Author: bettechamberlin

Posture is defined as” the carriage of the body as a whole”.  It is understood that good posture is preferable to bad posture; but what is good posture?  And how can it help to build more efficiency in workouts?

Good posture is often wrongly portrayed as a military stance – shoulders back, chest extended, knees locked, head thrown back. The reverse, which is shoulders forward, chest collapsed and head drooping forward is the opposite; also not good posture. 

Either of these forms of standing, sitting or working out can cause strain, pain, discomfort and injury.

The downward pull of the later causes compression of all the joints and ligaments and forces groups of muscles to work too hard to stabilize our core.  When stiffening in order to “stand up straight” there is over stabilizing, our breathing is shallow, and our ability to release our muscles in movement is seriously hampered. 

So then, what is the starting point for good posture?

Ideally, all of the parts of the body work most efficiently when the spine lengthens and muscles contract and release during movement.  The root of the lengthening starts at the top of the spine where the head rests.  

​Given that the head weighs 12-15 pounds, it is key that this heavy, bony structure is balancing and poised on top of the spine and not pressing down, compressing the top of the spine – as well as the rest of the spine.  Using ourselves with a lengthened spine supports our body as a whole. 

To prevent compression, let the muscles of the neck be free and not engage muscularly during your workouts.  Try being aware of your neck muscles the next time you are lifting weights, biking, doing Pilates, yoga or any other activity that requires effort. 

If you find that you are tightening your neck, pause for a moment to ease, and then proceed letting your free neck allow the head to balance on top of your spine rather than pull down.  The muscles needed to move you through your exercises will kick in and not compete with your neck. 

This may take practice as our habits are deeply ingrained, but awareness of inefficient habits such as too much tension lets us move towards efficiency and strength.  A series of Alexander Technique lessons facilitates this process in a subtle yet profound way.

Check out what my dancers, singers, musicians and yoga practitioners are saying about our work together!  

This is the only thing that I have done for body awareness, health and efficiency that I could call upon without having to go to someone else to fix me so it was really freeing in that I didn’t need to spend the money and time on massages especially with our busy lives, traveling dancing and everything that we do.  With Bette, I was still able to use this practice in my daily life, my dancing and in my teaching.

Erin Marie Aiken – Professional Ballroom Dancer/Teacher

I began my study of ballet as a young child.  Over the years as a student, dancer, and teacher, I acquired habits that did not benefit me, but it was not until I was an adult, teaching ballet full‑time, that these improper habits started to cause pain in various parts of my body.  Contacting Bette was one of the best decisions that I ever made.  I had always been told that I was too tense as a dancer.  Working with her helped me to identify unnecessary tension, but more importantly she helped me to release the tension and gave me ways to think so that I could continue to work/live with an awareness of the unnecessary tension in my body.  By focusing on the Alexander Technique principals, Bette essentially changed my entire approach to ballet, I now feel so much more at ease while I am dancing – I certainly have more energy and am in much less pain.  As an added plus, my students have benefited as well.  I am better able to teach them how to move with ease and grace from a very young age – I teach in a manner that will stop habits of tension before they can ever take hold.

Susan Sorota, Teacher of Ballet

I was diagnosed with scoliosis as a young teenager.  For all of my adult life I have had back discomfort related to scoliosis.  My back has been especially uncomfortable when doing normal every day activities such as sitting in folding chairs, sleeping on soft beds in hotels and taking road trips in the family car.  Over time I came to accept my back issues as a given – and I had no expectation that anything would change because my scoliosis wasn’t going away.  But all of that did change when I started working with Bette and learning the Alexander principles.  Over the time I have worked with Bette, my back discomfort has decreased significantly – I thank Bette for imparting her knowledge of Alexander principles and encouragement in a way that has changed my physical well being, as well as my dancing for the better!

Anne, Pro-Am Ballroom dancer

I had no idea how profound this work would be! Of course most of it has to do with Bette’s expertise and innate sense of what I need. It was like magic – my head no longer felt heavy and my jaw, shoulders and neck were free of tension. Through common sense and subtle reminding without actually DOING, I have been able to address my unconscious habits which have freed my body and thus my emotional state considerably. I highly recommend this work for everyone who moves!

