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Ideokinetic Exercises
With these ideokinetic exercises, you essentially use gravity and the natural forces of compression and tension in the the body to improve your posture.

As you do them over days, weeks and months, your habitual posture will improve.		 It will be more at ease, more upright, more aligned, more fluid. You will untrain yourself to hold yourself up from your neck, shoulders, chest and belly, since the upper body is supported from below and not fastened to anything above to pull you into alignment.

With these ideokinetic facilitations, you will align yourself from the ground up, utilzing your skeletal structure and its natural tendencies.
Different Lines of Force in the Body
The center of gravity runs through the middle of the body, as seen in the green axis.

The compression, or weight, of the spine is through the red axis slightly behind the line of gravity.

The force of muscle tension that holds up the legs, torso and head runs on the blue axis in front of the gravity axis.
      Coping with Rotation Through Linear Force

You can cope with your body's natural forward rotational forces by:

1) Fighting the rotation by holding yourself upright, a practice that results in hypertonic muscles. This is bad.

2) Developing a fit body that will balance all your muscles through an individualized exercise program for your body. This is good.

3) Using ideokinetic imagery that uses the the three lines of force to counterbalance balance rotational forces.  This, too, is good.

               
                 Ideokinetic Images You Can Use

Do not act on these to force a postural change. Only image them in your mind.

1) Imagine your axis of gravity as a line of soft light running through the center of your body, extending up through the top of your head and down out your pelvis between your legs.

2) Since, the spine compresses down, imagine it sinking down its axis. Also, imagine energy flowing up the "tensile" axis, with lines of energy running up your thighs, pushing up, slightly in front of the central axis, continuing up through the front of the torso in the abdomen and chest through the throat to the base of the skull.
A Line of Energy on Your Torso
Image from Todd's
The Thinking Body
Imagine a line of energy running along the outside of your body, down the back and up the front, as in the image to the right..

                               Riding a Bicycle

When walking or running,  imagine sitting on a bicycle and pedaling. This image sinks the back of the pelvis with its spinal weight and pushes the hip sockets up, an image that keeps the spine long, pelvis centered and legs unweighted to move more easily. It is more effective than deliberately tucking your pelvis, since delibertate tucking requires constantly tensed muscles.

Each of the above ideokinetic facilitations can be triggered by the phrase: "Back down, front up. "
Exercises from Mabel Elsworth Todd
Image from Franklin's Dynamic Alignment
                 Image Better Posture

In the exercise to the left, imagine the condyles of the back of your head aligned with your sacrum in your lower back.

Then, imagine the condyles sinking lower into your sacrum - and imagine your sacrum sinking straight down into the ground - all on a plumb bob line.

Feel the axis that is your spine.

Try walking with this image. As you walk, image the ground coming up to meet your feet.

What is different about your posture and your stride?

Try skiing or boarding with this image.
Images from Franklin's
Dynamic Alignment
Imagine a Tail
1) Standing, imagine a tail growing out of your tail bone down to the ground behind you.

2) Imagine, as you stand, that you are supported by your two legs and this tail.

3) Walk and imagine your tail is trailing behind you. It moves and flexes, but also support you where it attaches to your lower spine.

4) Alternate initiaing movement with your head and then your tail.

5) Does it makes a difference if it is a dinosaur tail or a kangaroo tail?

Concept originally from
Todd's The Thinking Body
What These Exercises Do
All of the above images work by weighting your spine, while freeing it to maintain its natural curves. The images also make you aware of your axis and let you move from your thigh bones in your hip sockets.

So, these ideokinetic facilitations ease the load on your major torso muscles, and free your head, neck, spine, pelvis, hips and legs hips to move with grace and control.

Balance comes from nearer your central axis without always tensing major muscls.

As Todd writes, "The longer the axis of a flexible, curved structure controlling weight, the greater the speed and power of movement." (The Thinking Body, p. 175).
Once you get used
to the tail, try
running or
skiing
with
it.

Use it
when you
walk, run, play
tennis, golf or ski.
It now belongs to you.