Thank you so much! Good posture to me looks soft upright and smooth. However am learning that we must work with what we have, without trying to make both sides the same or micro managing too much. I love that you pointed out the brain and how much is used for simply standing.
Roger W. Sperry, Nobel laureate, 1981, said: "Better than 90% of the brain's output is directed towards maintaining your body in its gravitational field. Therefore, the less energy one spends on one's posture, the more energy is available for healing, digestion, and thinking."
To the question of aesthetics, I think the head floating upwards on the top of the spine is probably strongly correlated with the impression of "good posture" and the general sense of not very exaggerated curves in the whole spine. That is at least what I react to in my own pictures, when the head sticks too much forward and down as well as the chest being narrowed and downward
You are right, Milton. I have the same reactions to, uhm... less than favorable photos of the exaggerated curves, slumps, etc. We are only human! But we can get better.
Loving the book club! This discussion made me think about a couple of techniques in acting, in creating characters. When exploring archetypes, it becomes very clear that some kinds of characters have a "straight" organization and some not so straight. One could say that the characters who stand up straight have "good posture" - the kings, the lovers, the tragic heroes, etc - but they are not necessarily better characters. That is, posture varies between characters and no one way of being is better than another. We talk about it in relationship to status a lot in theatre. Jos Houben (an amazing Belgian clown) does a show called The Art of Laughter where he talks about comedy being in relationship with the vertical. (And gravity!) I couldn't find this bit in English and my French is not great but I think the illustration of our relationship to the vertical is clear here. ua-cam.com/video/y4cp6g_gFCk/v-deo.html - Also in conversations with Jos, I discovered he's got quite a lot of training in the Feldenkrais Method as well!
Thank you so much! Good posture to me looks soft upright and smooth. However am learning that we must work with what we have, without trying to make both sides the same or micro managing too much. I love that you pointed out the brain and how much is used for simply standing.
Roger W. Sperry, Nobel laureate, 1981, said: "Better than 90% of the brain's output is directed towards maintaining your body in its gravitational field. Therefore, the less energy one spends on one's posture, the more energy is available for healing, digestion, and thinking."
To the question of aesthetics, I think the head floating upwards on the top of the spine is probably strongly correlated with the impression of "good posture" and the general sense of not very exaggerated curves in the whole spine. That is at least what I react to in my own pictures, when the head sticks too much forward and down as well as the chest being narrowed and downward
You are right, Milton. I have the same reactions to, uhm... less than favorable photos of the exaggerated curves, slumps, etc. We are only human! But we can get better.
Top! In French we say « avoir les pieds sur terre »: thén thats really difficult? That means havé notion of reality!!!
Loving the book club! This discussion made me think about a couple of techniques in acting, in creating characters. When exploring archetypes, it becomes very clear that some kinds of characters have a "straight" organization and some not so straight. One could say that the characters who stand up straight have "good posture" - the kings, the lovers, the tragic heroes, etc - but they are not necessarily better characters. That is, posture varies between characters and no one way of being is better than another. We talk about it in relationship to status a lot in theatre.
Jos Houben (an amazing Belgian clown) does a show called The Art of Laughter where he talks about comedy being in relationship with the vertical. (And gravity!) I couldn't find this bit in English and my French is not great but I think the illustration of our relationship to the vertical is clear here. ua-cam.com/video/y4cp6g_gFCk/v-deo.html - Also in conversations with Jos, I discovered he's got quite a lot of training in the Feldenkrais Method as well!
Thank you, Emily for offering your perspectives. Super useful!