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How do you think about your posture? by Bette Chamberlin
When I was a young ballet dancer, people commented on how straight my posture was – no misappropriated curves in my spine (actually few curves altogether!), basically straight. I would hear “you have such good posture”. They thought I did and so did I.
Read moreOur Own Climate Change by Bette Chamberlin
It has been a brutally hot summer. I can’t go out most days after 8:30am.
On days off, If I think that I can dilly-dally and wait until 9:30 am, the temperature has often risen 5 degrees. I can’t. Heat is intrusive and the brain and body resists adapting to the onslaught.
Our weather is different now. There has been a distinct major upwards change in in temperature in the last 50 years. Starting in 1895, it looked like the earth was getting cooler and it did until 1970. Then the average temperature starting in each 5 year time frame was reduced from the period before. Not so starting in 1970. In 1970 we started to see more dramatic upticks in temperature. Since then, there have been NO temperature changes down, only up.
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In order to pick up your paper, whether you have it at your front door or at the end of your walkway outside your home, you will bend some joints.
The question is, what joints are you using to bend in order to lower yourself in space. HOW are you doing this? Are you cold and hurrying as fast as you can in your stiffened from sleep state?
Read moreby Bette Chamberlin
When I was a professional ballet dancer with American Ballet Theater, people would come up to me and ask “are you a dancer? and then immediately “you have such good posture.” I would reply “yes”, and “thank you”. I felt content that in fact I had good posture. But that compliment was always tied with “are you a dancer?”
Hmm…
When I stopped dancing professionally and started to teach ballet, I continued to be that dancer that “had good posture”, yet I was unwittingly passing along the model of an over straightened spine to my students. At the same time, I was experiencing intense neck and shoulder pain. My spine was braced and operating by habit, acting as if I was still a professional ballet dancer, and not responding to conventional treatments. My anxiety about this was building and became another daily challenge.
The reality is that most of us dancers have an idea about posture that involves way too much muscular tension.
And I was an excellent example of this.
It wasn’t until I started looking for both relief for my neck pain and a more organic way to look at posture that I bumped into F. M. Alexander’s discovery. Rethinking the relationship between my head neck and spine was a revelation. I was soon pain free and decided to train as an Alexander Technique teacher.
Since that time, I have studied Ballroom dancing for the past 12 years, in particular American Rhythm and International Latin. There is no question that had I not changed my impression of “good posture” I would not have been able to continue lessons all these years, win competitions and find the enjoyment in moving.
Is there a special posture that we apply to ballroom versus walking down the street, waiting in line at the market, singing or playing a musical instrument?
We have all been taught by our awesome teachers that there is a specific angle of the head, or an element of body positioning that is required to evoke tango, salsa, waltz or rumba.
However, I have learned that good posture is based on the architecture of our bodies, the support of the spine, muscles, ligaments and tendons that help to move our amazing structure. But HOW to coordinate this in an efficient manner is what I have learned over the years.