ancestors

Travel is part of our Gokhale Method® DNA—the method arose and developed through study of foreign cultures (including ancestral cultures), and remains informed by images, videos, statistics, and other data from pain-free and remarkably functional human beings. 

I have learned firsthand what healthy human posture looks like alongside the Sami reindeer herders in Scandinavia, tribal people in Odisha, India, villagers in Burkina Faso, and people with African roots in Brazil. When I travel teach, I make it a point to visit the local museums and also check for local cultural events, ethnic restaurants, and areas that might bring to life the kind of insights and body wisdom the Gokhale Method is based on. 

These Arnhem Land and Torres Strait Indigenous dancers incorporate both external rotation of their legs and hip-hinging in their movement vocabulary—an example we do well to follow. Image from Wikimedia

In my experience, travel makes the mind especially receptive to new ideas and impressions—we are away from our usual routines and responsibilities and free to take in new sights, sounds, smells, feelings, and thoughts. 

Travel with a purpose

If you suffer with back pain, I would like to encourage you to consider traveling to a location to take our Gokhale Foundations course. These courses are often taught intensively in a weekend or a week, and our teachers are spread in many wonderful corners of the globe. You might think of this as a “destination Gokhale Foundations course” that combines wellness, learning, and transformation alongside the local attractions that the destination has to offer. 

Combine a city break with your passions, be they history, engineering, science, or the arts, alongside your Gokhale Foundations course. Image from Wikimedia
The Clifton Suspension Bridge and Observatory, Bristol, England.

Our teachers can not only offer you instruction and hands-on guidance in how to move like you are meant to, but also information on the posture-relevant sites in their towns. They can offer you tips on museum exhibits, restaurants where the servers have great posture, localities that are home to recent immigrants, and other supplemental suggestions on how to immerse yourself in your wellness vacation. This kind of journey makes you a pioneer in the new field of posture tourism!

Posture tourism also insures you against losing all the benefits of your vacation soon after it ends. Posture learning and transformation will improve the course of your life, even if your life is busy and has tensions in it.  

Choose your destination

Geographically speaking, where might your Foundations adventure take you? We have teachers offering both group and private courses all over, so here are some suggestions:

• City breaks, US: Atlanta GA, Berkeley CA, Cambridge Boston MA, Chicago IL, Cotati CA, Hingham MA, Madison WI, Memphis TN, New York NY, Palo Alto CA, Philadelphia PA, San Diego CA, Westchester IL
• Town and country breaks, US: Brooklyn WI, Edmonds Seattle WA, Elmwood IL, Greeley CO, McCormick SC, Whitefish MT  
• Ancestor trail and abroad: Basel Switzerland, Besançon France, Braunschweig Germany, Bristol UK, Canberra Australia, Dittisham UK, Edmonton Canada, Erfurt Germany, Ingolstadt Germany, Kilkenny Ireland, Ljubljana Slovenia, Öhringen Hannover Germany, Ottawa Canada, Stuttgart Germany
• Sea and coastal locations: Cat Island The Bahamas, Celebrity Cruising (Fort Lauderdale visiting Aruba, Bonair, and Curacao in the Southern Caribbean), Hawi Hawaii, Sydney Australia
• You can find all our course location details here.

Make “destination Gokhale Foundations course” your own “retreat,” or go with your partner, a good friend, or family member, to share and remember your discoveries. (Aruba, southwest Caribbean). Image from Unsplash

Vacation time away can be an ideal time to improve your posture. Getting away from familiar home and work routines is conducive to being open to new experiences and possibilities. There is space for reflection and relaxation as you explore changing the ways you inhabit your body. 

You can easily search for Gokhale Foundations courses and other offerings here.

And staying away from home doesn’t have to be expensive. Many of our students stay with family members, or catch up with friends who live in a Foundations destination. A weekend course can also be a well-earned, self-care extension to a work trip.

I knew I wanted a hands-on experience but was hesitant to make the commitment—an intensive weekend class would require a three-hour drive from my home plus a two-night hotel stay… My in-person with Doreen was a transformative experience… Plus, she helped me correctly set up my stretchsit cushion in my car. Thanks to this, my back and legs were blissfully comfortable on my three-hour return trip home. 

Amy Alpine, Gokhale Foundations course student.

