January 12, 2021 • 20 mins
Look out everybody, it's the Posture Police! We talk to Lindsay Newitter of the New York Posture Police. Lindsay is an Alexander Technique teacher who specifically helps office and desk workers overcome the pain caused by bad posture. Find Lindsay's website here.
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Episode Transcript
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James Crow (00:00):
Hi, everybody, it's James here of Posture Stars. And
today I'm talking to LindsayNewitter of the New York Posture
Police. Good day to you,Lindsay.
Lindsay Newitter (00:09):
Hi James.
James Crow (00:10):
Thanks very much for coming on. You're talking to me
all the way from New York,today, I'm over in Manchester in
the North of England. And you'vetaken some time to go through
your particular view on whatposture is and how you can help
people with their posture?
Lindsay Newitter (00:23):
Yes! Yes, helping people with posture.
It's something that, that I cameto gradually as an Alexander
teacher, because I found thatpeople came to me, you know,
really wanting to solve specificproblems. And I was teaching
something that can that can kindof, you know, help with
everything. But I found thateverything can sometimes mean
(00:44):
nothing. And that there were alot of folks, especially working
in offices, having postureproblems. So I decided I really
wanted to tackle that. I thinkthat one of the most interesting
things to address is justpeople's idea about what they
need to do, to sit up straightstand up straight, like what,
(01:05):
what they're thinking of as goodposture. And a lot of my clients
will come in for an initiallesson. And they they're really
frustrated, because they've beentrying to sit up straight for a
very long time. Maybe since theywere children, maybe somebody
was bugging them, their wholechildhood. And often, they just
(01:26):
feel like, they can't do it. Andthey feel very uncomfortable
doing it. And they, they feeldiscouraged and like, Oh, they
must be doing it wrong. Youknow, they're, they're not good
at it. And I can give them someconfidence, really, and say,
"Well, actually, there'sactually an issue with the way
you're doing it. And if you tryit this way, you'll find it to
(01:48):
be more comfortable, you mighteven start to feel just less
stressed in your body lessstressed in general. And like
you're not having to make thissuch an effort that it really
shouldn't feel like an effort tohold yourself up straight." So
it can it can. People have tohave a little bit of a mind
shift about that. But it canactually be quite a relief. And
I love getting to that momentwith people where they feel this
(02:10):
relief of like, Oh my god, Idon't have to do all that stuff
I was trying to do thereactually is a different way to
do this.
James Crow (02:17):
It's amazing. Isn't it the way that when people
tried to sit up straight,they'll just stick all this
extra effort on top ofeverything they're doing and
yeah, tense and tighten. Thenthey can't hold it and they they
either forget or they get tiredand they let go and of course
it's quite demoralising.
Lindsay Newitter (02:33):
Yeah, they get into the, you know, slouch, and
then like hold and they flipflop back and forth.
James Crow (02:41):
It's a shame it isn't an exercise. It'd make a
great exercise, to do that allday, isn't it? S louch and sit
up straight.
Lindsay Newitter (02:47):
But what I like to tell people is when they
try to sit up straight likethis, that they're actually
slouching backwards.
James Crow (02:53):
That's a great way of putting it. Yeah.
Lindsay Newitter (02:55):
Well, you know, nobody likes this one
(demonstrates hunching forward).
Everybody thinks that looksunattractive. And that's a
really good way to connect withpeople. Because, you know,
nobody wants that, unattractive,hunching forward. But I show
them that, you know, justholding your shoulders back all
day, lifting your chest, archingyour lower back, that you're
slouching just as much in theother direction. And even though
(03:17):
you might think it looks better,it's not it's not going to be
good for your back. And and youprobably look kind of stiff.
James Crow (03:25):
Yeah, people look stiff. When they do that, then,
yeah, often, I see people whoare trying to impress with their
posture, and it just shows asign of weakness really to be
putting all that effort into,into trying to do that. Maybe
people at home right now theycould do the shoulders back
thing and just see how thatfeels for them.
Lindsay Newitter (03:42):
Yeah, yeah, you can try that backwards,
slouching, just holding, holdingyour shoulders back, lifting the
chest. You know, that's, that'sthe way our bodies can move. But
it's not a way to stay all day.
James Crow (03:55):
It makes me feel anxious when I'm doing it. And I
feel a bit short of breath aswell. I think I'm not gonna do
that any more. So, when westarted, you said you were an
Alexander teacher and a lot ofour listeners, yeah. They won't
know what an Alexander teacheris. Alexander, teachers teach
Alexander Technique, which is Ilike to think of it as a form of
self awareness. But yeah, you'llprobably have your own angle on
(04:18):
it.
Lindsay Newitter (04:18):
Yeah. Well, that's part of it. And just
starting by being aware of what,how, you're holding your body,
how you're moving in the firstplace, and then looking at,
well, what if you start to undosome of those habits that have
been causing issues. And sostarting with what's going on in
the first place, and seeing ifyou can stop that and then
(04:42):
starting to recognise a way thatthe body can coordinate that is
more, where it's functioningmore as a whole and where
there's less strain.
