primal posture

Lithuania, 1957: my parents' wedding day.

Everyone in this photograph reflects effortless elegance and poise. Notice that their shoulders are resting toward the back of their torsos, and their necks and backs are elongated; very different from the modern "chin up, chest out, thrust your pelvis forward” stance. This photograph was taken on my parents’ wedding day. My mom and dad are on the left. Healthy posture has contributed pain-free living (musculoskeletally speaking) well into my mom’s advanced years. She didn't have aches and pains until my dad passed away, two years ago.

Resolving knee and leg pain
My mom is very gentle, yet she can be stubborn! Despite recent complaints of leg and knee pain at night, she was adamant that she did not need Gokhale Method instruction. At 95 years old, she said she was too old to change and had no time for “such things.”

However, I could see that when she used the stairs a lot, her pain would increase. In the end, she consented to instruction — and subsequently reported diminished leg pain, and increased stability in walking.

We know that leg pain can be local and/or referred from the low back. To address the legs and knees locally, I showed her parts of the glidewalking technique. To help take the pressure off her back, I taught her stretchsitting and stretchlying on the back.

Knee pain can sometimes result from posture issues. Image courtesy Dr. Manuel González Reyes on Pixabay.

Foot grab and bum squeeze
Weak arch muscles can cause the feet to pronate, which is the case for my mom. Pronation pulls the leg in, creating misalignment in ankle, knee and hip joints. Notice the white arrows in the photos below, showing my mom's legs and the feet moving in dramatically different directions. No wonder when she goes up and down the stairs, her symptoms flare up!

My mom's usual way of climbing stairs pulls her femur and foot in two different directions.


She experiences the issue on both sides.

The solution was to incorporate glidewalking elements with every step on a new stair. I taught her to grab the floor with the foot and squeeze the bum (same side) with every step. This engages the foot and glute muscles and reshapes the leg and foot into healthier architecture and articulation. See my mom make this change in the photos below. Notice how her thigh bones and feet are now aligned!

After incorporating Gokhale Method techniques, my mom's femur and foot on each side are now aligned while climbing stairs.

Learning glidewalking was key for helping my mom recalibrate her stair-climbing technique.

After addressing her legs and knees locally with glidewalking, we helped take pressure off her back with stretchsitting and stretchlying.

Stretchsitting
My mom loves to decompress her back by stretchsitting in the Gokhale Pain-Free™ Chair. She lengthens her back against the backrest and maintains a gentle traction while she sits. Moreover, a Gokhale-style shoulder roll helps open her chest and decrease hunching on top. With a history of chronic bronchitis and heart issues, this small gesture supports these organs with more space and better orientation. Quite a contrast to her “before” sitting photo!

Above, my mom’s “before” photo sitting in a typical chair, with hunched shoulders and a rounded upper back. Compare with her "after" photo below.

    
Here, my mom uses a Gokhale Pain-Free Chair to stretchsit, effecting gentle traction in her spine, and positions her shoulders with a shoulder roll to gently open the chest.

Stretchlying on the back
Finally, we learned stretchlying on the back as another practical way to decompress the low back, illustrated below. Once the spine is lengthened by stretching, it is supported with strategically positioned pillows. A pillow under the shoulders/head elevates the upper torso and flattens any sway in the low back. A second pillow under the knees relieves pressure in the low back by relaxing the psoas. She now has a relaxed, lengthened back while she sleeps.

This sketch shows how stretchlying helps gently lengthen the spine.

Results
My mom now stretchsits and stretchlies easily on her own. Walking and taking the stairs continue to be works in progress but she is already very pleased with the results. With diminished pain she sleeps better and has more energy. Hands-on instruction does help things stick! In fact, she is now enthusiastic to learn more Gokhale Method techniques.

While we all await a return to in-person teaching, you can schedule an Online Initial Consultation with one of several qualified online teachers to begin individual posture coaching and begin learning these techniques (and more!) yourself.

To be continued!

Thought to have been made around 30,000 BCE, one of the oldest and most famous prehistoric figurines is known as the Venus of Willendorf. Found in modern-day Austria, this late stone-age artifact is just over 4” high and has traces of ocher coloring. Underneath her ample flesh her pelvis is anteverted, placing her behind behind her. Original image courtesy Wikipedia user MatthiasKabel under CC-BY 2.5.

When the weather is cold and wet, or, for our students in the Southern Hemisphere, hot and dry, museums can be very agreeable places to visit. Humidity and temperature controlled as they are, museums allow you to study posture history in comfort!

A central principle of the Gokhale Method is an understanding of posture based not on theory, but on anthropological evidence. Clues about healthy posture are drawn both from contemporary populations in which back pain is rare, and also from ancestral populations. You can, of course, find historical examples of good posture as recently as in family photographs from the early twentieth century. But if you want to travel further back in time, you can look at statues from early classical Greece, or even from the Upper Paleolithic Age.

Archeologists have discovered female figurines that go back 5000 and even 30,000 years. Although these figurines come from very different times and cultures, they still speak to us across the centuries about what it is to be human, including in a postural sense.

