On Posture II: Lead With Your Belly
Seasoned fitness instructor Pavel Tsatsouline once said that, when Americans walk ‘they fall forward and catch themselves’, but when Russians walk, ‘they proudly lead with their bellies’. When they come around a corner, ‘the belly shows up first’, then comes the rest of the Russian.
Generalizations aside, Tsatsouline is right to emphasize the positioning of the belly. Most of us are walking around with our bellies sucked-in, mistaking a concave stomach for a sign of vitality. (Consider the purpose of a weight belt; it is not to cinch the waist, but to brace the abdomen and engage the transversus abdominus). Not only does the sucking-in obstruct our breathing (by pulling up the diaphragm), it also creates unnecessary tension— which might, according to psychoanalyst Wilheim Reich, cause anxiety and obsessiveness.
In his clinical practice, Reich found that ‘there is not a single neurotic person who does not show a “tension in the abdomen”’. Physiologically, this makes sense. The prolonged inhalation mimics the involuntary fear-response that Reich describes below:
Imagine that you have been frightened or that you anticipate great danger. You will involuntarily suck in your breath and hold it. Since respiration cannot cease entirely, you will soon breathe out again, but the exhalation will not be complete. It will be shallow. You will not exhale fully, only by snatches — not in one breath. In a state of apprehension, the shoulders are involuntarily pulled forward and remain in this cramped attitude. In some instances, the shoulders are also pulled up. If this attitude is maintained for a period of time, a pressure is felt in the forehead. I treated several patients in whom I did not succeed in eliminating the pressure in the forehead until I had discovered the attitude of fearful expectancy in the musculature of the chest (Reich)
What Reich is describing is forward head posture — which is becoming more of an issue the more we sit and lean into our screens. In order to correct this, we must first release the belly and allow the diaphragm to sink and rise in even, wake-like respiration. (Google: belly-breathing).
It is not a coincidence that several Eastern traditions place a great emphasis on the navel area. In yoga, the navel is ‘the site of the manipura chakra’ — the solar plexus — which is associated with personal power and self-esteem (hence why Tsatsouline speaks of the ‘proud’ belly). It is also the site — or was the site — of the umbilical cord, the conduit through which we were connected to our mothers. According to the Tao tradition, the navel remains a vital conduit through which we connect with those around us. A retracted, tense navel may interfere with these connections. Whereas a relaxed — almost distended — navel may ease these connections. (I believe that the attraction of ‘dadbods’ may be an unconscious intuition of this difference).
There is also the phenomenon of navel-gazing (or omphaloskepsis), which is the ‘contemplation of one’s navel as an aid to meditation’. Unfortunately, today, the term has negative connotations of ‘excessive self-contemplation’. But I wonder how much of this is related to the dysfunctional inward-belly, as opposed to the proud, leading outward-belly.
Lead with your belly!
