Diaphragmatic control as taught in signing, in speaking, in yoga, is exercise. It’s good to learn something and then let it go, go back to home position, but this people won’t do. As they start to learn anything, it gives them a new sense of being, and so they hang on to the new sensation. In so doing, they don’t go back to the normal; they don’t even go back to the old “home” position.—Ida Rolf
Ida Rolf created the bodywork practice known as Rolfing and which has morphed into myofascial Release. It is a deep practice that manipulates the body’s fascia is an attempt to make more room for the natural body to appear.
Ida Rolf speaks in an arcane language that can take some patience to decipher but it is well worth the effort. This quote comes from a handy book called Ida Rolf talks. It is loaded with paragraphs and pages of insights like this.
I love the idea here we sort of become what we identify with. Why have regular posture when I can have a dancer’s posture. Why do carpenters all have the same stance. Did they get taught to lean backwards with the arms folded across their chest and their pelvis tucked, at the same time they were taught to swing a hammer.
To the list of what she refers to as exercise I will add working at one’s desk. Almost everything we do with any repetition can be considered exercise and most exercise requires some counterbalance. But most people working an eight hour day at a computer don’t think of it as eight hours of exercise. As a result they begin to become the patterns they most often inhabit.
What kind of posture do you have and where did it come from?