A Dignified Posture
Prevention beats cure. Once the skeleton stands straight, a dignified posture becomes the most comfortable posture, and good health comes along as a bonus.
Part 2 · How the Body Works I — The Framework of the Human Body · Essay 17
An ancient Chinese book from the Warring States period, the Heguanzi (鶡冠子), tells this story in its chapter “Shixian” (世賢). Marquis Wen of Wei (魏文侯) asked Bian Que (扁鵲), the most famous healer in the land, “I hear that you and your two brothers are all skilled in medicine. Which of you is the best?” Bian Que answered, “My eldest brother is the best, my second brother comes next, and I am the least skilled of the three.”
When the marquis looked puzzled, Bian Que explained. His eldest brother could tell from a person’s face that an illness was coming before the person felt any pain, and he removed its cause before the illness even began. So people never knew they had been treated, and his name never spread beyond his own household. His second brother spotted an illness while it was still mild and cured it. So his name never spread beyond the village. Bian Que himself recognized an illness only once it had grown serious and the patient was groaning in pain. Then he gave rare medicines and cut into the flesh. People who had been suffering terribly felt their pain ease in their own bodies, and so only Bian Que’s name spread across the whole land.
Over the last seven essays, we have explored the basic framework of the human body. Today, as I bring Part 2 to a close, I want to tie all of it together. The knot that ties it all is a dignified posture.
The Best Way, the Middle Way, the Last Resort
I don’t know whether the story of Bian Que and his brothers really happened or whether someone made it up as a fable. But put into the language of the Momsalim Movement, it goes like this. Getting corrected after something has already gone wrong with your body is the last resort. Looking after your own body and practicing to keep yourself healthy is the middle way. The best way is to live with good posture every day.
We usually remember only Bian Que as the great healer. That’s because we are used to fixing things only after they hurt. We go to the hospital only when it hurts, get corrected only when it hurts, and look back at our bodies only when it hurts. But the finest healing art is to block the road an illness would take before the illness ever arrives. And that art lies not in a doctor’s hands but in our own posture.
Health Is Already Inside Us
Health is not something we have to work hard to earn. It is already inside our bodies. The body is made to be healthy. Health is the body’s default setting. The health we think we have lost has not disappeared. For some reason, we just haven’t been able to make full use of it. Getting healthy is not about creating something we never had. It is about getting back the ability to use what was there all along.
So what blocks our body’s health? The last seven essays answered that question step by step. Our body is not a machine but a living thing that regulates and heals itself. And structure determines function. The skeleton is the frame of the body, the muscles are the clothes the skeleton wears, and the nerves are the communication network that connects life. The spine is the pillar that holds the body up and also the source of energy that sets off the waves of life, and inside it lives the spinal cord, the commander of life. When the skeleton twists, the muscles stiffen. Stiff muscles press on the nerves, and pressed nerves can’t carry the signals of life properly. The waves of the spine are distorted, and the commander’s orders don’t reach the staff officer. When one part goes off, the rest can’t do their jobs fully either.
Put the other way around, when one part stands straight, everything comes back to life together. When the skeleton stands straight, the muscles become supple. When the muscles become supple, the pressure comes off the nerves and their signals flow freely again, the spine ripples again, and the commander’s orders flow through the whole body without getting stuck. The one key that sets all of this straight at once is posture: keeping your back straight and your chest open. That is what the Momsalim Movement says again and again, from beginning to end.
The Dignity of a Straight Spine
In The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, the American writer Thad Carhart describes a man whose spine was perfectly straight, which gave him an air of great dignity. The Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho wrote in Like the Flowing River: “Sometimes, I find myself sitting or standing with my shoulders hunched. Whenever that happens, I am sure there is something that is not quite right. At that moment, before even trying to find out why I’m feeling uncomfortable, I try to change my posture, to make it more elegant.”
When I first came across these passages long ago, my heart raced. It felt as if a third party had confirmed the Momsalim Movement’s theory I had been arguing for. I don’t think these writers knew the principles of the body that the Momsalim Movement teaches when they wrote those words. And yet, in the East and the West alike, people sense a dignity and authority they can’t take lightly in someone with good posture, and sometimes a physical attraction as well. That is because being drawn to healthy people is an instinct written into our bodies. It never strays an inch from the principles of survival and reproduction.
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So a dignified posture is not an outward show for other people. It is the order inside the body showing on the outside. A person whose skeleton stands straight, whose muscles are soft, whose nerves are free of pressure, and whose spine ripples with life carries a natural dignity without trying to put on airs. Good posture is the first condition for living with grace, dignity, and charm. And if you live with good posture, as a bonus, you will be spared serious illness your whole life, and even if you do get sick, you can heal on your own without anyone’s help.
The Easiest and Hardest Thing: Consistency
There is only one thing we need to do to live a healthy life: hold a confident, dignified posture, with your back straight and your chest wide open, every waking moment. Then your body takes care of the rest. Walk right, sit right, and stand right. That is all there is to it.
But this simple thing is easier said than done. Straighten your back and open your chest, and before long your body starts to ache, and before you know it you are slumped over again. It’s not that your willpower is weak. It’s that your skeleton has already collapsed. You have forced a collapsed skeleton into good posture with the strength of your muscles, so the muscles tire out quickly. They can’t hold on for more than a few minutes, and your posture slumps back the way the twisted skeleton pulls it.
But once the skeleton is set straight, it’s a different story. I can say this with certainty: once the skeleton finds its proper place, a dignified posture becomes the most comfortable posture. The bones carry the weight, so the muscles don’t have to strain, and your back stands up and your chest opens without any effort. Building, through your own effort, a body that can hold good posture at all times without strain and without even thinking about it: that is what the Momsalim Movement is.
Feather-Light Changes, Six Months
How long does it take? Six months. If you make a conscious and consistent effort for just six months, a dignified posture begins to become second nature. At first, the changes are as light as a feather. You can’t see them, and you can’t put your finger on them. But as those feather-light changes pile up day by day, one day you find that your body has changed.
That’s how it was for me. Modern medicine had told me there was nothing more it could do for the spondylolysis in my lower back. Yet a month after I began practicing on my own, using nothing but information from books and the internet, the tingling below my knees was gone. A month after that, the tingling below my thighs was gone too. And after six months, the tingling around my sit bones disappeared and my back pain vanished completely, and I was able to return to a normal life. No one coached me. I simply followed the simple exercises the books described for straightening my back and opening my chest. When I later began formal training, I realized that the movements I had taught myself back then were only rough imitations, not even the correct movements. Even so, they were enough to change my body.
Six months. You could call it long, or you could call it short. But it is a very short time to trade for a lifetime of health. The small practices you build up in your daily life, without skipping a single day, come together into a dignified posture, and good health follows as a bonus.
Closing Part 2
In Part 2, we looked at how the body is put together: its basic framework. The body is not a machine. Structure determines function. The skeleton, the muscles, the nerves, the spine, and the spinal cord are linked as one and keep life going. And the key that brings all of them to life at once is a dignified posture.
In Part 3, I want to go one step deeper. The Momsalim Movement counts the spine, the GongMyung (空明), and the internal organs as the three root organs of the human body. One at a time, we will take a closer look at these root organs, the foundation of all the work of life. That first step starts, once again, with posture. Today we saw that good posture alone is the key that brings the skeleton, the muscles, the nerves, the spine, and the spinal cord to life all at once. Then what exactly is good posture? The Momsalim Movement puts it in a single sentence: Straighten your back and open your chest. In my next essay, I will take my time unpacking the principles of the body packed into those few words.
Your body can heal itself — learn how.