James Crow (04:51):
So that's probably a good time for me to ask my first
question then of our series ofquestions, and that question,
Lindsay is "what is posture?"
Lindsay Newitter (04:59):
I would say posture is being centred, and
not just being centred, butknowing how to find centre
because when people think of itas a position, they have to hold
it. And, you know, it can take awhile sometimes to get somebody
out of this mindset, they golike, Oh, do I have it right
now? Is it correct now? Is itcorrect now, but really, we're
(05:21):
we're moving all the time, evenwhen we're sitting still, we're
moving. And it's not helpful tojust try to maintain a position.
If you have an internal sense ofwhere your true centre is., an
it's something you can sort oalways come back to and mov
through, then it's like, you'rable to accurately gauge wher
(05:41):
you are in space to make subtladjustments. So that you're no
maintaining a position that'wildly off-centre for most o
the day. You can start to fel what you're doing. Yeah, I wo
ld say that one way, there ardifferent ways to look at it
But one way to define good poture is starting to actually se
se correctly where centre is.
James Crow (06:02):
Yeah, that's a really nice way of looking at
it. So you're talking about bodysensing, then, and a lot of
people when they talk aboutposture, do just talk about
positions and you adopt thisposition. And this is the right
position to sit in, for example,or this is the right position to
stand. But what's the rightposition to reach for that kind
of baked beans off the topshelf? Or to put the laundry in?
(06:24):
There's no right position forthat!
Lindsay Newitter (06:25):
Right, yeah.
And yeah, we were talking aboutthe, you know, the the hunching
or the sitting up straight. Andwhen we, when we do those, these
are all completely validmovements. When you reach for
the beans, your shoulder willmove forward. And it like if you
reach for something behind you,it will move back. If you open a
door, you reach to the door, itmight move forward. If it's way
(06:47):
out in front of you, and thenyou pull the door open, it might
move back. So there's no isn't awrong way to move. It's when we
get stuck. And we're sort oflike held in certain positions,
we sort of lose the sense of thepossibilities of where our body
can move.
James Crow (07:05):
Yeah, those possibilities of movement and
freedom of movement. Yes. So alot of people lose that because
they're stuck in jobs, whichrequire them to be sedentary,
like office workers, drivers,aeroplane pilots, I end up
working with loads of aeroplanepilots, really always. Yeah,
they're always stuck in theirtiny little cockpits and not
(07:25):
able to move. Oh, you'd thinkthey have a great time. But no,
they moan about it all all dayabout their job. I think they
get well recompense for it. Butother people, they they choose
static postures, because theythink that's what they should
look like uncle were hintingabout earlier.
Lindsay Newitter (07:43):
Yeah, yeah. So I think that's kind of an
outside-in approach, people aretrying to imitate something that
they think is correct, ratherthan learning to teach their
body to sense what's balanced.
Another way to look at it. Yeah,and that's another way to look
at it, you know, we can sort ofsense where centre is, and we
can sense what's balanced ifwe're, if we're, you know,
holding ourselves all in oneside all the time. Or if we're
(08:06):
throwing our head, this is a bigthing with the Alexander
Technique, throwing our head offcentre, for a good part of the
time, by the way we're moving itor the way we're initiating
movement of the head.
James Crow (08:20):
So I guess that brings us rather neatly to my
second question, which is, howdo you help people improve their
posture? What is it that you do?
Lindsay Newitter (08:28):
Well, at first, I just start by asking
them what they do, and try toget a sense of what they're
spending their day doing. And Iusually start looking pretty
directly at some of theactivities that they're doing
for a lot of the time. So itmight, it might be sitting, that
we might start with it kind ofdepends on the person. And I
(08:51):
find that people have differentlearning styles that some people
are able to start to sense theirbodies more clearly, if they
stay still. And others start tosense a little more if you get
them to move. And ideally, youwant to be able to do both. So I
kind of I gauge how the personis going to start to learn best
(09:12):
initially. And I get a sense ofwhat they're doing during the
day. And we usually pick someactivities that we're going to
do, we're going to look at howthey're doing them habitually,
how they can coordinatedifferently doing them, and how
they can start to make moresubtle adjustments. Because
that's kind of another issue isthat people think that you know
that they need to adjustsomething and they make this big
(09:34):
adjustment. And the adjustmentswe're looking at, you know,
sometimes they're very subtlemovements, and sometimes they're
only just kind of redirectingyour thinking just so you're
aiming your body in a differentway. Like if you're looking at
the screen all day, it canreally give you a sense of being
kind of in this very small,narrow flat space. So just
(09:55):
changing your perception ofwhere, where your own space is
in your body, of taking up spacein the room, can change how you
sit. That's just kind ofshifting your attention. So we
play around with movement,shifting attention, contrast,
like do this big movement thisway. What does that feel like?