Susan Borofsky, Singer, Yoga Teacher

“Studying AT with Bette, I am no longer suffering from a repetitive strain injury (I can play the saxophone pain free again) and, wonder of wonders, the chronic pain that I’ve had for a number of years in my right hip has disappeared.”

Steven Hartman, Saxophonist 

Bette is a wonderful teacher with great energy.  Alexander Technique is a subtle practice, and she does an excellent job tailoring the lesson to each student’s abilities and understanding.  She’s very positive and encouraging.  I always leave a session feeling better than when I got there.”

Grace Dadoyan,  Yoga Practitioner

Lessons in the Alexander Technique made me conscious of how I was using my body.  Bette helped me understand how to do things in a more efficient way without hurting or exerting unnecessary muscular effort.

Carol Meiseles, Violinist/Teacher

I offer a free 20 minute, no obligation phone consultation where you can discuss your issues and how I will address them in a lesson.  Although many students experience a therapeutic effect after their lessons, the bottom line is that you will learn to care for yourself through a better understanding of how your body is designed, awareness of what you are doing when you are doing it, and the means to change ingrained habits that are causing pain, discomfort or impediments to increasing your skill level.

Please contact me to set up a phone consultation or lesson appointment below:

First off – it passionately appreciates food, drink, activity and all manner of feel good emotions and sensations.  Right?

But here are 3 more things that your body really appreciates:

1. An appropriate level of tone to get the job done.  Think using your arms with less big muscle tension and more oppositions.
2. An awareness of your interfering habits (Yes, we all have them!) Awareness = knowing what to modify.  I can help you become aware and modify.
3. Freer breathing which is facilitated by 1 and 2.

I remember how uncomfortable I felt nearly 16 years ago during my Alexander Technique training, being encouraged to adjust the level of tone in my body, even while walking across the floor.  My habits were strong and automatic.  It just didn’t feel right to modify the thing that felt right, yet slowly the “new” wrong feeling became what felt right, because it was more easeful and coordinated.  That feeling helped me to consciously adopt a methodology for CHANGE.

If it were a formula, it might look like this:

right feeling = wrong feeling

wrong feeling = pause and consider

pause and consider = awareness

awareness = possibility of a new feeling

a new feeling = the new efficient habit

Will the old habits go away completely?  Certainly not!  Yet, can our thinking activate more organization, strength AND ease whenever we choose?  Definitely.

As a ballet dancer, I wish I knew about this way back then.  Looking back I estimate that I was using at least 30% too much muscular tone in classes, rehearsals and performance.  I can see now that often, fear of losing my balance, forgetting the choreography, and holding my breath contributed greatly towards this 30% excess.

I can help you to create a new conscious tool that can help you feel better in ALL your activities.  This is another tool that all of us ballroom dancers can acquire that gives us another advantage  in our competitions.

If you want to find out more, book a lesson with me, either on Zoom or if you are in the NY/NJ area at my studio in Montclair, NJ.  Please use my contact form, tell me about yourself and leave your availability.  I will respond within 24 hours.

Happy Dancing!   If you know other dancers who may benefit from reading my blog, please forward.  If you are a  studio owner, I offer workshops on location.  Go to my home page to see an outline.

When I was dancing professionally, I accepted change as a way of life.  My career took me all over the country and the world – I changed cities, theaters, hotels, studios, planes, trains, buses and restaurants, often for 3 month stretches.  It was my job to follow an itinerary, created by someone else.  I felt like I was in the army.  To this day, I am fascinated by the implicit structure and discipline of the military.

I was in charge of taking care of myself to the degree that it would support the requirements of the hours spent rehearsing, performing and taking a daily technique class.

This is well understood by elite athletes, competitive ballroom dancers (both amateur and professional), musicians, singers and in short, all performers who dedicate their lives to their art form. It is all encompassing and there had better be a strong level of enjoyment, passion, or form of commitment to keep going.

The flavor of my upbringing fed into the required discipline  of my career.  My mother was fond of orchestrating  my talent so I was quite practiced in cooperating with her.  She expected me to accomplish the thing she wanted for me (actually herself!) . Mostly, I could deliver, which set up a nice little complex that drove me to fulfill other’s expectations.

