Posture Release Imagery

Is gaining awareness and control of ourselves a good thing? Sure… perhaps… depending on what is meant and implied by those words, control and awareness. Here is an image exercise that, in effect, calls into question the value of some of what we might mean by “awareness” and ”control.” 

I think that the image exercise I am introducing here is “universal,” meaning that it potentially has positive effects for all types (postural) of people… and no ill effects. (Let me know if I am wrong and it makes you feel worse or less released!) 

The odd part of the exercise below is that it is based on an image designed to make us seemingly UNaware of two large portions of our body and OUT OF control of those areas. From this image, I contend, we develop greater awareness of our over-absorption and over-control of self. See what you think. It may not be an easy one to succeed with, even partially. You will need to be familiar and successful with some of the other imagery on this website in order to successfully tackle this one, I suspect. And you will have to be familiar with what I mean by the “director,” “motor,” and “rudder” segments… and also their specific locations.

This image involves imagining significant parts of your body as vanishing, disappearing, gone. There are other exercises on this website that involve missing portions of the body, but they are “type-specific,” working best when you know what type you are (and are imagining its “opposite”). But this one seems “universal.”

Study the drawings below and I will give some instructions for doing the exercise. Finally, I’ll give some more thoughts on why I think that it is valuable and effective.

The upper illustration, with a horizontal archetypal creature to the left and and “evolved” upright creature (more human-like), shows the three functional segments of the body, the “director” (to the right of the horizontal creature and the top of the “evolved”) the “motor,” and the “rudder.” The lower illustration shows only the “motor” segement remaining… the “director” and “rudder” are gone.

This is all there is to the image… imagining those parts of you as gone. Any momentary or partial experience you can create of this image should “lighten your load,” taking weight off your shoulders, make your back feel both freer and sturdier, and/or eliminate some “drag” or tension you may be experiencing in your “rudder”. The exercise is a good way of being “less of ourselves,” which can be a good thing. The exercise also allows us to give up control, leaving it up to our innate natural abilities to control the body. The missing parts are the “director” and the “rudder,” which are the parts that control or direct us.

Successful imagining will bring about some shifting of the body as you become less aware of these parts of the body. The head has to be more balanced for its weight to be less noticed. Tensions in the face and neck will disappear as the thought of their presence fades. The tail section or “rudder” segment also is influencing us already, without us noticing. As soon as you can imagine it disappearing, even for a moment, you will be made aware of unnecesary tension you had in the area.

So, this image exercise is peculiar. Elsewhere on this website I recommend imagining that you have a healthy sized tail (which is part of the “rudder” segment). Here I am recommending the opposite. It could make all this imagery seem phoney. But it isn’t. If you feel doubt about the “goodness” of the image, try to imagine its opposite, which is that your “motor” segment is the part of you that is missing. Don’t do it for long though. It feels yucky and isn’t good for you, in my estimation. Go back to the “good” version and stick with it and learn it… and the clarity and reason behind its effectiveness will become clear or clearer.

You may need a review of the body’s functional segments’ locations… so here it is:

The drawings of the human figure above shows the “director”, “motor”, and “rudder” segments split apart. The locations where the “director” splits off from the “motor” segment I think are fairly clear (though need imagery practice to properly locate and sense on your own body). The location where the “rudder” segment splits from the “motor” is a little more complex. Study the leg turned out on the first figure to the left as well as the partial figure that has a red ring around it. You should be able to see that the split between between “rudder” and “motor” on humans is straight up the front of the legs (through the middle toe of the foot) and around the hips to the very lowest part of the lower back.

You may have to return to this image exercise a few times. Good luck. With it, you will lose some “control” and “awareness”… and in the process gain something new, an experience of more of the body’s postential for natural grace. 

P.S. This image does NOT involve any consideration of the dorsal and ventral surfaces of the body, like most other images here do. 

This entry was posted on Friday, May 21st, 2010 at 4:41 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.