Is there one right way of sitting?

There is no such thing as one right way of sitting, just as not all chairs look like this one.

I’m about to start teaching Alexander Technique to a new batch of orchestral musicians, and I’m pretty certain that at some point one of them is going to ask me to show them the right way to sit. The right way to sit for playing cello, or guitar, or violin. The correct way to sit to avoid back pain and exhaustion in long orchestra rehearsals.

What would you tell them? Is there one right way of sitting? Broadening the question out: is there a ‘one right way’ for every activity?

One right way – a question of levels

If I’m talking to a group of complete beginners at Alexander Technique, I’ll probably sound like I’m giving a very qualified yes to this question, but only because of where they are coming from. A group of new students is used to doing every activity in their old way, with their old understanding. Part of my job is to demonstrate to them that their old way of understanding things may not be the most effective or evidence-based of approaches. With regard to sitting, I often ask groups to point to where their hip joints are; it is a rare student who points to roughly the correct location.

Because moving at the hips joints should be a key part of any strategy to sit effectively and efficiently – especially for prolonged periods – my replacing of their old idea of hip joint location with a more accurate one is going to make big differences. This is because we have swapped an incorrect idea for one that is more accurate. This is what FM Alexander wanted his teachers to do:

where ideas that are patently erroneous have already been formed in the [student’s] mind, the teacher should take pains to apprehend these preconceptions, and in dealing with them he should not attempt to overlay them, but should eradicate them as far as possible before teaching or submitting the new and correct idea.[1]

So are my newly enlightened students now sitting better? Absolutely! Have I given them ideas about how to get into a chair that utilise mechanical advantage? Yes! Will they take these ideas away and believe that they have been taught the ‘one right way’ to sit? Yep.

Why we don’t want to introduce new habits for old

If a student walks away from a lesson with me believing that they’ve learned a better way to sit, then I’ve helped them a bit. I won’t have really done my job, though, because according to Alexander teaching is something more than replacing an old habit with a newer better one. He said

by teaching I understand the placing of facts, for and against, before the child, in such a way as to appeal to his reasoning faculties, and to his latent powers of originality. He should be allowed to think for himself [2]

If I don’t engage a student’s reason, then I’ve not really helped them to lasting change. If my definition of the Alexander Technique from the other week is correct – a theory and practice that teaches us how to discipline our thinking in order to direct ourselves better in any activity we choose – a student who walks away with an unchallenged belief in there being ‘one right way’ to do an activity hasn’t yet developed the mental discipline to choose the best course of action in any circumstance.

To take the specific example of sitting, not all chairs are the same. Not all chairs have a lot of space in front of them. Some of them are in buses or cars. Even if there aren’t space considerations that will change the specifics of the protocol you use when you approach them to sit down, the height and shape of the chair certainly should be considered. I want you to be able to sit efficiently and comfortably in all chairs, not just the one in my teaching studio!

The aim of re-education on a general basis is to bring about at all times and for all purposes, not a series of correct positions or postures, but a co-ordinated use of the mechanisms in general. [3]

Going beyond the ‘one right way’

I really want to encourage you to play with going beyond the ‘one right way’ style of thinking. I’m going to use sitting as my specific example again, partly because it is very specific, but also because almost everyone does it at some point!

If I were working with you, I would want to encourage you to think about:

  • The chair – how high is the seat? Is it flat, sloping, bucket-shaped? Does it have a backrest, and is it sloped?
  • The circumstances – how much space is there in front of the seat, or to the sides? Are you carrying anything that would change your plan?
  • Your anatomy – hips, knees, ankles
  • Your playfulness – what do you feel like doing?

And then based on all these variables, I would encourage you to make a plan, and carry it out.

Every time you sit, it will be different. Even if the chair is the same, you are not. Embrace that – don’t be an Alexander robot – and keep playing with your thinking. Do that, and you will truly be fulfilling what Alexander wants you to do: to be able to direct yourself in activity with co-ordination and grace.

Have fun.

[1] Alexander, F.M., Man’s Supreme Inheritance, NY, Irdeat, 1997, p.88.

[2] ibid.

[3] Alexander, F.M., Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual, NY, Irdeat, 1997, p.308.

Image: Dori [CC BY-SA 3.0 us (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/deed.en)]

The fallacy of the One Right Way

“Why won’t you just tell me what to do?!”

There is no One Right Way to sit.In early lessons, students very often want me to tell them how to sit/stand/walk/whatever in the ‘right’ way. This is entirely understandable. They’ve come to me because whatever they’re doing at the moment has caused them trouble, and they want to fix it so the trouble goes away.

But there’s a logical fallacy at work, and a misunderstanding about what education is about. There’s also often a degree of self criticism. These are big topics and I want to take time to talk about them, so this week I will deal just with the logical fallacy. Next time I’ll talk about how our concept of education holds us back. Finally, I’ll talk about the issue of self criticism.

Onwards…

The logical fallacy of the One Right Way

Statement: I want to sit the right way

Logical (and emotional) consequences of statement: 

  • There is a right way and (at least one) wrong way of sitting
  • I am doing it the wrong way.
  • (Bad me)

Let’s look at the idea that there’s a right way of, say, sitting, and at least one wrong way. It sounds like life would be very simple if there were just One Right Way of sitting on a chair. We could just learn it, use it, and not have to think about it again. But it really wouldn’t be simple at all, for this reason:

If this was true, we would first have to decide if there was only one right way, or if we would allow One Right Way for each circumstance (eg dining chair, office chair, car seat). At the very least, we’d end up with a list of Right Ways to suit our usual set of furniture and circumstances.