And what if you did the samething, but you did it a little
(10:15):
smaller? And then what if youjust changed your intention?
When you did that?
James Crow (10:22):
Oh, wow. So you're working with people's awareness
of themselves and theirenvironment?
Lindsay Newitter (10:27):
Yeah.
James Crow (10:27):
And their intention to move and the way in which
they make movements?
Lindsay Newitter (10:33):
Yeah, right.
And you know, as you know, beingan Alexander Technique person,
it's like, sometimes we'vealready set up the pattern for
movement. before we've evenmoved. Just in thinking that
you're about to stand up, oryou're about to move your arm,
that pattern is already inplace.
James Crow (10:52):
I love playing that game. We can play that with my
listeners now. So yeah,listeners at home, what I'm
going to do is I'm going tocount you down from five to
zero. And when I reach zero,you've got to make this really
quick movement. And if you don'tget it done in time, then
there's going to be recompensesto pay. So are you ready 54321.
And, of course, everybody'salready tensed up to be able to
(11:13):
do whatever it is that they'regoing to be doing. And I didn't
actually want anyone to doanything. I was just being mean,
here on on this podcast.
Lindsay Newitter (11:19):
My neck started to get tense, when you
did that!
James Crow (11:21):
I know! Its incredible. So
we have these postural presets
Lindsay Newitter (11:22):
Yes.
that we apply to all sorts ofactivities, be they, you know,
just sitting, driving, typing,any of those acts and those can
be mitigated, can't they by howyou approach those situations?
Yeah, absolutely.
James Crow (11:41):
It's a fascinating job being an Alexander Technique
teacher, you never get boredbeing an Alexander Technique
teacher!
Lindsay Newitter (11:46):
No, yeah, you can always find something or
some new way to to teach thesame thing. I think that, to me,
that's part of what'sinteresting is that, that I
think, everybody, everybody'sbody sense, is so different, in
a way, you know, there's justsuch a range of how people are
(12:07):
sensing in their bodies, and tofigure out how to kind of turn
that up for people, is a reallyinteresting process.
James Crow (12:15):
Yeah, bring that body awareness going. For a lot
of our listeners, right now,they won't be aware of their
feet, for example. And now wementioned feet, all of a sudden,
their attention will jump totheir feet, and th ey'll be much
more aware of their feet and alot less aware of something
else.
Lindsay Newitter (12:28):
Maybe they are not aware of their head anymore.
James Crow (12:30):
Yeah, they've lost their head. So we like to get
people aware of the whole bodyall at once. At least that's
what I do in my practice.
Lindsay Newitter (12:37):
Yeah.
James Crow (12:38):
That was really great. I love that. Well, on
those lines then, our thirdquestion, as always, is if you
could give one piece of adviceto our listeners right now, that
they could take away and playwith, what would that be?
Lindsay Newitter (12:53):
What if I gave a one piece of advice with two
components? Would that beallowed?
James Crow (12:57):
Yeah, of course it is. Squeeze it in.
Lindsay Newitter (13:00):
So it's kind of going off of what you were
saying a little bit. Be aware ofyour feet. And I would say, just
being aware of that your feetare on the ground, not doing
anything with them. But justbeing aware that they're
contacting the ground, maybecontacting with the ground more,
like more than you might alreadywhen you're sitting I think a
lot of people tuck their feetback on the wheelbase of the
(13:22):
chair, they sit on their feet.
But if you're always pullingfeet up off your off the floor,
then you kind of lose yoursupport and stuff will start to
overreact higher up in the body.
And the other thing I'd say isbe aware of your head, be aware
of where you're moving yourhead, what position you tend to
hold it in. Because it is quiteheavy, like the weight of a
(13:44):
bowling ball. And so if you cankind of jump back and forth
between being aware of whereyour feet are, and aware of
where your head is, that canstart to get you into this
process of starting to noticeand change some habit. And a
little trick that I teachpeople, it's very simple. And
they actually do it, I find thatit can help them a lot, even in
(14:06):
the span of a week, is just totap the top of your head from
time to time. So that you knowwhere it is, like you internally
sense where it is, if you justtap it or even scratch it, then
you take your finger away. Andcan you kind of sense where you
scratched there James?
James Crow (14:23):
I've been scratching away and I have a good feeling
of that now.
Lindsay Newitter (14:26):
So then you can just go okay, I feel that I
can sense that and you justbring your attention to where
you feel that little sensationyou just gave your head. And
that can bring your wholeattention up a little bit
without you trying to pull orstretch. And we tend to be
aware, like especially at thecomputer, of about eye level.
And if you just bring yourattention up here from time to
(14:48):
time, it tends to help preventyou from pushing your neck,
pushing your face forward,toward the screen.
