By way of an example, have a look at this piece How To Sit Ergonomically At Work. It is a good article, it is mostly accurate, and yet, viewed from a different angle, it is also completely wrong. The wrongness is not necessarily to be found in the suggestions themselves – choose a good chair; take breaks; don’t use a laptop; plant your feet flat on the floor – any one of these ideas on its own might improve your stamina for sitting at your work station, and two or three of these strategies combined could make so much difference to your comfort level that you might miss the opportunity to learn something about your way of sitting instead, something that could make a permanent improvement to every aspect of your life, not just how you sit!  – and learning how to make a permanent difference to the way you organise yourself in sitting might make so much difference that you become able to sit well, happily and comfortable, anywhere you want, for as long as you want.

Sit Like A Cat

My favourite examples of sitting mastery come mostly from cats. Dogs are more like we humans, fidgeting around until they feel comfortable enough to relax; cats don’t care – as long as the chosen spot is the right temperature they can relax in all sorts of ridiculous positions.

I can sit easily for quite a long time on most flat surfaces that are not too hard, including the floor. I am by no means a “perfect” specimen, but as I write this I am not getting stiff, my neck and shoulders are not tightening up, my wrists and hands are comfortable as I type, and I will not be getting up from my stool with a groan.

I don’t want to be unfair to the author of the article mentioned above; no claim for postural improvement is made, however the whole tone implies that you – even with your amazing, highly sophisticated, astonishingly able human nervous system – cannot expect to sit easily for any protracted length of time, and thus your only option is to “correct” your environment instead.

All of which makes it sound as though sitting well because you know HOW to sit well just isn’t possible – however, if you have been around Feldenkrais teachers for a while you may remember our slogan; that “making the impossible possible, the difficult easy, and the easy elegant” is the fundamental intention embedded in every Feldenkrais lesson.

…a good chair is a good thing…

I do not mean to suggest that the right chair or an adjusted screen position will not be beneficial; clearly if there is any practical action you can take to make your working area more comfortable then it would be very sensible to take it. The argument I intend to make here is that, by selling you a partial explanation of what the deeper issue might be, mainstream thinking lessens the likelihood that you will realise that you have the potential to solve your sitting problems in a more permanent way – a way that could continue to be of benefit to your health for the rest of your life. In fact, sitting with ease on the floor––which will naturally involve you getting down and getting up again on a regular basis––is so good for you it may even actually lengthen your life! 

If a chair wobbles then sticking a wedge under the shorter leg may be the only solution; a chair cannot learn from – or adapt to – its environment. A poorly functioning chair can only be mended or discarded. We humans are so utterly unlike devices and machines that we can mend ourselves: we can even install new software and upgrade ourselves – however, and rather sad to say, too many adults have long forgotten how natural and satisfying it can be to expand their abilities to self-organise.

A new way to look at “posture”…

Feldenkrais is a different way of thinking about sitting with ease, and it requires a different way of thinking about posture. Your posture is not something you have make an effort to do right – your posture is what you do when you are not consciously doing anything with, or to, yourself probably what you are doing right now as you read this.

So, when you notice yourself slumping, shoulders hunched, chest caved in, head poked forward, stop for a moment and notice how truly effortless this posture is for you. You will have regained your own natural poise when a similar moment of spontaneous self-observation reveals that you are sitting lightly balanced on your sitting bones, your shoulders soft and wide, your breathing free and full, with your head and eyes available to look in any direction you wish, without your having to adjust yourself first by “sitting up straight”.

I often use cats as an example of healthy movement because most of us are familiar with the way cats move; they are a great model for the idea of reversibility in action – a concept used by Moshe Feldenkrais to represent a way of moving so well-organised and harmonious that at any moment the person in motion can continue in the direction of their original intention, OR pause and hold their position without losing their equilibrium, OR reverse the movement as precisely as if a film were running backwards.

 “Reversibility is a feature of all correct action, even sleep. Thus, the well-coordinated, mature person, such as found among people who have succeeded in making their occupation their pleasure, can go off to sleep when he feels like it and wake up when necessary. Moreover, all healthy animals and humans do not object to being awakened, as they can stop sleeping and resume sleeping without trouble. The ability to stop an action, a process, restart it, reverse it, or drop it all together is one of the finer criteria of proper acture*.

