Got my own small table by a window. I saw the usual array of cell phones, tablets, laptops, and slumping people. People collapse towards devices as if they’re bowing down to them. It’s the Alexander Technique in reverse, the Alexander Technique backwards, the Alexander Technique gone terribly wrong.
There was a young woman, tall, sitting on a bench, impossibly stooped over her laptop and her grande caramel mocha frappuwhatever. The table was considerably too low for her, (or the bench too high), and she didn’t know how to deal with it. She was unaware and didn’t care.
Down the line, with the same posture and no Alexander Technique, what might this young woman be coping with?
Good Posture
People have probably told her to “sit up straight”. It hasn’t worked.
Computer Posture
People sit at computers 8 hours a day at their jobs. They then sit at their computers at Starbucks, or go home and sit. More sitting in front of more devices. Poor posture, neck tension, and back pain is common.
It’s unfortunate that the woman at Starbucks didn’t know that there is a way to be more upright without being rigid; without military posture. If only she knew another remedy to her slumping besides the often-ignored commands: “Sit up straight!” and “Don’t slouch!”
If she only knew…
If she only knew that letting go of the tension in the back of her neck would cause her head to rotate forward, while the crown moves up.
If she knew to let her sit bones go down into the chair, while her head, neck, and torso move up.
If she knew to let go of jaw tension…
Her shoulders ease down onto her ribcage…
She’d be breathing slowly, and fully…
If only she knew the Alexander Technique.
Mark Josefsberg-Alexander Technique NYC
Thanks Mark for this post, I was noticing similar shenanigans in Costa coffee just this week. I had a dilemma too in that the sitting conditions were so cramped and the coffee shop full, I had to make do with the seat and table that were available! The seat squashy and unsupportive and too low compared with the table. The table had a middle plastic support which splayed out, there was barely room for my feet either side, but……thankfully I was wearing trousers, and thankfully I know AT, so I made myself comfortable and supported in a deep squat sitting on the rim of the squashy armchair and enjoyed people watching for 20 minutes!
Hi Angela,
Similar shenanigans! Yes, I am very thankful, quite often, that I am able to apply the Alexander Technique in all kinds of situations. And I do feel sorry for people who don’t, especially if they are suffering with neck pain or back pain. I was once in that situation.
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Thanks Mark for this post. Always learning.
Thank you!