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The New Rules of Posture: How to Sit, Stand, and Move in the Modern World | 
| Author: Mary Bond
Publisher: Healing Arts Press
Category: Book
List Price: $18.95
Buy New: $11.80
You Save: $7.15 (38%)
New (35) Used (9) from $11.69
Avg. Customer Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 12035
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.9 x 8 x 0.7
ISBN: 1594771243
Dewey Decimal Number: 613.78
EAN: 9781594771248
ASIN: 1594771243
Publication Date: November 29, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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Product Description
A manual for understanding the anatomical and emotional components of posture in order to heal chronic pain
? Contains self-help exercises and ergonomics information to help correct unhealthy movement patterns
? Teaches how to adopt suitable posture in the modern sedentary world
Many people cause their own back and body pain through their everyday bad postural and movement habits. Many sense that their poor posture is probably the root of the problem, but they are unable to change long-standing habits.
In The New Rules of Posture, Mary Bond approaches postural changes from the inside out. She explains that healthy posture comes from a new sense we can learn to feel, not by training our muscles into an ideal shape. Drawing from 35 years of helping people improve their bodies, she shows how habitual movement patterns and emotional factors lead to unhealthy posture. She contends that posture is the physical action we take to orient ourselves in relation to situations, emotions, and people; in order to improve our posture, we need to examine both our physical postural traits and the self-expression that underlies the way we sit, stand, and move. The way we walk, she says, is our body?s signature.
Bond identifies the key anatomical features that impact alignment, particularly in light of our modern sedentary lives, and proposes six zones that help create postural changes: the pelvic floor, the breathing muscles, the abdomen, the hands, the feet, and the head. She offers self-help exercises that enable healthy function in each zone as well as information on basic ergonomics and case histories to inspire us to think about our own habitual movements. This book is a resource for Pilates, yoga, and dance instructors as well as healthcare professionals in educating people about postural self-care so they can relieve chronic pain and enjoy all life activities with greater ease.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 A Useful Tool for Every Body June 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The New Rules of Posture: How to Sit, Stand, and Move by Mary Bond is a must read if you're interested in increasing your somatic awareness of your body in motion. Hoorah! finally someone writes about the body as a moving entity and not as a stable unit moving just one joint at a time. Posture for Bond is not about standing still and sticking your chest out, but about how you move is number one of the new rules. Bond writes, "your posture is the product of the ongoing perceptual activities through which you orient yourself to your world."
Bond's goal is to make readers more aware of opening the body up to the world. The entire book focuses on the action of walking to gain an understanding of what Bond calls open stabilization and open orientation. These terms of Bond's encourage movement without unnecessarily tensing muscles in the body that over time develops fascial adhesions and ultimately leads to restricted movement and decreased range of motion. Fascial adhesions where two or more fascia stick together can occur in a variety of locations because fascia, the connective tissue in the body, is everywhere. In fact Bond writes that if everything in our bodies were taken away fascia would maintain a recognizable human form.
Things can get pretty complicated when posture is theorized as dynamic, but Bond is clear and precise. She divides her book into four sections: awareness, stability, orientation, and motion. Each section builds on the next. Threaded through each section are Bond's six zones of the body: breathing muscles, abdomen, pelvic floor, hands, feet and head. Bond states that all six regions are connected anatomically and unnecessary tension in any one of them causes a reaction in all of them.
To help guide the reader to change bodily habits, Bond uses explorations throughout the book. For example she writes, "stand comfortably as though you are waiting in line for movie tickets. Then take a step forward toward the ticket window. Notice which leg took the step." In this exploration entitled, "your best foot" Bond's point is that because the spine accommodates the habits you have with your legs, if you have a strong preference for one leg over the other it could cause misalignment all the way up to your jaw.
Throughout the book are fascinating facts and relationships in the body that if nothing else will help you to reconceive of your bodily connections. For example, Bond writes losing too much carbon dioxide by breathing too quickly can cause everything from depression to low back pain; she cautions against tightening the sacrum because it prevents your feet from meeting the ground successfully; and ,warns against performing the same movement over and over again. Why? Because repetition without staying aware of bodily signals diminishes our consciousness. All in all The New Rules of Posture enhances our consciousness and is a book to go back to again and again each time with a deeper understanding of the moving body.
 Make It Easier, Please June 9, 2008
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
I bought this book because Andy Weil suggested it in his newsletter, and I know that at age 78, I need to do something about my posture; I'm beginning to stoop and droop.
I usually trust Andy, but not this time. The book is way too long and too complicated. I can't wade my way through it, though I keep trying. Also, it doesn't seem geared to older people.
I wish the author would condense her findings and advice into about 15 pages, with illustrations, and drop all the complicated stuff. Maybe I'm too impatient. I'm just reporting how it was for me.
Unique January 2, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
A truly unique book I keep coming back to.
As a dance teacher, it helped me recognize patterns of misalignment in my students and helped me identify the causes.
As a dancer, it helped me be more aware of my posture.
The New Rules of Posture December 18, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I found this book, The New Rules of Posture, extremely helpful and accessible. The text is crisp and moves along nicely. In addressing the quasi-intangible subject of posture, an author could easily tend toward the abstract and miss the opportunity to provide substantial answers; conversely, detailed analysis of the human body's myriad and complex patterns, movements and compensations could, in the wrong hands, bog. Luckily--rather, skillfully--Mary Bond successfully dances the edge--exquisitely combining light-hearted, sometimes playful imagery with just the right amount of intellectual detail to elicit keen interest and assure that her corrective suggestions, while artfully applied, are sound and rooted in science. I also appreciated the comprehensive cross-referencing that allowed me to navigate quickly topics of primary interest before my cover-to-cover read.
must have owners manual November 21, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
a must have reference, an owners manual if you seek a body with poise and balance...great links to sources of info and supplies too, well written overall...
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