Stand Evenly on Both Feet

Every sin­gle per­son stands with one knee bent, includ­ing you.

For a long time I’ve known that my pos­ture hasn’t been so good.  Like a typ­i­cal Amer­i­can, I’ve had rounded shoul­ders and forward-head-syndrome.  So as of late, I’ve been try­ing to achieve per­fect pos­ture.  Thanks to a con­sis­tent yoga prac­tice, this has become much more pos­si­ble and my kines­thetic aware­ness has increased.

One of the things I’ve noticed is that I always stand unevenly, with one knee bent and the other leg straight.  And it’s not just me. Look around any­where and it turns out that every sin­gle per­son stands like this.  You stand unevenly too.  Don’t believe me?  Stand up now, walk around the room and then just stand like you nor­mally would.  You prob­a­bly won’t stand evenly with both legs straight with your body weight dis­trib­uted on both sides.

What a sim­ple thing, to stand evenly.

So for the past few weeks I’ve been mak­ing a con­scious effort to stand evenly as I feel this is one of those lit­tle things I need to cor­rect.  Coin­ci­den­tally, this is known as “moun­tain pose” (“tadasana”) in Yoga.  All it basi­cally means is, stand­ing with both legs evenly with per­fect pos­ture.  Go ahead, try it now.  Stand with both legs evenly with your hands to the side with your back straight and chin level.  See how good that feels?  It feels so ground­ing and pow­er­ful, and it’s such a sim­ple change.

• In the first week it took me sev­eral min­utes of stand­ing to notice (and cor­rect) my stance.
• In the sec­ond week I started catch­ing onto the asym­me­try after about a minute.
• And now, this week, I’ve been cor­rect­ing myself almost instantly (within seconds).
• In the past few days I’m some­times stand­ing evenly with­out hav­ing to cor­rect myself.

Things I’ve noticed right off the bat:

• I feel very grounded.
• I’m def­i­nitely taller.
• I feel more confident.
• It’s much eas­ier to hold a good posture.

Why should you care?

Sit­ting on a wal­let could lead to self-inflicted sci­at­ica pain as a result of the unevenness.

Years ago I stopped putting a wal­let in my back pocket because sit­ting on a wal­let makes one hip higher than the other.  After years of sit­ting like this, the mis­align­ment of your hips causes the rest of your spine to be lat­er­ally uneven.  And your spine is lit­er­ally an exten­sion of your brain.  You are, after­all, not just bones or mus­cle, but one con­tin­u­ous unit work­ing together.  All the nerves in your body con­verge at the spinal nerves.  I feel like if I want to have a bal­anced life with a clear mind and healthy body, all of these things go hand in hand.  The spinal col­umn may lit­er­ally be the gate­way between your body and mind.  And it’s not doubt that pos­ture affects ones emo­tions, moon and con­fi­dence.  It’s a two way street and I’ll try to do every­thing in my power to be at peace within myself in every way possible.

Hope that helps some­one out there in Inter­net land! You can check your align­ment in this pose with your back against a wall. Stand with the backs of your heels, sacrum, and shoul­der blades (but not the back of your head) touch­ing the wall.

Related posts:

1. Why do bare feet feel much colder on wood and tile rather than on carpet?
2. Video: How to stretch your back after sit­ting all day
3. How to use the Trav­el­ing Rings
4. Time and Stress
5. Dis­cover the Joy of Stretch­ing (Yoga Video Included)