a few notes on posture

At class last night, we did a quick postural analysis of a partner; we first found our natural posture by jumping up and down a few times, and just stopping however we landed, without fixing anything. And I realized a couple of things -

One, that it actually became painful after a bit to maintain that incorrect posture, with one shoulder a little too high, my feet turned a bit wrong, my neck canted a bit too much to the side, etc. I started to feel the beginnings of kinks form in muscles, even, by the end of it. So it's interesting how much a lazy, uncorrected posture can affect us.

Two stemmed from our homework - our feet affect our posture enormously. The sole of the foot is in effect the beginning of the back, and the alignment of our feet reflects up our bodies, through our pelvis, all the way to our shoulders and neck. That isn't exactly a weakness, however; rather, it can be turned into a strength by achieving proper alignment in the feet (good arch, grounding through the front of the heel and bases of big and little toe), and through integrating an awareness of the feet into asanas. For example, in the soles being the first part of the back, if one begins one's forward bends by beginning the stretch in the feet, the overall stretch is augmented, and moreover the body is better integrated as a whole. Clever!