The river Dart in the Devon village of Dittisham, England, a Gokhale Foundations course destination.

Can’t come to us? We can come to you!

Many of our teachers enjoy travel teaching, and have visited Northern Ireland and Dublin Ireland, Edinburgh Scotland, Berlin and Freiburg Germany, and Werkhoven Holland. This year I am looking forward to travel teaching Gokhale Foundations in Sydney, Australia alongside teacher training. 

The church on the market square in Öhringen. This October will be my third visit to this delightful German town. 

If you have a group of friends, colleagues or clients, who would like a course in your town, please let us know—we would love to make this happen! If you own or know of a venue, a provisional course can be listed publicly on our website.

Whichever destination you choose for your Gokhale Foundations course, you’ll be on your way to healthier posture and breaking away from back and other body pains.

 Sunset at Kapa’a Beach Park, Hawaii, a Gokhale Foundations course destination.

Best next action steps 

If you are new to the Gokhale Method, get started by booking a consultation, online, or in person with one of our teachers. 

You can sign up below to join any one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops…

It’s early January. New Year’s resolutions have swung into action, and many of them involve improving our health. With the impetus of a fresh start, we throw ourselves into ditching poor habits and cultivating better ones. It’s no surprise that January sees the highest gym sign-ups and enrollments for dietary regimens! Other resolutions include getting more sleep, meditating, or learning a new skill—self-care for the mind as well as the body. 

 
Most of us will have made a New Year’s resolution in at least one of these areas. 

Posture—a missing pillar of health

One little-recognized yet equally important pillar of health is posture. At age 27, I had thought I was active, fit, and robust, yet found myself in excruciating back pain with a newborn baby to care for. Long story short, by changing my posture—the way I sat, stood, bent, walked, and even slept—I lost the pronounced sway in my back, recovered my natural J-spine, and have been pain free, active, and thriving ever since. There is more about what I learned from my teachers and developed into the Gokhale Method® in this recent blog. 

An MRI scan revealed the cause of my sciatica and severe back pain—a large herniation at L5-S1.

Picture an active, pain-free future 

Imagine a future with virtually no back pain, no need for joint replacement, an absence of repetitive strain injuries, and comfortable feet, neck, and shoulders. This was a reality for our ancestors. . .and there is nothing they had that we can’t regain! Our bodies are malleable, and we can learn to move naturally—in fact, healthy posture is written into our DNA. Sometimes the required changes feel strange, but there’s a sweet spot sensation to them, and they often feel strangely familiar. Gokhale Method teachers have a lot of experience in guiding students to make these changes efficiently and effectively. We’ve already guided tens of thousands of people out of back pain and musculoskeletal problems. No doubt some of them started that journey with a New Year’s resolution! 

 

Gokhale Elements alumna Anne Murtagh from Ireland joined our two Alumni Days in Germany this fall. Here I am helping Anne to refine her glidewalking.

The key to manifesting good intentions 

Life is busy, and self-care resolutions can be hard to keep. A posture resolution is different in an important regard. Yes, it does take some investment of time to learn, but following that it will save you time—you will be walking faster, sleeping more effectively, and saving time spent seeking care for aches and pains. Rather than being an additional undertaking or needing hours of sessions per week, changing your posture is more a matter of living daily life differently. And you are rewarded with all sorts of benefits, like improved appearance, a more positive outlook, and improved digestion, breathing, sexual function, and elimination. Out with the old posture that caused you tension, compression, and pain, and in with a new, more relaxed, efficient and effective way of being in your body. 

Our students trust the Gokhale Method for valuable information and insights taught in logical steps. They also appreciate quality backup from whatever props, coaching, technology, alumni programs, and online community they need to succeed. Here is a what Gokhale alumnus Sachin Deshpande has to say:

It is not an overstatement that the Gokhale Method changed my life and reduced 99% of my body pains—back, foot, knee, elbow, and more. It takes a month or two to grok the concepts, and then real benefits begin. I would suggest both reading the book and taking the classes (which are quite affordable).

Sachin (pictured above) found the Gokhale Method through my self-help book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back. This doubled as a textbook when he took the Foundations course. You can read Sachin's story here. 

