"Clear, easy-to-read presentation of the importance of posture or body alignment with respect to appearance, maintaining physical functioning, and preventing muscle and joint pain and disability particularly as one grows older. Includes postural self-assessment and over one hundred exercises in various short menus to correct and maintain proper body alignment."

Restoring healthy posture from childhood for relief from chronic pain, easy flexibility, and enduring strength and vitality well into old age • Offers 12 physical exercises to become mindful of your posture and discover pain-free alignment of your pelvis, rib cage, shoulders, neck, and back • Provides simple yet detailed instructions on how to sit, stand, walk, bend, get up from a chair, sit to meditate, sleep, and practice yoga with proper alignment • Includes detailed diagrams and posture photographs from around the world Our bones are the framework of support for our bodies, much like the wall studs and beams of a house. Yet the alignment of the skeleton along the vertical axis of gravity is largely overlooked today, even by fitness experts and yoga teachers. In a culture of cocked hips, sauntering models, and slouching TV watchers, where “chin up, shoulders back, stomach in” is believed to be good posture, we have forgotten what healthy alignment looks and feels like--leading to chronic neck, shoulder, and back pain for millions. Sharing photographs from around the world of “gurus” of natural posture and authentic strength, such as women in their 80s who easily carry heavy loads on their heads and toddlers learning to walk, Kathleen Porter shows what natural skeletal alignment truly looks like. With insights based on the fundamental laws of physics and detailed diagrams, she guides you through an understanding of the body’s naturally pain-free design. She explains that when the body is aligned as nature intended, your weight is supported by your bones rather than your muscles, allowing a blissful release from chronic muscular tension--which you may not even be aware you had. She offers 12 physical exercises to become mindful of your posture and discover healthy alignment of your pelvis, rib cage, shoulders, neck, and your body as a whole. Providing easy-to-follow instructions for mindful alignment during the most ordinary daily activities, even sleeping, as well as a chapter on practicing yoga safely, Porter shows how returning to our forgotten alignment from childhood can offer relief from chronic pain and tension and can provide easy flexibility, enduring strength, and vitality well into old age.

Embodied Posture Methodology, or EPM, empowers you to align yoga postures to best suit your uniqueness. Through over 25 years of studying the human body and teaching yoga, Stacy Dockins developed this innovative approach that integrates bio-individuality and long-term, sustainable functional wellness. Combining body awareness, science, and exploration, Stacy provides practical information you can immediately apply on your mat to get the most out of your practice.Each posture is presented as a collection of movement actions, enabling you to skillfully deconstruct and reconstruct them for your maximum benefit. Clear, brilliant photographs, combined with detailed anatomical illustrations, show the inner workings of the poses. Discussions of possible structural limitations and common injuries, as well as helpful modifications, are included. Plus, Stacy's exploratory cues will guide you to experience various sensations available in the postures.Whether you are a student or a teacher, EPM will show you how to critically approach postural alignment. Yoga poses will be more accessible and effective than ever before. Most importantly, you will cultivate the tool of Embodiment, the ability to tune in to what is arising from within your own body.

Ageless Spine, Lasting Health clearly illustrates just how the body is designed to really work and what true fitness and graceful aging can look like when you simply sit, stand, bend, walk, lift, reach and even sleep in a natural way. Genuine, natural strength is not about 'developed' muscles, as almost all of us have come to believe, but is a natural interplay between elastic muscles and aligned bones. It's more about 'working in' rather than 'working out, ' and this book will show you how.

"Celebrity manual therapist and movement coach Aaron Alexander shows readers how posture and body alignment are powerful tools for building strength, achieving peak performance, reducing pain, and approaching the world with a new sense of confidence."--

Learn alignment cues that are skillful, safe, and best suited to you.

Franklin provides 583 imagery exercises to improve dance technique, artistic expression and performance. More than 160 illustrations highlight the images, and the exercises can be put to use in dance movement and choreography.