For the most part, at least initially, my form of commitment to my career was habit bolstered by conditioning.

But here’s the good news!

I learned that there was a clear means for changing ingrained habits that had less to do with discipline and more to do with adopting a process that can be utilized whenever I choose..

The formula goes like this:

• Recognize the habit that you want to change.
• Introduce new thinking that steers the nervous system towards efficiency, ease and breath.
• Use these tools to reprogram your nervous system away from an unwanted habit.  These habits can be over tightening muscles, not engaging appropriate muscles to complete a series of dance moves and even jumping to anger or rage,

I learned that if I could move myself across the room without engaging my neck muscles, my core would kick in.  If I opted to notice and stop my neck tightening  I was much less likely to go to rage.

The most interesting part of this is HOW to release the familiar habit of tightening and enjoy more freedom AND strength.

Stay tuned for my group class announcement in September where I will work with you on how to unlock tension, dance with more ease and learn an educational tool for life!

If you want to find out more, book a lesson with me, either on Zoom or if you are in the NY/NJ area at my studio in Montclair, NJ.  Please use my contact form, tell me about yourself and leave your availability.  I will respond within 24 hours.

Happy Dancing!   If you know other dancers who may benefit from reading my blog, please forward.  If you are a  studio owner, I offer workshops on location.

When I was a young ballet dancer, people commented on how straight my posture was – no misappropriated curves in my spine (actually few curves altogether!), basically straight.  I would hear “you have such good posture”. I thought I did and so did they.

The truth is that none of the above mentioned qualities were examples of good posture – especially outside of the studio and stage. Dancers, musicians, singers, and athletes can all develop habits while pursuing their passion and unknowingly pile on interferences.  They may be in the form of stress both mental and physical and recruiting the wrong muscles for the job prohibiting the needed muscular effort elsewhere.

If interference persists, pain, ache, tightness and injury may be the result.  I was surely there 15 years ago.

We still talk about good posture as an important contributor to health and wellbeing.  What is less talked about, though, are the potential pitfalls of our belief around good posture.

Do  these statements ring true?

1. Having good posture means a straight neck and spine.
2. Having good posture means that you are “doing” something.
3. Having good posture means that you are pulling up.
4. Having good posture means that you are very relaxed.

If we take  statements 1, 2 and 3 as inaccurate, would the contrasting #4 be accurate?

The answer is a definite NO. Very relaxed is probably collapsed or  another form of compression.

So, how in the heck can we improve our posture if our potential ‘fixes’ are all counterproductive?

Exactly!

Most postural recommendations arise out of a sense of ‘doing’ something.  The problem is that when we try to correct our posture by physically doing it, we are accessing what we already know quite well – OUR HABITS.  Oh dear, we are often back to square one.

Posture, or how we move ourselves in our lives can be tricky.  Here are some common approaches. See if you can spot yourself.

1. Stiffening or bracing. (Vertebrae are held in place with little flexibility. Movement restricted)
2. Pulling down. (Vertebrae are compressing.  Movement restricted).
3. Knowingly or unknowingly holding your breath to “keep everything together”.  Movement restricted because your diaphragm and ribs are not moving.
4. Keeping your neck ‘straight’ and tall.  See # 1.

Here is what I know from years of training and teaching:

• Good posture comes from a belief that our thinking can be a powerful conscious tool that can modulate the tone in our body. (BTW, we are doing that anyway- but it is unconscious).
• We can modulate the tone in our body by understanding oppositions and by recognizing habits of tension that interfere with automatic uprightness.  Look to toddlers and animals for this!
• Good posture includes an awareness of our pattern of breathing.  Do we breath shallowly, breath in and out with unnecessary tension, or barely at all?

Every one of us dancers, social, competitive, amateur or professional can improve our level of performance by doing more thinking and doing less doing.

If this seems unfamiliar – you are right – but that is the point.

If you want to find out more, book a lesson with me, either on Zoom or if you are in the NY/NJ area at my studio in Montclair, NJ.  Please use my contact form, tell me about yourself and leave your availability.  I will respond within 24 hours.

Happy Dancing!   If you know other dancers who may benefit from reading my blog, please forward.  If you are a teacher or studio owner, I can do a workshop on location.