Posture and breathing

A correct posture is one that stems – grows – from the Earth, and extends – blossoms – up and out. It is poised (balanced) through relaxation, but its thrust up from its root is vital and muscular: there is a muscular connectivity from the Earth to its furthestmost extension. The muscles need not be tense or even working but they do need to be developed and connected, and they need to contain awareness. To contain awareness they need to have been consciously worked and released of chronic tensions – flushed out, cleansed and woken up. Awareness is a vibration – an energy – a subtle tension: it cannot reside beside either chronic tension or flaccidity. Unfortunately in most of us many of the muscles, especially the smaller muscles, in this connected cordage are not adequately developed. We instead get by with using too much tension in some muscles and not enough in others – we are unbalanced. Not surprisingly the same can be said of correct breathing – it requires a complex connected musculature through the whole body, not just in the diaphragm, abdomen and chest: correct breathing breathes as much from the Earth through the legs as it does from the air through the lungs. What is maybe surprising is that the musculature required for correct posture is pretty much identical to the one required for correct breathing: there is some sort of equivalence between posture and breathing. It also shows that one without the other is not possible: not only do they go hand-in-hand, they are also one and the same.