles” page. At the end of the list of papers is one on the value of our “tails” to our posture/use. Another is about the use of our eyes to release and improve posture/use. All are free .pdf files for downloading.

They’re short. Give them a try.

John

“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. However, I’m sure that those names would reduce the number of visitors to my site. 

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