James Crow (14:55):
Everybody gets dragged into that screen if
they're not careful one way oranother. On that point, it is
amazing how many people if youtalk about where their head is
and where their eyes are inrelation to their brain, people
kind of think that the eyes arein the middle of the, in the
middle of the brain in themiddle of the cranium. But
(15:15):
they're actually pretty muchpoking out of the bottom like,
like a snail has eyes on stalksour eyes, wend our way through
our brain and come out at thebottom of the cranium. And it's
almost that height where ourneck comes up to as well. So
there's a really good balancepoint there that we can be aware
of.
Lindsay Newitter (15:33):
Yeah, I mean, we could talk about that as
well. But yeah, that your head,just awareness of the head in
general, that it goes all theway up here (points to between
ears). It goes all the way backhere. And that your spine,
basically ends at nose level.
James Crow (15:50):
Yeah, really, really, really high up.
Lindsay Newitter (15:52):
So you've got that pivot point. That's way up
there. I mean, I remember when Ifirst had an Alexander lesson, I
was shocked, because I thought,the back of my head, ended like
at chin level.
James Crow (16:05):
Yeah.
Lindsay Newitter (16:05):
And I was always moving my head from here.
That can put a lot of strain onyour neck doing this, looking at
the phone doing this, you know,like...
James Crow (16:14):
I'm not, I'm not even going to mimic that
Lindsay, getting dragged intothe screen.
Lindsay Newitter (16:18):
Screen! Phone! But if you just initiate
movement from a little bithigher up, then you really get
the neck to, the whole neck, toengage more, rather than just
getting one part, you know,constantly working as a hinge.
You don't want these areas lowerdown on your neck, like here,
and down here, to just be theserepeated hinges all day.
James Crow (16:41):
That's right. You don't want to be hinging at the,
people call it the dowager'shump, don't they?
Lindsay Newitter (16:45):
Exactly.
James Crow (16:46):
Somewhere at the top of the shoulders where your neck
is. Yeah, a lot of people fromthere. Yeah. Not a good place to
hinge folks. There's a jointright up the way, all the way at
the top of your spine.
Lindsay Newitter (16:57):
Something funny about that, that C-seven
vertebra where people call thedowagers hump is that it does
stick out a little bit on mostpeople, in a way that's that
doesn't necessarily mean theirposture is bad. I don't know how
many people come in, and they golike "I have this bump here."
I'm like "I do too. It's okay."The problem is that if you're
(17:19):
always moving there, and thenyou're kind of hanging out here,
that it just might seem a littlemore pronounced.
James Crow (17:27):
Yeah, I think people are very conscious. Yeah.
Especially now we're becomingmore and more image conscious.
As everybody's images are moreand more online. It does make
sense to look after your head,neck and shoulders and not worry
about them in the way thatpeople do. But just take a bit
of time to care for them.
Lindsay Newitter (17:42):
Yeah, yeah.
And I know, I've been teachingonline classes and like,
suddenly, I'm using my hairdryermore. Something like teaching
online, and how you look, like Isee people in person. But
there's something about thescreen.
James Crow (17:57):
For our listeners, just so you know, we can see
each other on the screen as werecord this podcast. But what
Lindsay may not have noticed isthat I fell asleep half an hour
ago in the garden. So I've got ared side of my face where the
sun's been beating on it. And awrinkle down the other side of
the face where I've been snoringon my deck chair, on my lawn. So
I haven't presented myself verywell at all.
Lindsay Newitter (18:18):
I can't even tell.
James Crow (18:19):
Oh, I've got away with it, have I?
Lindsay Newitter (18:21):
Yeah, it must be your light setup. You've got
the lights set up in a way thatyou're compensating on one side
for the red.
James Crow (18:28):
Yeah, maybe that's what it is. Lindsay, Lindsay
Newitter of New York PosturePolice. Where do people find you
if they want to get in touchwith you or get your help?
We're in we're inthe middle of socially isolating
Lindsay Newitter (18:36):
So it'd be my website. And so the website is
NY, like New York,NYposturepolice.com.
NYpostuerpolice.com. Andcurrently, during this time of
social isolation, I am offeringonline classes. Usually I offer
in person and online classes.
But right now it's just online.
(18:59):
Not sure when this will actuallybe.
due to COVID-19 at the moment aswe're, as we're recording this.
You could come to this podcastat any point in the future. But
using an online session with anAlexander teacher is also a good
way of finding out how you canwork with and improve your
(19:20):
posture. It was Lindsay Newitterat (stumbles!) N Y posture
police.
James Crow (19:31):
NYposturepolice.com.
So do check that out. Lindsay,you've been really informative
today. There's loads of stuffthat I hadn't thought about for
a while that you've brought upand some new stuff for me to
chew over. And I'm sure ourlisteners now hopefully are much
more aware of their heads andtheir feet than they were when
they started listening to them.
(19:52):
And as a result, the world's abetter place.
Lindsay Newitter (19:55):
I hope it is!