”The Potent Self , Moshe Feldenkrais, published posthumously in 1985

*Moshe disliked the word ‘posture’ as he considered it too suggestive of a static or immobile state.

Moshe also describes good acture as being able to move in any direction without preparation, and his concept of sitting well was of learning to sit ‘on the skeleton’ rather than the chair beneath. I would like to share this story about Moshe that illustrates his own capacity for good sitting ‘acture’…

“One of my close personal friends is Dr John Hannon, and John was very close with Moshe. He told me one story – he and Moshe were in Italy together, and Moshe was sitting on a glass table, and the glass table crashed underneath him, literally the glass table broke underneath him, and he told me that Moshe simply stood up. I know John Hannon and I know he is not an individual who is likely to tell fairy tales and the point that John was making to me is that Moshe Feldenkrais didn’t just talk the talk, he walked the walk – I was so impressed to hear that. He had his body so well balanced that he wasn’t relying on the table necessarily – he was using the table just to take just enough energy out of the system so that he was comfortable, but when that thing happened that the table collapsed he was able to return to standing – I was so impressed. 
…And of course Moshe Feldenkrais has had a big influence on my professional career and the way I think, because Moshe Feldenkrais would have had similar  philosophies and similar ideas in terms of the first thing we need to do is to change the way we view ourselves – absolutely correct!
…I think the Feldenkrais Method is a beautiful method…”
Transcribed (with minimal editing) from an interview with John Sharkey, Feldenkrais Online Summit, May 2019

You know who else tends to have good acture – young children – searching the internet for pictures of toddlers sitting I found this lovely example:

Observe any child in the few short years between learning to sit upright for themselves, and being made to “sit-still-and-pay-attention” in a classroom, and – unless that child has neurological issues – you will see how easily a skull can balance on a spine, how free a neck can be, and how easy it can be to shift between sitting to standing – or sitting and lying – in an effortless way.

As soon as a young child is denied the natural, exploratory, “playful discovery” process of learning organically, and instead introduced to the “look-at-teacher-pay-attention-and-do-as-you’re-told” learning process, that ability to move freely – and to pause gracefully in the middle of doing something and then perhaps switch to doing something else entirely – begins to fall away. 

These two films show a group of dancers developing a piece based on the movements of young children – the whole interaction is fascinating to watch…

Moshe Feldenkrais decided the solution to the limitations of our modern education process was to remind adults that they always have access to the power of play; to explore the possibilities for new strategies and creative thinking within the everyday, to replace the authoritative voice of the teacher with the empowering tools of self-awareness, self-observation and ever-maturing self-confidence.

You too can sit with more ease…

If you are unable to sit with ease on your chair, or the floor, then Feldenkrais may be a good way for you to begin to regain a healthy, flexible sitting posture (maybe you can find a picture of yourself playing on the floor as a toddler and marvel at the ease and length of your neck and spine). There are workshops going on all over the country, and I am offering one-to-one online training sessions if you do not have easy access to a class.

I have also begun to upload small sample movement explorations up on YouTube – my first few videos are focussed on easy breathing in sitting, and are thus a useful approach to beginning the process of learning to sit with more ease – of the three I have posted so far this one is the most relevant:

Effortless Sitting – Course Information

Contact me if you are interested in courses on this subject…

Whether at a desk, in a car, or on the floor, healthy, happy sitting for long periods requires flexibility, mobility, and the efficient use of your spine, your lower back, and your hip joints.  This daily course will help you to develop greater awareness of your natural balance in sitting, standing and walking and improving these daily activities is generally very  useful for the relief of sciatica, and back, neck and shoulder pain.

Awareness Through Movements helps you unlearn the habitual movement patterns that inhibit your movement and trigger pain, and to rejuvenate the way you do the things you do every day, whether walking, or standing, or sitting, or running, driving, typing, playing music, writing, speaking, singing – literally anything you are doing can be done better with less tension and more sensory self awareness.

These are very practical courses and you will receive notes and supporting materials to help you maintain the improvements you gain from your immersive Awareness Through Movement experience.