The art of posturing

Recently, someone said they saw me walking down the street, looking "very lord of the manor."

If only.

But it did get me to notice how I and other vintage folks carry ourselves. What I started seeing were certain themes: Older women who look like stiffened ballerinas. And the aging dudes, swaggering down the street like silverback apes. Everyone seems to be so aware of their posture, so intent on being an older person carrying him or herself in a particular way. I suspect we are all trying hard to not look old and broken down, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Yet I started wondering if we aren't missing something with all of this self-conscious posturing. Are Pilates and all of those "weighted workouts" taking their toll on our individuality? Are we posturing instead of standing easily in our own unique way?

With such profound questions, I needed to consult the experts. And when it comes to the body and how it moves, my go-to girl is Ann Brode, a certified somatic therapist.

I recently asked Ann about these postures I have been noticing. Am I making too much of how one stands?

No, Ann assured me. "The way we are in our body posture says a lot about who we are, our personal history and our emotional feelings."

Yes, but what about the ballerinas and the silverbacks?

"Your observation of men and women of a certain age reflects the influence of the health industry, which is pervasive.

"Currently, we are between two streams of influence: the fashion industry's slouchy, sexless, skinny look and the health industry's athletic, aerobicized look. If you glance around, you will also find examples of posture that are decisively unhealthy ... slumped, slouched and physically disengaged, the couch potato look. One posture tries to defy gravity. while the other is succumbing.

"Perhaps the ultimate sacrifice in both postures is spontaneity. With the hypertoned, rigid posture, there is often no rest, no variability, no softening to emotional expression. With the hypotoned, collapsed posture, there is no strength, no resiliency, no access to joy. Both of these extremes are an injury waiting to happen and resist an authentic experience of the ebbing and flowing that molds the creative life."

What happened to just, you know, moving like you?

"There is a definite art to our own unique posturing," she told me, sharing with me the delight one can have by seeing someone we care for walking toward us in their own way that is unique to them. There is an artfulness to each of us as we stand in the world.

"And, like any other art," Ann said, "It is about conscious intention and practice that desires mastery. We get feedback constantly from our body. Many body awareness programs, like Pilates and yoga, pay attention to this feedback and should help us awaken our body intelligence."

There are also emotional feedback loops that inform this "body intelligence."

Tuning into the present moment of the body will, according to Ann, "encourage us to move toward the artistic and away from the mechanical experience of the body."

The "art of posturing" -- as opposed to merely "posturing" -- means that we must "allow our body to move easily from one moment to the next and not get frozen in one mode of expression, one attitude."

Dr. Michael O.L. Seabaugh, a Cape Girardeau native, is a clinical psychologist who lives and works in Santa Barbara, Calif. Contact him at mseabaugh@semissourian.com For more on the topics covered in Healthspan, visit his Web site: www.HealthspanWeb.com.