James Crow (19:56):
Thank you so much for coming on the posture stars
podcast.
Lindsay Newitter (19:59):
Sure, anytime.
Unknown (20:00):
Thank you
Hi, everybody, it's James here of Posture Stars. And
today I'm talking to LindsayNewitter of the New York Posture
Police. Good day to you,Lindsay.
Lindsay Newitter (00:09):
Hi James.
James Crow (00:10):
Thanks very much for coming on. You're talking to me
all the way from New York,today, I'm over in Manchester in
the North of England. And you'vetaken some time to go through
your particular view on whatposture is and how you can help
people with their posture?
Lindsay Newitter (00:23):
Yes! Yes, helping people with posture.
It's something that, that I cameto gradually as an Alexander
teacher, because I found thatpeople came to me, you know,
really wanting to solve specificproblems. And I was teaching
something that can that can kindof, you know, help with
everything. But I found thateverything can sometimes mean
(00:44):
nothing. And that there were alot of folks, especially working
in offices, having postureproblems. So I decided I really
wanted to tackle that. I thinkthat one of the most interesting
things to address is justpeople's idea about what they
need to do, to sit up straightstand up straight, like what,
(01:05):
what they're thinking of as goodposture. And a lot of my clients
will come in for an initiallesson. And they they're really
frustrated, because they've beentrying to sit up straight for a
very long time. Maybe since theywere children, maybe somebody
was bugging them, their wholechildhood. And often, they just
(01:26):
feel like, they can't do it. Andthey feel very uncomfortable
doing it. And they, they feeldiscouraged and like, Oh, they
must be doing it wrong. Youknow, they're, they're not good
at it. And I can give them someconfidence, really, and say,
"Well, actually, there'sactually an issue with the way
you're doing it. And if you tryit this way, you'll find it to
(01:48):
be more comfortable, you mighteven start to feel just less
stressed in your body lessstressed in general. And like
you're not having to make thissuch an effort that it really
shouldn't feel like an effort tohold yourself up straight." So
it can it can. People have tohave a little bit of a mind
shift about that. But it canactually be quite a relief. And
I love getting to that momentwith people where they feel this
(02:10):
relief of like, Oh my god, Idon't have to do all that stuff
I was trying to do thereactually is a different way to
do this.
James Crow (02:17):
It's amazing. Isn't it the way that when people
tried to sit up straight,they'll just stick all this
extra effort on top ofeverything they're doing and
yeah, tense and tighten. Thenthey can't hold it and they they
either forget or they get tiredand they let go and of course
it's quite demoralising.
Lindsay Newitter (02:33):
Yeah, they get into the, you know, slouch, and
then like hold and they flipflop back and forth.
James Crow (02:41):
It's a shame it isn't an exercise. It'd make a
great exercise, to do that allday, isn't it? S louch and sit
up straight.
Lindsay Newitter (02:47):
But what I like to tell people is when they
try to sit up straight likethis, that they're actually
slouching backwards.
James Crow (02:53):
That's a great way of putting it. Yeah.
Lindsay Newitter (02:55):
Well, you know, nobody likes this one
(demonstrates hunching forward).
Everybody thinks that looksunattractive. And that's a
really good way to connect withpeople. Because, you know,
nobody wants that, unattractive,hunching forward. But I show
them that, you know, justholding your shoulders back all
day, lifting your chest, archingyour lower back, that you're
slouching just as much in theother direction. And even though
(03:17):
you might think it looks better,it's not it's not going to be
good for your back. And and youprobably look kind of stiff.
James Crow (03:25):
Yeah, people look stiff. When they do that, then,
yeah, often, I see people whoare trying to impress with their
posture, and it just shows asign of weakness really to be
putting all that effort into,into trying to do that. Maybe
people at home right now theycould do the shoulders back
thing and just see how thatfeels for them.
Lindsay Newitter (03:42):
Yeah, yeah, you can try that backwards,
slouching, just holding, holdingyour shoulders back, lifting the
chest. You know, that's, that'sthe way our bodies can move. But
it's not a way to stay all day.
James Crow (03:55):
It makes me feel anxious when I'm doing it. And I
feel a bit short of breath aswell. I think I'm not gonna do
that any more. So, when westarted, you said you were an
Alexander teacher and a lot ofour listeners, yeah. They won't
know what an Alexander teacheris. Alexander, teachers teach
Alexander Technique, which is Ilike to think of it as a form of
self awareness. But yeah, you'llprobably have your own angle on
(04:18):
it.
Lindsay Newitter (04:18):
Yeah. Well, that's part of it. And just
starting by being aware of what,how, you're holding your body,
how you're moving in the firstplace, and then looking at,
well, what if you start to undosome of those habits that have
been causing issues. And sostarting with what's going on in
the first place, and seeing ifyou can stop that and then
(04:42):
starting to recognise a way thatthe body can coordinate that is
more, where it's functioningmore as a whole and where
there's less strain.
