Beach Blanket Bodyworker

Spending time sitting on the beach gives me a great opportunity to do people-watching.

In particular, and as a natural function of being a bodyworker, I spend a lot of time observing how people carry themselves. The minimal clothing affords me an even greater opportunity to check out the subtleties of structure: muscles, tone or lack thereof, vertebral alignment, and the way all of these components dance together as bodies make their way across the sand, to the water and back... in and out of my view.

It's fascinating to see the varieties of shape and form, and yet also similarities.. age, of course, being a common stratification of obvious structural issues. While I am not as always well-versed in the specific anatomical dysfunctions leading to some of the postures I observe, I was taught in school to imagine being in a person's body to get an idea of what they're experiencing.

If I were to put myself in a particular stance or mimic a person's gait (not that I would do this on the beach! Funny image, right?) I would probably get a good feel for that body's hip immobility, or back tension. And, sometimes, I might even get a clue as to how that person "feels" in their life.. hunched shoulders, for example. I see this more and more in young women... whether or not it's a function of modern-day 'flexion-addiction' as mentioned in this post, or a self-image issue, I couldn't say. But there seems to be a growing characteristic posture among the female puberty-and-up set which displays curled shoulders, winged-out shoulder blades, protruded head and neck, weak low back and puffy abdomen. It's also interesting to see so many young women, while wearing less clothing in effect to show off more of their bodies, are at the same time adopting postures that seem to suggest wanting to hide their figures.

Has anyone else noticed this?

Take a moment to people-watch some time (and not just young women...!) See if you can put some words to what you imagine they might be feeling, either in body or spirit. Drop me a line.