Balanced Sitting during self-quarantine in #YOMEQUEDOENCASA

New COVID-19 cases continue to emerge; UTEC students and staff are being requested to stay at home in self-quarantine. Mabel Elsworth Todd (1880 – 1956) is known as the founder of what came to be known as 'Ideokinesis,' a form of somatic education that became popular in the 1930s amongst dancers and health professionals.

To determine where weights should be: sit on the tuberosities of the ischia, shrink softly inside yourself. When aggressive in daily doing, you are constantly pulling yourself up and off-balance. The pulling upward is in direct proportion to the emotional drive in thinking. This 'feel' for activity is so persistent that the 'drive' is still toward shoulders, neck, knees, and feet when sitting. You are ready to spring up and step off. So, even in Sitting, you can feel most of your weight is still carried by the legs. And as the upper back and shoulders are tired, "slumping" seems the only recourse.

Change the thinking. Visualize where the weight really sits on the ischia. Feel them Sharp.

Imagine them pointing through the chair seat to the floor, making another pair of legs to the chair. Let the wight of your legs slide back into the pelvic basin. Note that this loosens the tense feeling of the knee and the neck.

The legs and feet should feel light, and the thighs should be able to lift alternatively and easily off the seat of the chair if all weight has been directed successfully into the ischia.

Wangdo Kim, Ph.D. (mwdkim@utec.edu.pe)

Professor in Biomechanics-Mechanical Departament