James Crow (04:51):
So that's probably a good time for me to ask my first
question then of our series ofquestions, and that question,
Lindsay is "what is posture?"
Lindsay Newitter (04:59):
I would say posture is being centred, and
not just being centred, butknowing how to find centre
because when people think of itas a position, they have to hold
it. And, you know, it can take awhile sometimes to get somebody
out of this mindset, they golike, Oh, do I have it right
now? Is it correct now? Is itcorrect now, but really, we're
(05:21):
we're moving all the time, evenwhen we're sitting still, we're
moving. And it's not helpful tojust try to maintain a position.
If you have an internal sense ofwhere your true centre is., an
it's something you can sort oalways come back to and mov
through, then it's like, you'rable to accurately gauge wher
(05:41):
you are in space to make subtladjustments. So that you're no
maintaining a position that'wildly off-centre for most o
the day. You can start to fel what you're doing. Yeah, I wo
ld say that one way, there ardifferent ways to look at it
But one way to define good poture is starting to actually se
se correctly where centre is.
James Crow (06:02):
Yeah, that's a really nice way of looking at
it. So you're talking about bodysensing, then, and a lot of
people when they talk aboutposture, do just talk about
positions and you adopt thisposition. And this is the right
position to sit in, for example,or this is the right position to
stand. But what's the rightposition to reach for that kind
of baked beans off the topshelf? Or to put the laundry in?
(06:24):
There's no right position forthat!
Lindsay Newitter (06:25):
Right, yeah.
And yeah, we were talking aboutthe, you know, the the hunching
or the sitting up straight. Andwhen we, when we do those, these
are all completely validmovements. When you reach for
the beans, your shoulder willmove forward. And it like if you
reach for something behind you,it will move back. If you open a
door, you reach to the door, itmight move forward. If it's way
(06:47):
out in front of you, and thenyou pull the door open, it might
move back. So there's no isn't awrong way to move. It's when we
get stuck. And we're sort oflike held in certain positions,
we sort of lose the sense of thepossibilities of where our body
can move.
James Crow (07:05):
Yeah, those possibilities of movement and
freedom of movement. Yes. So alot of people lose that because
they're stuck in jobs, whichrequire them to be sedentary,
like office workers, drivers,aeroplane pilots, I end up
working with loads of aeroplanepilots, really always. Yeah,
they're always stuck in theirtiny little cockpits and not
(07:25):
able to move. Oh, you'd thinkthey have a great time. But no,
they moan about it all all dayabout their job. I think they
get well recompense for it. Butother people, they they choose
static postures, because theythink that's what they should
look like uncle were hintingabout earlier.
Lindsay Newitter (07:43):
Yeah, yeah. So I think that's kind of an
outside-in approach, people aretrying to imitate something that
they think is correct, ratherthan learning to teach their
body to sense what's balanced.
Another way to look at it. Yeah,and that's another way to look
at it, you know, we can sort ofsense where centre is, and we
can sense what's balanced ifwe're, if we're, you know,
holding ourselves all in oneside all the time. Or if we're
(08:06):
throwing our head, this is a bigthing with the Alexander
Technique, throwing our head offcentre, for a good part of the
time, by the way we're moving itor the way we're initiating
movement of the head.
James Crow (08:20):
So I guess that brings us rather neatly to my
second question, which is, howdo you help people improve their
posture? What is it that you do?
Lindsay Newitter (08:28):
Well, at first, I just start by asking
them what they do, and try toget a sense of what they're
spending their day doing. And Iusually start looking pretty
directly at some of theactivities that they're doing
for a lot of the time. So itmight, it might be sitting, that
we might start with it kind ofdepends on the person. And I
(08:51):
find that people have differentlearning styles that some people
are able to start to sense theirbodies more clearly, if they
stay still. And others start tosense a little more if you get
them to move. And ideally, youwant to be able to do both. So I
kind of I gauge how the personis going to start to learn best
(09:12):
initially. And I get a sense ofwhat they're doing during the
day. And we usually pick someactivities that we're going to
do, we're going to look at howthey're doing them habitually,
how they can coordinatedifferently doing them, and how
they can start to make moresubtle adjustments. Because
that's kind of another issue isthat people think that you know
that they need to adjustsomething and they make this big
(09:34):
adjustment. And the adjustmentswe're looking at, you know,
sometimes they're very subtlemovements, and sometimes they're
only just kind of redirectingyour thinking just so you're
aiming your body in a differentway. Like if you're looking at
the screen all day, it canreally give you a sense of being
kind of in this very small,narrow flat space. So just
(09:55):
changing your perception ofwhere, where your own space is
in your body, of taking up spacein the room, can change how you
sit. That's just kind ofshifting your attention. So we
play around with movement,shifting attention, contrast,
like do this big movement thisway. What does that feel like?
And what if you did the samething, but you did it a little
(10:15):
smaller? And then what if youjust changed your intention?