The past, the present, and looking to the future

Students sometimes remark on the historical data that is an essential ingredient of the Gokhale Method. We draw extensively on ancient and ancestral roots, referring to both science and cultural artifacts to learn posture wisdom from the past. We are also very much in the present, offering in-person courses around the world and embracing today’s online and wearable technology to deliver remote learning. As we travel forward into 2024, we very much hope you will be with us for a healthy, pain-free future.

 
The Roman god Janus gave his name to the month of January. He was the god of beginnings, transitions, time, doorways, gates, passages, and endings. He was often depicted facing both ways, to the past and to the future. Note his healthy head and neck posture! Image from Wikimedia

Best next action steps

If you are new to the Gokhale Method, get started by booking a consultation, online, or in person with one of our teachers. Or you can sign up here
for our special New Year Free Online Workshop Start 2024 Pain-Free with the Gokhale Method, Tuesday, January 9, 12 a.m.–1 p.m. (PST), to find out how the Gokhale Method can help you.

You can sign up below to join any one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops. . .

October 16 is World Spine Day, which makes this the perfect time to share with you a fascinating piece of recent research about the human spine. 

In April I was contacted by Scott Williams PhD, Associate Professor at the Center for the Study of Human Origins, Department of Anthropology, New York University. He and his team of anthropologists had recently published a scientific paper— which concluded that understanding the spines of Neanderthals, a human ancestor, may explain the back pain experienced by humans today.

Who were the Neanderthals?

The Neanderthals populated Europe and Asia between about 400,00 and 40,000 years ago. Neanderthals became extinct, but are considered one of our most recent evolutionary ancestors. Research shows there is DNA evidence that they interbred with early human populations¹. 

The Neanderthals were adept hunters who controlled fire and made shelters, clothing, and artifacts. Wikimedia

The Neanderthal skeleton was shorter, and its bones heftier and more robust than those of modern humans. Rather than being a hunched “caveman,” recent research suggests their posture may have been entirely upright. Wikimedia

Comparing Neanderthal and modern spines

Examination of the bones of Neanderthal lumbar spines has indicated that they curved less in the lumbar area than modern human spines studied in the U.S. and Europe. Because a significant degree of lumbar curve has commonly been associated with the ability of bipedal humanity to stand upright, Neanderthals have long been assumed to have had an intrinsically different posture from modern humans. 

However, Professor Williams was able to come to a different conclusion because, like the Gokhale Method®, he realized that “modern” human posture itself has been subject to change in just the past few hundred years. 

Williams and his colleagues compared preindustrial to postindustrial spines of male and female modern humans from around the world against samples of Neanderthal spines. His samples included more than 300 spines—that’s more than 1,600 vertebrae.

Williams acknowledges that because lower back curvature is made up of soft tissues (i.e., intervertebral discs), not just bones, their spine shape cannot be known with certainty. “The bones are often all that is preserved in fossils, so it’s all we have to work with,” he adds. Nonetheless, the distinctions in spine formation that Williams and his team found strongly suggest different degrees of curvature.

What Williams’ research found about modern human spine shape

Williams’ research indicates that there has not been just a one-time dominant spine shape in modern humans, but that spine shape changed over the period of the industrial revolution. Overall, Williams found that spines in postindustrial people showed more lumbar wedging (which produces curvature) than did those in pre-industrial people. 

 

This illustration detail from Professor Williams’ paper shows increasing, unchanged, and diminishing angles of wedging towards the back of lumbar vertebrae (B). Academic.oup.com

Williams observes:

Past research has shown that higher rates of low back pain are associated with urban areas and especially in ‘enclosed workshop’ settings where employees maintain tedious and painful work postures, such as constantly sitting on stools in a forward leaning position. . . A pre-industrial vs. post-industrial lifestyle is the important factor.

Research fits with the Gokhale Method

In his paper Williams cited my book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, as it details how posture and spine shape have changed progressively since the industrial revolution. It explains that industrialization led to the break in transmission of traditional ways of living and working. For example, people have always sat to do tasks—but it’s how they sat that changed and caused problems. 

Human beings have always sat to do tasks, from nursing infants to decorating artifacts. The important thing is to sit well. Winslow Homer, Mending the Nets, 1882 (detail). nga.gov

Industrialization also resulted in new but mistaken paradigms of “natural” spine shape in furniture design, fashion, and even medicine. My book advocates for the J-shaped, pre-industrial spine rather than the  postindustrial, S-shaped spine, which causes lumbar compression, wear and tear, and pain. You can read more about spine shape here.

