Finis Jhung, one of the world’s leading ballet teachers, offers an easy tip that you can put into practice to improve your posture. You can do this standing up or sitting down. 77-year-old Finis demonstrates it while he sits. You’ll find the full story about Finis here.
“If I had one tip to give you about posture, it has to do with your head, because you must remember that your brain is in your head, so it is very important. Yet with most people the head is falling.
“What I teach my beginners is: ‘Lace your fingers and put your fingers on the back of your head.
When you do that you push your head forwards. If you push back into your hands, with your elbows back and you are trying to keep your chest up and stand up as erect as possible.
‘If you keep pushing forward and back you will feel the muscles between your shoulder blades and up the back of the neck. So this is the first way you can learn to balance your head, where it needs to be.’ The other thing I always tell my students, I say, ‘If you pick up your ears and pull your ears up, you are lifting your head up out of your body; lift your ears up and back above your shoulder.
‘So if you always think, keep your ears up and back so you never drop your ears, because again, as soon as your head pitches forward, then you are starting to strain your neck, you are starting to lapse in your chest, you are starting to cave in on yourself.'”
REACH FOR THE CEILING
“So up here, you know, I am going to say, ‘Ears back above your shoulders, and then you have a sense of energy, that if you think that you are always pushing up to the ceiling through your head, you are reaching for the ceiling, through the top of your head. So you are always trying to stay as tall as you can, so you try to keep your eyes and you ears far away from the floor.'”
Finis also believes we all need to stretch. “I stretch all parts of my body everyday,” he said.
Continue →for more and a demonstration of Finis Jhung’s Kitchen Sink Stretch.