When you did that?
James Crow (10:22):
Oh, wow. So you're working with people's awareness
of themselves and theirenvironment?
Lindsay Newitter (10:27):
Yeah.
James Crow (10:27):
And their intention to move and the way in which
they make movements?
Lindsay Newitter (10:33):
Yeah, right.
And you know, as you know, beingan Alexander Technique person,
it's like, sometimes we'vealready set up the pattern for
movement. before we've evenmoved. Just in thinking that
you're about to stand up, oryou're about to move your arm,
that pattern is already inplace.
James Crow (10:52):
I love playing that game. We can play that with my
listeners now. So yeah,listeners at home, what I'm
going to do is I'm going tocount you down from five to
zero. And when I reach zero,you've got to make this really
quick movement. And if you don'tget it done in time, then
there's going to be recompensesto pay. So are you ready 54321.
And, of course, everybody'salready tensed up to be able to
(11:13):
do whatever it is that they'regoing to be doing. And I didn't
actually want anyone to doanything. I was just being mean,
here on on this podcast.
Lindsay Newitter (11:19):
My neck started to get tense, when you
did that!
James Crow (11:21):
I know! Its incredible. So
we have these postural presets
Lindsay Newitter (11:22):
Yes.
that we apply to all sorts ofactivities, be they, you know,
just sitting, driving, typing,any of those acts and those can
be mitigated, can't they by howyou approach those situations?
Yeah, absolutely.
James Crow (11:41):
It's a fascinating job being an Alexander Technique
teacher, you never get boredbeing an Alexander Technique
teacher!
Lindsay Newitter (11:46):
No, yeah, you can always find something or
some new way to to teach thesame thing. I think that, to me,
that's part of what'sinteresting is that, that I
think, everybody, everybody'sbody sense, is so different, in
a way, you know, there's justsuch a range of how people are
(12:07):
sensing in their bodies, and tofigure out how to kind of turn
that up for people, is a reallyinteresting process.
James Crow (12:15):
Yeah, bring that body awareness going. For a lot
of our listeners, right now,they won't be aware of their
feet, for example. And now wementioned feet, all of a sudden,
their attention will jump totheir feet, and th ey'll be much
more aware of their feet and alot less aware of something
else.
Lindsay Newitter (12:28):
Maybe they are not aware of their head anymore.
James Crow (12:30):
Yeah, they've lost their head. So we like to get
people aware of the whole bodyall at once. At least that's
what I do in my practice.
Lindsay Newitter (12:37):
Yeah.
James Crow (12:38):
That was really great. I love that. Well, on
those lines then, our thirdquestion, as always, is if you
could give one piece of adviceto our listeners right now, that
they could take away and playwith, what would that be?
Lindsay Newitter (12:53):
What if I gave a one piece of advice with two
components? Would that beallowed?
James Crow (12:57):
Yeah, of course it is. Squeeze it in.
Lindsay Newitter (13:00):
So it's kind of going off of what you were
saying a little bit. Be aware ofyour feet. And I would say, just
being aware of that your feetare on the ground, not doing
anything with them. But justbeing aware that they're
contacting the ground, maybecontacting with the ground more,
like more than you might alreadywhen you're sitting I think a
lot of people tuck their feetback on the wheelbase of the
(13:22):
chair, they sit on their feet.
But if you're always pullingfeet up off your off the floor,
then you kind of lose yoursupport and stuff will start to
overreact higher up in the body.
And the other thing I'd say isbe aware of your head, be aware
of where you're moving yourhead, what position you tend to
hold it in. Because it is quiteheavy, like the weight of a
(13:44):
bowling ball. And so if you cankind of jump back and forth
between being aware of whereyour feet are, and aware of
where your head is, that canstart to get you into this
process of starting to noticeand change some habit. And a
little trick that I teachpeople, it's very simple. And
they actually do it, I find thatit can help them a lot, even in
(14:06):
the span of a week, is just totap the top of your head from
time to time. So that you knowwhere it is, like you internally
sense where it is, if you justtap it or even scratch it, then
you take your finger away. Andcan you kind of sense where you
scratched there James?
James Crow (14:23):
I've been scratching away and I have a good feeling
of that now.
Lindsay Newitter (14:26):
So then you can just go okay, I feel that I
can sense that and you justbring your attention to where
you feel that little sensationyou just gave your head. And
that can bring your wholeattention up a little bit
without you trying to pull orstretch. And we tend to be
aware, like especially at thecomputer, of about eye level.
And if you just bring yourattention up here from time to
(14:48):
time, it tends to help preventyou from pushing your neck,
pushing your face forward,toward the screen.