The Gokhale Method advocacy for the J-shape is based on observing that it remains intact in our children, largely in our track and field athletes, and consistently in adults living in non-industrialized regions or in traditional societies. And these people report significantly less back pain than the 80% of American adults who suffer incapacity with back pain at some point in their lives. 

s

This illustration from 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back shows the more recent S-shape spine (left) that would likely create “wedging” in the intervertebral discs and bones subject to extra curvature, and the earlier J-shape spine that does not have this compression (right) .

Conclusions about the Neanderthal spine and understanding modern back pain

Williams’ research concludes that the Neanderthals’ spines were significantly different from those of postindustrial people but not from pre-industrial people. By examining only the spines from modern people who lived in the industrialized world, past researchers have mistakenly assumed that the distinctions between Neanderthal and modern spine shape were due to evolutionary development rather than social and cultural changes. Williams says:

Diminished physical activity levels, bad posture, and the use of furniture, among other changes in lifestyle that accompanied industrialization, resulted, over time, in inadequate soft tissue structures to support lumbar lordosis during development. To compensate, our lower-back bones have taken on more wedging than our pre-industrial and Neanderthal predecessors, potentially contributing to the frequency of lower back pain we find in post-industrial societies. 

This illustration shows how angles of vertebral wedging contribute to spinal curvature. 

The idea that the lumbar spine of our Neanderthal ancestors was relatively straight is not so shocking to those of us who already recognize that it makes sense for bipedal spinal health. And the wedging of the postindustrial vertebral bones is a fascinating discovery, which shows the degree of adaptation possible within the human body, although it is clearly not preventing back pain! 

The evolution of humankind has been associated with changing posture in many versions of this cartoon. Pinterest

This fascinating research suggests an ancient and more natural way to be which, while preserved in some parts of the world, we’ve largely lost in our culture. But it can be and is being relearned. If you would like guidance on any aspect of your posture and spine shape, consider scheduling an Initial Consultation, online or in person, with a Gokhale Method teacher.

If you would like to find out more about how the Gokhale Method can help support you, sign up to join one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops…

Reference:
¹ Scott A. Williams et al., “Inferring Lumbar Lordosis in Neandertals and Other Hominins.” PNAS Nexus 1, no. 1 (March 2022): pgab005, https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgab005.’

This is the fourth blog post in our series on old family portraits and photographs. Previously we have looked at how antique images can inspire us to improve our posture in the Upper Body, Lower Body, and Small Bends. Here we are going to focus on how old family photos from abroad make a special contribution to our posture knowledge. 

Photographs as historical evidence

Antique photographs are often notable for the healthy posture they capture. Even images taken well into the twentieth century are likely to show healthier posture than we see around us today.

In the US you have to go back several generations to reliably find images of healthy posture, and usually even to a time when photography was not widely available due to its elaborate processes and cost. Had the first immigrants to North America settled later, we would have much more photographic evidence of their intact posture. As it is, we have rare but valuable examples from the 1840s onward. 

These European settlers all show a preference for sitting with a straight back.

Sharing our heritage from abroad

People with heritage from abroad will often have photographs of their family, especially parents and grandparents, showing excellent posture. Immigrant parents frequently bring excellent posture with them from their homeland, while their children grow up adopting the tucked and slouched posture they see around them in the US.

In our “bring and tell” sessions on our Alumni 1-2-3 Move program participants have generously shared their own family photographs. It is noticeable how many of their ancestors and older generations from abroad have particularly wonderful posture. Their posture would not have been exceptional back then, but today we can find it an inspiration for our own personal posture journeys and improvement. 

Lucy Atkin shares a photograph of her maternal grandfather on the 1-2-3 Move program. He was of German/Prussian descent. It shows a lifted sternum, a tall neck, his head turns on the axis of his spine, his eyes look ahead.

 
1-2-3 Move participant Susan Rothenberg shares a photograph of her paternal grandparents from Lithuania. Their feet are turned out and their shoulders are back and wide.

The decline of posture in the US

Posture deteriorated sharply with the “flapper generation” in the 1920s, and then nosedived again after World War II. The decline in our posture over the generations is a fascinating story, which I have written a little about in my book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back. 

