How to look good wearing high heels
There’s a secret to wearing heels well. It’s called poise. Poise is how we achieve true balance.
We humans wouldn’t get very far if we didn’t manage to balance one way or another. Standing as we do on two legs, we’re very top-heavy: we have to do something to avoid falling over.
There are two ways to avoid falling over
Let’s call these two ways “balancing” and “poise”.
Balancing
When you’re balancing, if you begin to fall over, you haul yourself back upright. I’m calling this process “balancing” because this is what you, like most people, do to balance. It’s how you avoid falling over.
Here’s how “balancing” works.
When you begin to topple over, you stiffen first your feet and ankles and then the rest of your body to pull yourself back upright. Since you would soon fall over if you didn’t keep doing this stiffening, the process of balancing forces you to remain permanently stiff. Even while you’re moving you have to remain stiff, simply because, if you didn’t, you’d fall over.
“Balancing” like that, you end up using the whole of your foot as a base to stand on. Naturally, you end up standing on the middle of your foot. That way, you’ve got about the same leeway whether you begin to “over-balance” forwards over your toes or backwards over your heels. You feel more stable.
When you’re in high heels, all your weight gets thrown onto the front of your feet. You’ve a much smaller, more precarious base. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that walking in high heels while balancing like that is going to be hard work. You’re always going to be teetering around and stiffening much more in order to avoid falling over.
All that extra stiffening also pulls your posture out of shape. That’s the root of the posture problems that have been worrying Victoria Beckham. Posh Spice may well be steadier on her feet than most women, still, nonetheless, her posture is a truly inevitable outcome of the way she’s been teetering around (sorry “balancing”). 
Now Mrs Beckham is learning poise, provided she is taught well and she learns well, her posture will improve enormously, no matter how often she wears high heels.
Poise
Poise works quite differently. If you’re poised, you stop fighting your top-heaviness. Instead, use your top-heaviness to help you. Poise makes it possible for you to place your weight where you need it in order to move where you want to go quickly and easily. Learning to be poised means learning how to place your weight where it needs to be for gravity to take you exactly where you want to go.
Poised standing
Being top heavy, it doesn’t take long before you begin to topple in one direction or another. The poised person brings herself back to upright by counter-balancing that topple. When she begins toppling forwards, she places the weight of her head a little further back. This counter-balances the topple and brings her back to her centre. When she begins to topple backwards, placing the weight of her head a little further forwards again returns her to centre.
Being poised like that requires a totally free neck: a neck that allows her to move her head simply by rotating it at her head/neck joint. Not only is this much quicker and easier than the alternative of dragging her neck around, it also doesn’t require any force or effort because she is not deforming any part of her body to do it.
Poised walking
When walking, you want to move. What better way of doing that than letting gravity pull you forwards and simply catching up with your feet so that you don’t fall too fast? Again the movement of your head is what enables you to place your weight exactly where you need it without having to stiffen or pull yourself out of shape.
Poised anything else
The same principles apply for anything else you want to do: run, jump, dance, turn cart wheels, whatever. Whatever you do, the secret is to do it with poise.
Walking in heels is no exception. Walking in heels is really only a problem because you lack poise. Learn poise and your troubles will be over.
Resources
Here are some articles for further reading:–
1. How to move your head so that you can be poised
“Good neck posture made easy: move your head instead of your neck”
2. Poise
“Balance or poise: Would you rather be stiff as a statue or poised like a trapeze artist?”
3. Poised standing
“Poised for action: How a free neck makes you more alert”
and “How to use your feet to detect body-stiffness”
4. Poised walking
“How can you walk more slowly?”
The other articles in this category are here:‒
Personal Coaching by Philip Pawley
If you want to get the best kind of help, come to me for an introductory lesson in Liverpool.
If you’re too far away, then the next best thing is to get personal lessons and advice from me online at Repoise.com, my on-line school. (Both far-away and local pupils use Repoise).
In more detail:–
If you’re in Liverpool (or can get to Liverpool)
- There’s nothing better than individual lessons. My practice is at 37 Hope Street, Liverpool L1. Ring me on 0151 708 6172 to book an initial consultation and first lesson. (Leave your number so I can get back to you).
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If you’re short of funds, you can still have first class training from me — though it will require a little more work on your part.
The thing to do is have an individual, in-person lesson just once a month. That will entitle you to also get regular on-line lessons from me through Repoise. That way, you have the best of both worlds: in-person lessons and very regular, even daily, on-line Personal Coaching by Philip Pawley from me. That’s a real bargain because Repoise costs the equivalent of three lessons a year to everyone else.
Ring me on 0151 708 6172 if you want to arrange this.
- I occasionally run group lessons. If you’re interested in these, go here for details.
If you’re further away and can’t get to Liverpool
- There’s still nothing better than individual lessons. Here’s where you can find a teacher near you in the UK or elsewhere
- I suggest you also get direct day-to-day guidance from me by joining Repoise.
If you’re having plain Alexander Technique lessons from someone else, you still need to discover the Smiling Back Method of the Alexander Technique. You’ll get a lot more out of your lessons when you do.
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Telephone: +44 151 708 6172 Mobile: +44 7872 905 154
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