Working on my Posture

It goes without saying that most people could have much better posture than they do.  We live in a world now which is mostly sedentary and sitting in front of a computer for hours on end tends to cause us to relax back in the chair and let our shoulders hunch over.  Our bodies can be surprisingly lazy if we let them and the more you let them, the more they want to be lazy.  The opposite is true too though--or at least I have found it to be: the more I am active, the more my body wants me to be active.  Could explain why I am hating having a job where I have to sit in front of a computer allllll freaking day long when I would much rather be moving around.  Not that I am tied to my chair...I'm not.  I can get up and walk around.  But I can't really accomplish anything if not at my computer save the chance contract that I print out and read on paper, which I can do standing up in my small office area.  And I do do that sometimes.  But 99% of my work is tied to the computer and I can't stand up and work let alone be in movement and get things done.  

I have noticed that in the past few years since I graduated college and entered the office world, my posture has been suffering.  This is on top of the fact that I am not taking ballet classes either which were a constant reminder for years to maintain my good posture in and out of class--practicing outside of class made class go ten times better because my muscles were already used to it. I used to practice ballet anywhere I was.....especially back in high school in my English and Spanish classes.  I was in a small high achieving class and so things were more relaxed.  I was alway stretching, or sewing my point shoes while we discussed the books we had read, etc.  In fact, they nicknamed me Dancing Blonde (my hair was blonde at the time).  I remember that I actually grew about a half inch thanks to ballet, although I have most surely lost it since I stopped dancing.  

My husband has been having back pain due to poor posture and so this topic has been on my mind lately. I have been trying to remember to have good posture at work even though the bad habit of slouching is so easy to slip into.  I have been thinking about "pulling up", as we say in ballet, as if a string was tied to my head and was pulling me up.  I walk around my office pulled up and try to remember to sit properly at my desk as well.  I try to get up and move around every once in a while too, but some days you just can't get away from your desk.  I use this technique in yoga too because doing yoga with proper posture and with poor posture are two completely different things.  I want to teach it to Christian but he might think I am crazy.  In any case, I have to think of something to help him with his poor posture and to work his back muscles to become stronger.  One idea I have, that he is open to, is that he take an introduction yoga class which is for one month, twice a week.  I think yoga is a good option for him since he doesn't like gyms or lifting weights.  He likes to run, and while I think running is a great exercise if you like it, he still needs something that will challenge his muscles (similar to weight lifting), especially his upper body.  This is not to say that running doesn't challenge your muscles, it does....but he specifically needs upper body strength and since he doesn't like lifting weights, I think yoga is the next best choice.  So we'll see....hopefully in December he'll enroll.  I might take the class with him just for the heck of it.....plus it will be a fun couple thing to do since he refuses to take salsa dancing classes with me.  (Anyone have a gay guy friend who wants to take dance classes with me? haha....)

~Tyffanie