I consider there are two main reasons why posture deteriorated more rapidly in the US, while the “old countries” kept it intact for longer. Firstly, when young adults are transplanted from their place of origin, they lose some of the kinesthetic traditions that would otherwise be reinforced by their parents and grandparents—for example, how to perform tasks in the fields, or raise children, with all the lifting and carrying that involves. Even rest positions for sitting and sleeping well can be forgotten. 
 

As children we learn what we see around us—and that goes for healthy posture too. 

Secondly, due to its pioneer days and mainly youthful immigrants, the US evolved a culture and commerce driven by innovation. While this dynamism has brought many benefits, prizing innovation also has its downside. New fashions, furniture, and lifestyles have been developed and adopted indiscriminately, often with a damaging impact on posture.

Posture deteriorated sharply in America from the 1950s—a decade earlier than in most of Europe. Crain's Chicago Business

Looking back to our heritage

“Modernizing” trends from the US were slow to take hold in Europe, due in part to postwar austerity, and this meant that more traditional posture often persisted well into the 1960s. It is not uncommon for today’s seniors to have photographs of themselves as children in the 40s and 50s with parents and grandparents showing largely intact posture, especially if their roots are abroad. You can observe chins rested down, wide, open chests, and externally rotated legs and feet. 

 
Gokhale Method alumna Pauline Tilbury, aged nearly five, at the beach in Filey, England, June 1959. Her grandparents in particular show the open posture typical of their generation—and children.

Some readers will recall the beautiful photographs in the post Posture in Old Lithuania by Gokhale Metho​​d™ teacher Aurelia Vaicekauskas. Aurelia came to the US with her parents from Lithuania in 1979. Her post shows the inspiring posture of the people there as they lived and worked in their traditional communities.

Aurelia’s post Teaching My 95-Year-Old Lithuanian Mom the Gokhale Method includes this wonderful family photograph, posed on her mother’s wedding day in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1957, with everyone exuding elegance and poise. Truly, when it comes to posture, looking back to our heritage is one of our best ways forward.

Gokhale Method teacher Aurelia Vaicekauskas’ parents (far left) in Lithuania with family on their wedding day.

We work diligently to bring healthy, natural posture within the most modern of contexts here in the US. We are grateful that this posture remains embodied in various populations around the world, and embedded in historical art and sculpture the world over. We also celebrate its existence in the photographic records of our relatives from abroad.

You are invited to share any of your family photographs of ancestors from abroad in the Comments below this post. (Log in and click on the upload picture icon, far right .)

Free Online Workshops

If you would like to find out more about how the Gokhale Method can help support you, sign up to join one of Esther’s upcoming FREE Online Workshops.

Rediscovering ancestral posture can be fun! In our online 1-2-3 Move program we have had several “Show and Tells” during which participants share old family photographs. The inspiration for healthy posture and positive change that these pictures bring to their descendants, as well as to the online community, is powerful. 

Here I am showing a photograph of me with my extended family in Holland. The tailoring of the traditional costumes we wore helped us to sit and stand with open, relaxed, and upright posture.

In Part 1 of this series we looked at the upper body. Here we are going to consider what our forebears can teach us about healthy alignment for the lower body—specifically, what needs to happen with the pelvis, legs, and feet. 

Ancestral photographs provide compelling evidence for what is taught in the Gokhale Method and can be a posture lesson in themselves. For example, in the print below it is striking that everyone is sitting on an anteverted pelvis, with externally rotated hips and legs, and feet angled outwards.

This group portrait shows how people sat with an anteverted pelvis, external rotation in their hips and legs, and feet pointing outward. It is one of several spare antique photographic prints donated by the Mendocino County Museum to the Gokhale Method Institute’s collection and also featured on the 1-2-3 Move exercise program. 

Pelvic anteversion 

Pelvic anteversion is the natural and healthy position for the human pelvis, in upright sitting and standing. “Anteversion” means the pelvic rim settles at a slight forward angle, rather than the “neutral” or “level” position which is often taught as ideal today. Most people in modern societies “tuck” or “retrovert” the pelvis in the opposite direction to anteversion, and consequently get into various kinds of trouble.

Anteversion is the pelvic angle you still see in historical artefacts, in our infants and children, and in populations throughout the non-industrialized world that suffer far less back pain than we do. This is explained and illustrated in detail in my book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back. Below are just a few examples.