Marble Female Figure, Cycladic culture, Aegean Sea, 4500-4000 BCE, from the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Note the vertical line-up of her weight-bearing joints, as well as her substantial behind which naturally stays behind her.

Often, these ancient figurines survived for millenia because they were highly revered, and secreted deep inside caves or burial chambers. Scholars cannot be sure of the exact purpose of these figurines, but they are usually thought to be fertility figures.  Perhaps they were used as talismans to bring good luck with conception or childbirth. They may have been representations of a fertility goddess, possibly within a matriarchal culture and belief system.

The figurines are notable for their curvaceous form. There is typically an emphasis on the width of the child-bearing pelvis, ample thighs and breasts, and a fecund, fulsome belly. Like much art, they are not entirely naturalistic, but capture essential characteristics. What is striking is that early sculpture the world over portrays people with a straight spine, the behind behind, and the shoulders well back. You can see this clearly in the figurine from ancient Egypt below.

This ancient Egyptian sculpture of a seated woman at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City is from the Naqada II period (3650-3300 BC). She may have served as a fertility object. Notice her well-positioned, anteverted pelvis and well-aligned, lengthened back and neck. 

Another view of the Naqada II figure. Observe the absence of curvature in the upper back area. She sits on her Sitz bones, not her tail (sacrum).

Another pre-dynastic figurine from Upper Egypt, again thought to be a fertility figure due to her pregnant-looking belly. This angle also shows her relatively straight lumbar spine and her behind behind her.  

These fascinating small terracotta and stone works of art pay homage to fertility and its power in a bygone age. For us, they can serve as records of human posture in a more primal era — material evidence of our true Primal Posture. We can learn these posture lessons from our ancient ancestors by employing the Gokhale Method, so that this healthy architecture can again serve us into the future. 

How do these figurines strike you? Are you able to glean inspiration from these human forms from as long ago as 30,000 years?

Fredrik Prost’s journey in posture is a poignant one. Restoring one’s natural architecture is a return home for anyone - a return to one’s personal past, ancestral past, and genetic past. For Fredrik, it’s additionally a return to his living Sami relatives and those alive in his memory.

Fredrik's late father, Sigurd, on Lake Vettasjarvi in the very north of Sweden.

The Sami are an indigenous group of reindeer herders living in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia.

The Sami use sleds, dogs, and snowmobiles to herd their reindeer

Fredrik is a traditional Sami handicraftsman working with reindeer antler, metal, and wood.

Fredrik Prost, traditional Sami handicraftsman

Engraved knife + sheath made from antler, metal

Being of a younger generation and between a traditional lifestyle and a modern one, his working posture included hunching over his work. As a result he had developed upper back pain for which conservative treatment failed to give him relief. He discovered my book, and the pictures and philosophy resonated for him - I was describing things he had seen with his own eyes. So he traveled from his home and workshop in Kiruna, Northern Sweden to attend my June 2014 Gokhale Method Foundations course in Bonn, Germany. 

Fredrik was an unusual student - he hip-hinges naturally, his pelvis anteverts, and he has a quiet dignity about him.  

During the breaks between classes he shared an anthropology book with me that showed photographs of his grandparents and grand uncles, tallstanding with open chests, hip-hinging with flat backs, and emanating the self-possession and poise that is so characteristic of indigenous people.

Fredrik's great grandmother Inga-Marja Seva with his grandmother

The baby on the right is Fredrik's mother, Ingrid

I was fascinated and we kept in touch through regular Skype meetings. I asked questions about his family, community and the Sami people, getting more intrigued in every conversation. I learned about the kind of tepee his mother was born and raised in (in temperatures that dropped below -55 degrees F), what part of a reindeer’s fur is warmest, how he forges steel for his carved knives, how the Sami dogs know that to attack a human would be their last mistake,... Sensing my interest, Fredrik asked if I would like to visit their community for the marking of the reindeer calves in July (joining a moose hunt in the Fall or counting the calves in the winter might be a tough entry into the culture, he reckoned). And so it has come to be… this summer I will travel to Sapmiland in Northern Sweden for this adventure. 

Fredrik's great grandparents Itsa and Susanna Prost

I have several goals for this visit. Of course, I will learn about traditional body ways and movement. I also hope to taste what it means to be rooted in nature, to yoik (traditional singing/chanting) the wind and be the wind,

Note added July 29,2015: Fredrik informed me that videos of this type, created by the Finnish government to promote the tourist industry, is not authentic and is, understandably, problematic for the Sami. 

and to live communally without ownership of the land. I want to see and experience what it means when logging companies and mining interests threaten one’s livelihood.

And I would like to figure out how best I can give back to this and other communities from whom I have gotten so much. These people hold alive a treasure for those of us in more modern settings - I know this to be true for musculoskeletal health; I suspect it is also true for other aspects of life. 

I will keep you posted as this unfolds. 

In a couple of weeks Fredrik departs for Jokkmokk, the Sami winter market held annually since 1605. He will be displaying his art. 

Here is a link to his website for those of you who are interested.

Box (birch and reindeer antler)

Best,

Esther

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