The Chair Is Flat. Our Sitting Base Is Not

The chair is flat.

Our sitting base isn't.

A simple fact.

As Alexander Technique teachers, we spend a great deal of time helping people sit more easily. We talk about balance, support and Primary Control. But I began to wonder whether we overlook something that is literally beneath us.

Our sitting bones are beautifully rounded.

Together, they create a gently curved base, rather like the runners of a rocking chair.

Try this.

Sit towards the front of a chair.

Very slowly, roll your weight a little forwards.

Then a little backwards.

Notice that you're not rocking on a flat surface. You're rolling over a curved one.

As you roll forwards, your sitting bones seem to come a little closer together.

As you roll backwards, they seem to broaden apart.

The pelvis isn't fixed.

It's designed to move.

Something else begins to happen.

Without trying to sit up, you start discovering where your body wants to balance.

Tiny movements appear.

Almost invisible.

The body begins quietly organising itself.

That has changed the way I think about sitting.

For many years we've associated stability with keeping still.

But living systems don't work that way.

A tree remains upright because it sways.

A cyclist balances because they are constantly making tiny adjustments.

Standing quietly, we are never truly still. Our nervous system is making thousands of minute corrections every minute.

Sitting is no different.

We don't find balance by stopping movement.

We find balance through movement.

I often begin sitting work by inviting people to explore these tiny forward-and-backwards

movements.

Not as an exercise.

Simply to allow the body to rediscover the living shape of its own base.

Very often, uprightness appears by itself.

Not because it has been imposed.

Because balance has emerged.

The chair is flat.

Our sitting base is not.

That gentle curve facilitates movement, and movement is not the opposite of stability.

Movement is how stability is found.