Antique statues, infants, and people in more traditional cultures all show a naturally anteverted pelvis. 

Legs externally rotated 

Pelvic anteversion is natural for our species, but was more prevalent prior to the 1920s, when traditional posture was still preserved and people had good role models. The prevailing dress codes of past times were also more conducive to healthy posture and movement patterns. For women, long, wide skirts allowed the legs to widen and the pelvis to settle well. In shorter skirts women tend to turn the knees inwards because of moral codes. Tight skirts and jeans will also tend to limit the range of movement in the hips in a way that traditional clothing does not. (Note: there is a healthy way to antevert the pelvis even when the knees are close together, but this takes a little more education and training.)

Pelvis nestled

A well-trained eye can also discern from a photograph the deep nestling of the pelvis between the leg bones that takes place when the legs are externally rotated. This nestling enables people to sit more forward on their sitz bones in an upright but relaxed position (below left). With the more common tucked pelvic position of modern times, a person is left with two equally unhealthy options for the torso: relaxed and slumped (below center) or upright and tense (below right). 

We have forgotten how to be upright and relaxed to the extent that when we look at old photographs with upright people, we mistakenly imagine that they are stiff and must be exerting a lot of effort to be upright.

Feet pointing outward

If you are lucky enough to have full-length family portraits you will see that the feet are angled outward in standing. This arises naturally from having external rotation in the hips. The current conventional wisdom that the feet should be parallel interferes with the healthy alignment and function of the lower limbs and pelvis. Without external rotation, feet are more likely to pronate (roll inward), knees to collapse inward (knock knees), and the pelvis will not articulate well with the heads of the femurs (hip joint). Students have reported much improvement in hip bursitis and impingements in the groin from gently progressing external rotation over time using Gokhale Method techniques. 

1-2-3 Move participant Linda Grande shares a photograph of her grandparents, taken around 1916, who emigrated from Sicily and met in Brooklyn. They both show beautiful posture, including outward pointing feet.

Finding external rotation

Our 1-2-3 Move Alumni exercise program gives participants further practical posture experience as well as sharing compelling history and theory. Below is a short video clip in which I introduce and teach a traditional Indian dance (Bharata Natyam) movement, which I learned as a child in Mumbai. Like most traditional dance forms, it encourages external rotation of the hips, legs, and feet. Dance is an excellent way to learn new movement patterns and make them feel familiar. Try this move for yourself! 

Traditional dance forms such as Bharata Natyam encourage external rotation of the hips, legs and feet.

The Gokhale Method® approach to posture and movement is always holistic, supports good habits, and develops healthy alignment that protects joints and soft tissues from injury. You can find out more in one of our new FREE Online Workshops. If you would like an expert one-on-one assessment of your posture and especially your lower body alignment, you can arrange an Online Initial Consultation or take an in-person Initial Consultation if you have a Gokhale Method Teacher near you.

If you are fortunate and have photographs going back three, four, or even more generations, you likely possess a compelling tool for posture improvement. How and why exactly are these images so useful?

Abraham Lincoln with his youngest son, Tad, 1864. Wikipedia

The invention of photography allows us to look back in time as far as the 1840s. It is rare to possess family photographs going this far back, both because heirlooms tend to get lost over time, and because fewer photographs were taken then due to the cost of the elaborate processes in those times. But many of us have portraits of our great grandparents’ generation—whose posture is usually much healthier than what we see today. 

Rediscovering ancestral posture can be fun! In our 1-2-3 Move program we regularly have a “Show and Tell” during which participants share old family photographs. The inspiration for change that these pictures bring to their owners, as well as to the online community, is powerful. 

Sue Beltram shares a photograph of her parents who both show healthier posture than her own generation.

Old photographs connect you to forebears who lived their lives in a culture of healthier posture. As I explain in my book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, industrialization was the first challenge to society’s posture. Healthy kinesthetic traditions that had been passed down for centuries decayed as younger people left their families to migrate to new cities and even new continents for work. Posture went further awry in the 1920s, when a seismic shift in clothing fashions and furniture design actively encouraged a “relaxed” posture that tucked the pelvis, rounded the upper body, and sent the head forward. Slouching made its entrance!

In the 1920s it became fashionable to slouch, as this photograph shows. 