James Crow (14:55):
Everybody gets dragged into that screen if
they're not careful one way oranother. On that point, it is
amazing how many people if youtalk about where their head is
and where their eyes are inrelation to their brain, people
kind of think that the eyes arein the middle of the, in the
middle of the brain in themiddle of the cranium. But
(15:15):
they're actually pretty muchpoking out of the bottom like,
like a snail has eyes on stalksour eyes, wend our way through
our brain and come out at thebottom of the cranium. And it's
almost that height where ourneck comes up to as well. So
there's a really good balancepoint there that we can be aware
of.
Lindsay Newitter (15:33):
Yeah, I mean, we could talk about that as
well. But yeah, that your head,just awareness of the head in
general, that it goes all theway up here (points to between
ears). It goes all the way backhere. And that your spine,
basically ends at nose level.
James Crow (15:50):
Yeah, really, really, really high up.
Lindsay Newitter (15:52):
So you've got that pivot point. That's way up
there. I mean, I remember when Ifirst had an Alexander lesson, I
was shocked, because I thought,the back of my head, ended like
at chin level.
James Crow (16:05):
Yeah.
Lindsay Newitter (16:05):
And I was always moving my head from here.
That can put a lot of strain onyour neck doing this, looking at
the phone doing this, you know,like...
James Crow (16:14):
I'm not, I'm not even going to mimic that
Lindsay, getting dragged intothe screen.
Lindsay Newitter (16:18):
Screen! Phone! But if you just initiate
movement from a little bithigher up, then you really get
the neck to, the whole neck, toengage more, rather than just
getting one part, you know,constantly working as a hinge.
You don't want these areas lowerdown on your neck, like here,
and down here, to just be theserepeated hinges all day.
James Crow (16:41):
That's right. You don't want to be hinging at the,
people call it the dowager'shump, don't they?
Lindsay Newitter (16:45):
Exactly.
James Crow (16:46):
Somewhere at the top of the shoulders where your neck
is. Yeah, a lot of people fromthere. Yeah. Not a good place to
hinge folks. There's a jointright up the way, all the way at
the top of your spine.
Lindsay Newitter (16:57):
Something funny about that, that C-seven
vertebra where people call thedowagers hump is that it does
stick out a little bit on mostpeople, in a way that's that
doesn't necessarily mean theirposture is bad. I don't know how
many people come in, and they golike "I have this bump here."
I'm like "I do too. It's okay."The problem is that if you're
(17:19):
always moving there, and thenyou're kind of hanging out here,
that it just might seem a littlemore pronounced.
James Crow (17:27):
Yeah, I think people are very conscious. Yeah.
Especially now we're becomingmore and more image conscious.
As everybody's images are moreand more online. It does make
sense to look after your head,neck and shoulders and not worry
about them in the way thatpeople do. But just take a bit
of time to care for them.
Lindsay Newitter (17:42):
Yeah, yeah.
And I know, I've been teachingonline classes and like,
suddenly, I'm using my hairdryermore. Something like teaching
online, and how you look, like Isee people in person. But
there's something about thescreen.
James Crow (17:57):
For our listeners, just so you know, we can see
each other on the screen as werecord this podcast. But what
Lindsay may not have noticed isthat I fell asleep half an hour
ago in the garden. So I've got ared side of my face where the
sun's been beating on it. And awrinkle down the other side of
the face where I've been snoringon my deck chair, on my lawn. So
I haven't presented myself verywell at all.
Lindsay Newitter (18:18):
I can't even tell.
James Crow (18:19):
Oh, I've got away with it, have I?
Lindsay Newitter (18:21):
Yeah, it must be your light setup. You've got
the lights set up in a way thatyou're compensating on one side
for the red.
James Crow (18:28):
Yeah, maybe that's what it is. Lindsay, Lindsay
Newitter of New York PosturePolice. Where do people find you
if they want to get in touchwith you or get your help?
We're in we're inthe middle of socially isolating
Lindsay Newitter (18:36):
So it'd be my website. And so the website is
NY, like New York,NYposturepolice.com.
NYpostuerpolice.com. Andcurrently, during this time of
social isolation, I am offeringonline classes. Usually I offer
in person and online classes.
But right now it's just online.
(18:59):
Not sure when this will actuallybe.
due to COVID-19 at the moment aswe're, as we're recording this.
You could come to this podcastat any point in the future. But
using an online session with anAlexander teacher is also a good
way of finding out how you canwork with and improve your
(19:20):
posture. It was Lindsay Newitterat (stumbles!) N Y posture
police.
James Crow (19:31):
NYposturepolice.com.
So do check that out. Lindsay,you've been really informative
today. There's loads of stuffthat I hadn't thought about for
a while that you've brought upand some new stuff for me to
chew over. And I'm sure ourlisteners now hopefully are much
more aware of their heads andtheir feet than they were when
they started listening to them.
(19:52):
And as a result, the world's abetter place.
Lindsay Newitter (19:55):
I hope it is!
James Crow (19:56):
Thank you so much for coming on the posture stars
podcast.
Lindsay Newitter (19:59):
Sure, anytime.
Unknown (20:00):
Thank you
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