A Technical Sidebar on Getting Comfortable Posture

Comfortable Posture is a process of intelligently managing two movement systems.

Yes, you have two of them — not one. 

Do you know what they are?

One is obvious, seen easily and talked about incessantly. 

The other is hidden, hard to recognise and, well, not mentioned much at all!

(except by me here)

In the last few decades, the fitness industry has started to recognise your hidden system. Physiologists – who look at human movement from a neuronal point of view - describe two movement systems:

1. Motor Hold
2. Motor Move

The 1st - Motor Hold - has been popularised by the expression "core muscles".

If you do any fitness practice, you will at some point be encouraged to strengthen your core muscles. A favourite technique is trying to stay upright while rolling around on a giant inflated ball.

When you come to ATSuccess, you will learn more about these two movement systems, but I won't put you on a ball. Instead – I ask you to think. 

Why? Because…

I don't want you to strengthen these muscles…
I want you to lengthen these muscles!

I don't want you to hold them tight…
I want you to move them right!

I don't want you to make an inner tightening…
I want you to make an inner lightening!

At ATSuccess, I explain it this way:

1. Co-ordination movements (Motor Hold)
2. Activity movements (Motor Move)

CO-ORDINATION MOVEMENTS

Your "core muscles" are not big beefy idiots that lie around waiting to be made "stronger" through your sweaty efforts. They are a sophisticated network of interlaced muscles and nerves – along the spine - that delicately interact with gravity to maintain your balance through millions of muscular adjustments, made continuously all day.

Alexander discovered a secret about this sophisticated coordinating mechanism – that the relationship of your head to spine governs the musculature of the spine that coordinates your balance.

This spinal "core" is a primary influence on your…

ACTIVITY MOVEMENTS

Whatever you do - sit, stand, walk, talk, dance, sing, clean the house, study, play games or musical instruments – you use larger, stronger muscles in your arms and legs to assist you.

How you use these two – coordination and activity movements – is the reason behind: having freedom or tension; being accurate or clumsy; feeling awkward or poised. 

When you want freedom, accuracy and poise in your teaching, start with analysing the coordination movements of both you and your student.

This deeper process of analysis is part of BodyThinking – one of the modules of your ATSuccess learning program. Members get a significant advantage to study this comprehensive teaching aid.

More about this soon. Keep reading!