A Tip for Getting Extension through the Arms 

I don’t understand why you want to press the arm into the body and narrow the armpit. Most people need considerable widening of the upper back, shoulders, and arm pits.

@@delsartealexandermasoeroyo9147 Yeah I believe your right. Realized shortly after that it makes your armpits sweat profusely. Appreciate your reply immensely.

I'm really struggling, as it seems that I subconsciously slip in & out of good & bad posture. I've also realized that sometimes whenever I'm feeling energetic & confident, my face looks (if i do say so myself) very attractive, tone & slim. On the flipside, & what usually happens, is I feel anywhere from somewhat to extremely anxious (it's mentally crippling) & my face looks like a half melted wax figure. Droopy hooked nose, crow's feet, double chin, fat & bloated. It's absolutely dreadful & the difference between the two states is absolute night & day. What are ur thoughts & any suggestions.

It’s certainly reasonable to be skeptical, though I’m curious, if we leave aside the question of whether or not this is ideal posture, would you agree or disagree that what I’m describing can lead to a very significant extension of the arm? That this kind procedure lengthens the latissimus dorsi (if the back is kept back)? That the arm can be taken from bent to straightened like this? Perhaps you choose not to experiment with these ideas for the reasons in your post, but I’d be interested to know if you think these directions would not lead to extension of the arm. I’ll take your point about more practical demonstrations. In my experience it’s easier to push a wheelbarrow or shovel (two things I’ve done a lot while working with this system) when I use these directions for the arms, so maybe I can put something together on using these directions in a real life setting. I do use a stick/ruler in a number of procedures, and how the stick is held is always in accordance with these rules. Even a relatively inexperienced person can, for instance, change from habitually pulling their elbow back to hold a stick at chest height, to keeping the elbow out. Your argument around the center of gravity is something I haven’t heard. But would the logical conclusion of such an argument be that we want as narrow of shoulders as possible? In my view, having a widened upper back has so many benefits to the fascia, musculature, and geometry of the bones, that any small change to the center of gravity by widening out the weight of the upper body is negligible. I think we might agree that the shoulders should simply be where they’re supposed to be, that is, we do not need to narrow the upper body as much as possible for gravity’s sake, nor do we need to worry that due widening will disrupt our center of gravity (though answering precisely where the shoulders should be is obviously not an easy thing to do definitively). Your argument about wearing out the rotator cuff seems backwards to me, but it’s a matter of perspective to some degree. I think someone who habitually retracts and narrows their shoulders is more likely to end up with shoulder problems. Of the many people I’ve known with frozen shoulders and other shoulder problems, I’ve never seen one who had their shoulders at all like what I support. In fact every one of them had their shoulders retracted. In my view, there's much more risk is in the standard model, but there's obviously some risk in using any model (even no model). The day-to-day benefits I've experienced make it easy for me to swallow whatever risk there is, especially since I would also say there's fairly strong argument to be made that using the model I support could prevent a problem like rotator cuff wear and tear. That's the fun in studying the human body and health; new ideas can't really be proven, they're lived. Eventually, they prove themselves or they die out. Has the standard model proven itself? In my view, no, but again: a matter of perspective.

@@delsartealexandermasoeroyo9147 it depends on what you were calling the standard model. There is definitely a relaxed shoulder position without holding your shoulders back and retracted in your explanation. It appears you have to really allow your shoulders to rotate forward as well as drop forward. Sure it does lengthen your back, but at the same time it does pull on your neck and shoulder muscles. This position is often realized in a driving sitting position where I will commonly get a shoulder pain associated with too wide of a back I believe the center of gravity thing is a valid point. They’re just wouldn’t be any reason to bring your shoulders and your elbows farther away from your center or gravity, and this ask a lot of theoretical and hypothetical questions, which would not have answers for however where in nature do you see populations of humans moving this way as you show in the photo I would say I’ve never seen it before. It would be hard to believe that they’re not examples of humans moving naturally with this type of posture, if it was the correct natural weight to move. Your other methodologies that you discuss generally, makes sense because you can look at examples of people with crooked pasture, moving standing sitting in that manner sure it’s a small amount of people, but there’s still are people out there that move correctly naturally . I have tried to carry my shoulders the way you discussed, and I determined it was a little bit too excessive loading your shoulders and back in constant stretch or loaded. Tension was not good for me. This kind of seems like it could be a case of looks good on paper, but you do need to put it into practice and test it with someone else besides yourself or just your instructor

@@michiganhay7844 Well, I think we’ll agree to disagree for now. I would say, though, that changing the orientation of the ribcage is just as much a part of this as manipulating the arms. Most people have their lower ribs forward and the top of their ribcage back. The arms connect at the top of the ribcage, and so they are pulled back too. This closes the back of the arm and changes the armpit. If you reorient the ribcage, the arms can hang in a totally different way and the armpit is radically different. It does requires lengthening of the muscles of the arms to achieve what I’m describing. Most people, from my perspective, are constantly shortening their arms by pulling them back, up, and in. They will feel a genuine, painful stretch when they lengthen and extend their arms. So the feeling sense isn’t what I would use as a guide. The feeling sense gets used to whatever is habitual. Anything new will be uncomfortable at first. Pulling habitually shortened muscles into length is not pleasant in the moment, but in the long run it has many benefits.

@@delsartealexandermasoeroyo9147 thanks for the response I’m not disagreeing I just would like some verification of this method. You show a lot of pictures of people walking and standing incorrectly. It would look nice to see some pictures other than yourself or your mentor standing this way. I don’t believe there are any pictures of Alexander standing like that, his pastor looks rather normal to me

@@michiganhay7844The only examples I have to share right now (and have used in the past) besides myself are from F.M. Alexander and a couple of his early students. In my opinion, Alexander clearly has a different posture than what’s considered right by modern standards. In my series on the neck, I repeatedly used him as an example showing that he has what one of his early students called a funny kind of “hump” - which is really just the slope of his upper ribcage. If look at the standard model, they say that vertebra T1 should be in line with the back, F.M. Alexander has his T1 well forward of his back in basically every picture I’ve ever seen of him.

Little difficult without seeing you, but you might try holding a yardstick or similar pole vertically in your hand with the far end coming up behind the arm. Use visual feedback from a webcam or mirror to make the stick and arm vertical. Sometimes having an external object like that makes it easier. Often, when first working with the arms, certain movements will feel impossible, because the movements being demanded are so outside of our typical habits. Sometimes you need a little time for the tissues of the arms to get used to being extended more. Don’t forget what’s happening with your torso while you’re working.

Can you explain a bit more what mean by “look tense”? You will be using muscles in your arms that are not used to working, so it should, realistically, be a bit of an uncomfortable stretch. The arms may look more engaged, but usually “tense shoulders” are associated with lifted shoulders that are being brought in towards the spine.

Maybe your PECS (chest muscles) are tight,try hanging on a bar or do some stretches..this may help you.😊