But what if the circumstances subtly alter – like having to get into the car with the seat a little further forward than usual? We would either have to suffer Doing Something Not Right, or make sure we constructed a set of Right Ways to deal with all conceivable changes of circumstance.

And then we’d end up with a big list of Right Ways. And we’d have to memorise them all.

That sounds like a lot of work to me. I’d much rather learn the principles behind constructing a Best Way (for now) for any circumstance as it arose, and then learn how to think and apply it moment by moment. In the end, it’s just so much easier.

And that’s what Alexander Technique lessons are: learning how to construct a Best Way (for now) for the moment that you’re in. Don’t be fooled by the apparent unthinking simplicity of the One Right Way. It leads to lists, prohibitions (mustn’t do the wrong thing!), and complexity. Go for gold, and learn how to reason out the Best Way (for now) instead.

Sitting all day – is it evil?

Businessman stretching in an office

Is sitting all day evil? There are increasing numbers of articles in fashionable magazines and on trendy websites that will tell you that yes, sitting is intrinsically evil and can kill you. The Huffington Post, for example, seems to run an article on the evils of sitting every couple of months.

I mean, we always knew that sitting, especially sitting all day was a problem. Huge numbers of people experience discomfort through sitting, especially at their desks and computers. Backs, necks, shoulders all seem to beg for mercy. But now we’re told that sitting isn’t just uncomfortable – it can actually shorten your lifespan.

Is it true, and what can we do about it?

Sitting is the new smoking.

That’s the advice Marc Hamilton, director of the Inactivity Physiology Program at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana, gave to the magazine Runner’s World. Apparently, sitting for long periods may cause an enzyme called lipoprotein lipase to decrease in the bloodstream. As this enzyme clears noxious fats out of the bloodstream, this is bad news. Apparently this sends out harmful biological signals that could be implicated in cardiovascular disease.

According to the articles I’ve seen, sitting still for long periods has been linked to not just obesity, but cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, though personally I’d want to see more studies come up with similar results before I got too worked up about the evidence.

But before you panic and throw away all your chairs (as some people have done, and would advise you to do – see this article), let’s examine the issue with the clear-sightedness that FM Alexander would want us to use.

 

Problem number 1: chairs are not cigarettes

Sitting is part of our normal range of movement behaviours. It’s one of the things we are designed to be able to do. If we say that one movement behaviour is intrinsically bad, how many others will we find that are just as evil or worse? What about rock climbing (all that looking upwards), or playing the violin (having your head tilted to the side can’t be good for you, surely) – should we ban those, too?

If there’s a problem with sitting all day, that’s not the chair’s fault, but ours for thinking that doing any one thing for prolonged periods isn’t going to have repurcussions. It’s a bit like food. I love chocolate, but I don’t eat it every day. I love carrots too, but if I ate them for every meal I’d soon turn orange. Who tied us down and forced us to sit in the one spot all day long?

 

Problem 2: Will exchanging standing for sitting be any better?

Instead of sitting all day, why not stand up or work out? A lot of authors out there on the web are telling their readers to exchange their chairs and conventional desks for ‘standing workstations’ or treadmill desks. Is this a good idea?

Well, it depends. FM Alexander would tell us that many of the problems we experience are not context-related (relevant only to a specific activity), but are the result of a deterioration in the general manner of use of ourselves. In other words, there’s a way we like to use our bodies – maybe tightening neck muscles, or raising shoulders, or jutting pelvis forwards – that we bring into every activity that we do. And in some of those activities that general way we like to use ourselves becomes problematic.

If this is the case (and Alexander Technique teachers down the decades have anecdotal evidence that this is true), then just swapping standing for sitting isn’t going to help, because we’re going to bring our poor manner of use along into the new activity. If we keep our shoulders raised all the time, we’re going to do that while we’re standing, and the knock-on effects of that through our whole system is going to generate achiness in just the same way it did while we were sitting. It might move or be subtly different in some way, but the cause is the same.

So the whole ‘sitting is bad for you’ campaign has two major flaws: the chair didn’t make us sit for prolonged periods, rather, we did; and there’s nothing to say that standing or using a treadmill desk is going to be any more beneficial in reducing overall harm to our systems.

What, then, should we do? I’m going to give you three top tips.

 1. Don’t sit still! Take breaks!

Chairs are just a tool, in the same way that a computer keyboard is just a tool, or a hammer is just a tool. We need to decide how to use them safely. So don’t sit still for long periods. Get up and walk around once an hour, even if it’s just to the water cooler and back. If you can’t trust yourself to remember, set a timer.

2. Think about your general use of yourself.

Do you hunch your shoulders? Do you jut your pelvis forwards, or crane your head forward on your neck? Do you permanently have one shoulder raised so your handbag won’t fall off… even if your handbag isn’t there? Start taking the time to observe yourself dispassionately, or see an Alexander Technique teacher for some advice.

3. Keep an open mind.

Read the articles. Check out the research. Make sure that you understand the issue before you do anything drastic like junk your furniture or spend thousands on a treadmill desk. Do what seems best for you in your circumstances, taking the research into account. You may well decide that the cardiovascular benefits of a treadmill desk are exactly what you need! But don’t be rushed into anything without thinking about it.

Maybe Hamlet had it right when he said “there’s nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Let’s stop blaming the tools, and start reasoning out how to use them effectively.