Viewing old family photographs, it’s details such as the shape of a mouth or the curve of a brow that give you a feeling of kinship and likeness. But photographs of your ancestors can also give you a direct strong message about the genetic basis for the healthy posture that could have been yours. You can experience that healthy posture as a characteristic of your “tribe,” rather than an attribute from some distant land. Ideally, you now have a precious resource to inspire you to reclaim your postural birthright. 

Gokhale Method teacher Sheelagh Tobin shares three photos from her grandfather’s life on the daily
1-2-3 Move program.

Posture that keeps your muscles, joints, and bones healthy is part of your genetic heritage. Whatever distortions you suffer from are merely a result of cultural, familial, or individual misunderstandings, and very probably can be restored with the right knowledge, effort, and support. Guiding students through this transformative process is the purpose of all of our courses: our online Elements course, our six-lesson in-person Foundations Course and one-day in-person Pop-Up Course.

The Mendocino County Museum donated several spare antique photographic prints to the Gokhale Method Institute’s collection.
Here I use one to talk about neck posture with participants on the daily 1-2-3 Move exercise program.

Antique portraits often show a strong, well-aligned neck. The neck can easily support and balance the head when it has appropriate support from deep postural muscles such as the longus colli, which lies along both sides of the front of the cervical spine. When these muscles are weak and underused, the head and neck hang forward. This forces tissues at the back of the neck and in the upper back to carry weight they were not designed to; it also compresses the cervical vertebrae, discs, and nerves.

Healthy head carriage allows the head to rest on the axis of the spine while the chin rests down.

Old family photos usually also show particulars about the relaxed carriage of the head on a well-stacked spine. With the head well poised, the face angles downward and the eyes are better oriented to move as needed. 

The Fisk University Jubilee Singers, c. 1870, all have their shoulders well back in a wide, relaxed position. Wikipedia

Another characteristic that is common in old photos and rare today is posterior shoulder placement and an open upper chest. In the group portrait above you can see how everyone’s shoulders are posteriorly positioned with the upper arm often remaining aligned with the back half of the torso. The very best way to start to get your shoulders into this healthy posterior alignment is to do shoulder rolls. This gentle maneuver avoids arching the back or tensing the muscles between your shoulder blades in an effort to get your shoulders back. Enjoy this video that shows you how.

Harvesting rye with scythes in early twentieth-century Lithuania. Original photograph Balys Buročas, 1923.

The Gokhale Method has improved my understanding of how posture correlates to our health and physicality. The method is based on healthy body architecture and has been informed by movement patterns from populations without back pain, those shared by our ancestors worldwide. This inspired me to take a look at my own forefathers in Lithuania, especially their posture while laboring in the fields. 

Memories of my youth
I was born and raised in urban Soviet Lithuania. Yet, we had a little plot of land outside the city in “kolektyviniai sodai” (collective gardens) and most of our weekends and summers were spent there. It was heaven to play in the fields, but there was always plenty of work.

My sister and I were often assigned weeding, watering, or harvesting to complete. It was definitely good exercise and a learning experience. I remember how proud I was when, one summer, my dad deemed me grown-up enough to show me how to cut grass with a scythe. It took a lot of coordination and control to swing the blade just so, to catch the grass low enough and to not drive the blade into the ground.

Harvesting rye with scythes in Juodėnai village, Lithuania. Original photograph Povilas Butkus, 1938.

In the summertime, we frequently visited with our relatives in the country. The grownups helped with harvesting and us kids followed them around and entertained ourselves with lighter tasks. My parents, aunts, and uncles all grew up on farms and were used to this type of work. I remember them teasing each other and laughing in the fields. Yet, it was hard work and they were all exhausted by the end of the day.

My own ancestors in Old Lithuania, like ancestral peoples everywhere, must have carried much body wisdom. Working the land shaped their bodies and their posture. Theirs wasn’t just a weekend task: it was a day-by-day, year-after-year way of life.

Photo treasures
Much more recently, I found a treasure trove of photos on E-paveldas. I immediately recognized the pristine body architecture and beautiful movements of the Lithuanian farmers. Here were women and men working with a clear J-shaped spine — which is found in highly functioning and musculoskeletally sound populations and is a cornerstone of the Gokhale Method. I was not surprised to see the J-spine show up in historical photos from Lithuania. How else could one exert oneself on a daily basis and remain productive and intact?

