NINE NEW PRINCIPLES
Listed below on this page are the basic principles on which Posture Release Imagery is founded.
The development of Posture Release Imagery (PRI) initially began as a result of my effort to describe the Alexander Technique, through illustration, to people unfamiliar with it. Musing on my own drawings of simplified evolution brought about my first principle (relating to the appropriate relationship between the dorsal and ventral surfaces of the body). The usefulness of specific imagery for students and myself later became apparent while teaching Alexander lessons, and, as a result, the imagery evolved considerably beyond the generally accepted scope of the Alexander Technique. Nine new principles of healthy or ideal posture were developed over years and are outlined below.
Over the years, this mental imagery has developed, with a dominant use of the “right brain,” into a new means of understanding and experiencing, in the body, improved use of ourselves. The experiences, when repeated, bring about an understanding, both intellectually and internally (kinesthetically), of new principles concerning:
- the nature of ideal structure (posture)
- the nature of ideal movement control
- the elements involved in “uprighting”
- the origin of graceful movement
- a range of posture, movement,
and personality styles
PRI is both therapeutic and educational. The imagery alters habitual response. Some of the imagery is visual in nature, some of it is related to the senses of the surface of our body (tactile/kinesthetic or somatosenses), and some is a combination of both.
The images rest on the notion that something significant, though not necessarily conscious, comes to us from our distant past. Can it be that we maintain our continuity and control our support against the force of gravity in the same way as do all land-bound creatures (terrestrial tetrapods)? Could the relationship of the dorsal and ventral surfaces of the body be key to appropriate support or posture of all these creatures? Are there common principles in movement control and movement execution that all creatures have… and we frequently manage to ignore? With PRI experience, the answer to these questions and others seems to be yes.
The type of imagery proposed here is “whole-body.” It entails imagining visual and sensational changes to the entire body surface. Many of the best effects are not present until virtually the whole body is involved in the imagery. In this sense, I consider it unique. Many other sorts of imagery are used in therapies and disciplines such as dance, yoga, tai chi, and sports.
To understand the specific principles of healthy structure (posture) and movement that this imagery work has revealed, it will require reading one or two of my articles and some experimenting with the imagery exercises found in these articles and on the various pages. However, those principles are listed below and quickly described. The sequence is not necessarily in order of importance:
1. The tactile/kinesthetic sensations we experience, whether we subconsciously and tacitly permit them or actively promote them (as in the use of imagery), determine the arrangement of our structure, for good or for ill.
2.
Healthy and efficient support of our structure (and that of probably all land-bound tetrapods) comes from the appropriate relationship of the dorsal and ventral surfaces. This relationship is the following in relation to gravity - that the entire dorsal surface gently expands upward and outward and the entire ventral surface gently contracts downward and inward. This response is the neurological model for the proper positioning of the skeletal system by means of the muscular system.
The general principle that the dorsal surface should be felt as generally expanded in comparison to the ventral surface, which should be felt as gently toned, condensed, or hollowed, applies to use of the body without respect to gravity as well… as illustrated below. A caring relationship to self (1), child(2), family (3), or larger community (4) should be felt as one where the entire dorsal surface (shown as fluffy and white) maintains a greater sense of expansion than the ventral surface.
3.
It is important for the left and the right sides of the body to be free of cross-body tensions in order to do many things well. More graceful movement is attained when these segments are felt or imagined to be substantially free and independent of each other.
4.
The body is made up of three functional parts that help determine posture and movement. I call them the “director, motor, and rudder” segments. These segments have rather distinct functions in support and movement. More graceful posture and movement is attained when these segments are felt and imagined to be substantially free of each other to carry out their separate functions.
5.
The border area between the dorsal and ventral surfaces of the body is of prime importance in both perception and locomotion. (This borderline is shown here in red on simple archetypal four-legged creatures but is illustrated on human-like figures elsewhere.) Most perception and movement originates along this border or “seam.” Subtle and graceful expression and movement responses begin here. When some tension or increased tone is necessary in the body, as when doing work, it is healthiest when the tension is felt to be closer to these border areas than in the core of the body
6.
Early organisms’ methods of locomotion (peristalsis, lateral undulation, and dorsoventral undulation) became the model for neurologically directing graceful and efficient movement of appendages (limbs or wings, for example) in higher life forms. (This idea is not new, perhaps, but its implications can be more valuable to our health and use than is generally understood.) It is more valuable to think of easy or graceful movement as being the consequence of body surface flow rather than just the sense of muscle contraction and release.
7.
There is a meaningful and historical connection between elemental locomotion and elemental emotion. (This assertion is made by others as well. However, I have some illustrations that begin to suggest how more precisely it is true.)
8.
Muscle tonus patterns in the head, neck, and front portion of the shoulder and arms are, in undisturbed function, repeated in the rest of the body. This assertion is made toward the bottom of my list but may be the most important. It suggests that the tonal patterns of the face, head, neck, and the front portion of the shoulder and arms (light gray area on the archetypal creatures illustrated here) repeat themselves below, through the remainder of the body (dark gray area).
9.
The various patterns of muscle tonus, which create frozen waves, make up a typology of tendencies in posture, movement, emotion, and gender (shown here as coupled “opposites”). Click on image, even twice, for expanded clearer view.
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