Posture and the Alexander Technique:
The truth about Posture

This series of four older articles:–

1. Good posture is less effort than slumping
2. The truth about posture
3. Four reasons for NOT sitting up
4. Posture that works

The good old-fashioned posture advice

Seeing your slumped or stooped posture, everybody, well-meaning, chips in with the same advice: “Sit up! Stand straight!”

Is this good advice or is it hopelessly bad advice?

Good or bad, it soon becomes obvious that following this advice is a struggle. Hence the next juicy bit of advice:—

“Do your back and shoulders feel too weak? Then strengthen them! Start a regime of exercises to strengthen your back and shoulder muscles!”

… and the disaster that comes from following it

Do you begin to see what bad advice this really is? Your back muscles are already being worked too hard. They’re exerting most of their strength pulling you down. That’s why you’ve so little strength left to prop yourself back up again.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a couch potato or you work out in the gym three times a day, every day. The basic problem is the same. Muscle is fighting muscle in a relentless tug-of-war.

The resulting “good posture” is a stiff travesty

The resulting appearance of good posture is impossibly hard work — and it’s a sham, a total sham. This stiff pose is far less functional, even, than the slump you’re trying to correct.

The immense effort that goes into it is why it ends in pain — often extremely severe pain. How are you going to get rid of the pain? How are you going to sort this mess out?

Just building more muscle (so that it can stand more strain) may relieve the pain short-term, but it will also give you the strength to tighten yourself up even more. It’s time to stop fighting a battle you can’t win. It’s time to drop the old-fashioned advice and follow some better, rarely-given advice, something that actually works.

New-fangled advice that actually works

This new-fangled advice not only works, it’s also much easier to follow than that old-fashioned “pull yourself up by your own boot-straps” nonsense. What can be easier than lying down?

Before you start laughing at me for suggesting you can fix your posture by lying down, I need to tell you I’m not talking about any old lying down: I’m talking about lying down in Semi-Supine.

The very best way to start working on your posture is to learn and practise Semi-Supine. Read “The Hows & Whys of Semi-Supine” — and watch the videos that come with it.

The other articles in this category are here:‒

• Genuine Good Posture

Personal Coaching by Philip Pawley

In more detail:–

If you’re in Liverpool (or can get to Liverpool)

1. 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).

2. 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.

3. 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

1. There’s still nothing better than individual lessons. Here’s where you can find a teacher near you in the UK or elsewhere
2. 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.