I saw these two men perched on a bench outside Granville Island Public Market last July. The one on the left is demonstrating Spineful sitting. His friend is not. One sits on bone, the other doesn’t. One has a long straight back. The other sits in a slump that’s building a hump. No points awarded …
I missed out on Shirley Temple movies when I was a kid. Our family was late to get a television and my mother resisted cable, then $5 a month, on the prescient grounds that once you’d signed up, the price was only going to rise. So Alan records Ms. Temple’s oeuvre for me whenever the …
Read more Why watch Shirley Temple movies? You can see people, including Shirley, in natural posture
I don’t remember when Warrior I popped up in my first set of introductory yoga classes, but I do know that by the end of that eight-week session, we had met, and we weren’t friends. As years went by, I learned to tolerate the pose, but I never looked forward to it coming up in …
Read more How Spinefulness changed my Warrior I from fierce to friendly
Nothing conveys the vulnerability of a spine out of alignment quite like watching the vertebrae collapse. That’s why Jean Couch’s collapsing spine is one of my favorite demos of all time. Originally this riveting performance was only available on the Your Pain-Free Life DVD sold through the Balance Center. That meant you had to own the …
Catastrophic posture is all around us. Once you know what it looks like, you’re guaranteed to see something that makes your eyes hurt pretty much every time you go outside. And if you turn on the television or open a magazine, being inside isn’t so safe either. But then we hit October, the glory …
The first time I held a pelvis in my hands I was in Palo Alto, taking my first Spinefulness teacher training. I was also watching worlds collide. My teacher, Jean Couch, brought out a model of a female pelvis, and put it in balanced posture, with the pubic bones facing the floor. The hip bones …
Read more What I learned the first time I held a pelvis in my hands
Why is back pain epidemic in our culture? Could our posture have anything to do with it? And what does it mean that even health care providers don’t recognize harmful posture when they see it? You tell me. This photo of young girls taking part in “healthy” outdoor activity under adult supervision …
At first they seem an unlikely pairing. Georgia LeConte, the world’s most expert teacher of Aplomb/Spinefulness, is elegant and refined, commanding when she’s teaching, quiet and low-key when she’s not. James Brown is the Godfather of Soul (aaooww!). What could they possibly have in common? True, they are both in natural balance. Check out this video …
Read more Keeping it on the one: Spinefulness lessons from James Brown and Georgia LeConte
Any casual observer, seated on a park bench, watching people walk by, might begin to ask: where did all the buttocks go? Why are our cabooses so often so flat? It seems that the gluteus muscles, the biggest in the human body, have gone into hiding. They’re the source of our forward propulsion in walking and upward …
Read more The case of the missing buttocks – it’s not all mum bum
If learning Spinefulness has a downside, it’s this: once you can see out of balance posture, you can’t un-see it. Sit on a park bench to people-watch, and you’ll see a pain parade. Yes, there’s the occasional delight of someone walking with ease and grace, but for the most part, old and young, it’s a …
Read more They stagger, they fall, but they move better than we do