Before machinery, harvesting was a communal affair. Men did most of the chopping, plowing, and scything. Women raked and gathered, but also did heavier work when needed. Hay and grain harvesting was done with scythes. When harvesting grain, as in both photographs above, the cuttings were gathered and bundled into neat bunches and stacked in big piles in the fields. If harvesting hay, the cuttings were first spread out to dry and once dry, the hay was gathered and transported to the barns (below).

Young women from Didsodė village harvesting hay. Original photographer unknown, ca. 1940.

In the picture below, we see women hefting piles of dry hay to load up a horse cart.

Women loading harvested and dried hay onto a horse cart. Original photographer unknown, 1935.

Postural highlights
These old photographs give us a good view of people’s silhouettes. In contrast to modern-day postural tendencies in industrialized societies, there is no tucking of the pelvis. Behinds are very much behind. Shoulders are back and necks are lengthened. That’s J-spine, the same spinal shape we all had when we were little! 

This body architecture sets a foundation for inner corset engagement. Here, the obliques, transverse abdominis, rotatores, and multifidi muscles are all engaged. 

The inner corset muscles stabilize and decompress the spine so there is no wear and tear on spinal structures during exertion. This is how repetitively thrusting with pitchforks, lifting weights over the head, forcefully swinging scythes across the body, or reaching and pulling with rakes can be performed without hurting one’s back. Of course, the inner corset muscles get a huge workout! Meanwhile, they become stronger and in turn better support the spine.

Additionally, heavy arm and shoulder actions require correct shoulder placement. Notice that the farmers’ chests are open and wide, and shoulders are set further back. This shoulder location allows for better arm circulation, opens the chest cavity for better breathing, and prevents the upper spine from slumping. This position is key for efficient movement and protection from injury.

Bending well is essential to avoid back pain. You can see all the women hinging beautifully from their hips and keeping their backs flat while harvesting potatoes, doing laundry, and cooking. In spite of long hours bending, they did not hunch their shoulders, round their backs, or distort their spines.

Potato harvest in the Džiuginėnai fields. Original photograph Juzefas Perkovskis, 1940.

This healthy way of bending does no damage to the bones, discs or ligaments. Instead, it strengthens the muscles in the back (erectors and rhomboids) and provides the best stretch for the leg and hip muscles (external hip rotators and hamstrings).

Women hip-hinging while doing laundry. Original photograph Balys Buračas, 1923.

Hip-hinging while cooking in an open-air summer kitchen. Original photograph Stasys Vaitkus, 1937.

Another beautiful image (below) depicts three shepherd boys with their instruments. Notice that their lengthened leg and hip muscles in turn allow the spine to stack without slumping even when squatting on the ground. Their legs remain externally rotated, and their foot arches intact.

Village shepherds. Note the deep, healthy squat at left. Original photograph Stasys Vaitkus, 1938. 

In the last image (below), an older couple carries a yoke (naščiai) and baskets. What a clever way to carry a load! The yoke is placed close to the spine — the best place to bear weight, just like in weight lifting, while arms and hands are spared.

Marija and Augustas Šarkai on their way to harvest potatoes. Group Photograph/Bernardas Aleknavičius, 1971.

This couple encapsulates what we find across all ancestral populations:

1. Their feet are turned out and bean-shaped.

2. Their behinds are behind them.

3. Their ribcages are flush with the contours of the torsos, which means their lower backs are lengthened.

4. Their shoulders are set way back and their arms are externally rotated.

5. Their necks are long; their chins angle down.

Furthermore, this couple is not young anymore. I am sure they worked throughout their lives, yet they retain beautiful, erect posture.

Reflection
This was a brief glimpse of village life in Lithuania in the early twentieth century. The photographs of my ancestors laboring in the fields are brimming with body wisdom. This wisdom is a part of a common worldwide heritage that has been displaced by modern culture. Yet, it is still available to us through photographs, stories from elders, and posture work.

I felt inspired by the wisdom and proud of my Lithuanian heritage when looking at these pictures. I encourage you to do the same! Look through your own family photos, if you have them, or historical photography books. Let these images inspire you and reaffirm how well our bodies are designed, and how sturdy and strong they are when used well.