Improve Your Posture by Doing Less

In Gore Vidal's bestselling novel, "Myra Breckinridge", there is a scene in which Myra and a character named Mary-Ann discuss the posture of Russ Godowsky, an acting student. Mary-Ann says: "It's this old football injury accident he was too shy to tell you about which broke four ribs and when they healed he was sort of ass...assy...."

"Asymmetrical?" replied Myra.

"That's right, sort of curved to one side. I mean it's not noticeable except when he's nervous and trying to walk straight...."

Vidal has always been a keen observer of human behavior, putting that skill to good use in bringing his fictional characters to life. This particular description is one that resonated at once with me since it's a pattern I see all the time with my Alexander Technique students. Almost inevitably, when someone tries to "stand up straight" or "sit up straight", they make their posture worse.

I once saw a video designed for public school classrooms in which the presenter explained in detail why good posture is so important. He made a number of very good points and he had very good posture himself. But as soon as he started explaining how one might improve one's posture, he stiffened his body - so much so that you could actually see the resultant restriction in his breathing.

Because of my profession, the subject of posture sometimes comes up in conversations with people I meet. I've noticed that at the first mention of the word "posture" many people do something similar to the character in Vidal's book and the video presenter. I'm sure this reflects an underlying idea that "good posture" somehow requires making an extra effort to stand or sit.

But in fact, nothing could be farther from the truth for most of us. What we actually need to do to improve our posture is to learn what we're presently doing that's interfering with our natural upright posture and then learn how to stop those interferences. In almost every case, this means less rather than more tension.

F. Matthias Alexander was the developer of the Alexander Technique and most famous students was Professor John Dewey. Dewey was not only America's best-known philosopher but he was also very influential in the development of American public education in the first half of the 20th century. Indeed he is sometimes called the "Father of American education."

From his lessons with Alexander, Dewey gained a very clear understanding of the "posture problem." "It is," he wrote, "as reasonable to expect a fire to go out when it is ordered to stop burning as to suppose that a man can stand straight in consequence of a direct action of thought and desire. The fire can be put out only by changing objective conditions; it is the same with rectification of bad posture.