 It's really a treat to be with people who are like-minded. It's like being with your tribe and usually when I give my presentations I have to be a little ginger I explain genetically we're hunter-gatherers and you know maybe it would be a useful thing to To shape your body like a hunter-gatherers body And then maybe you won't have so much back pain and carpal tunnel syndrome and plantifasciitis And I have to be a little ginger about it, but you know here I'm gonna sock it to you you guys You guys already know the arguments so I'm looking out at at our group and there's lean bodies and Vibram five finger shoes and There's all kinds of awareness and there's a huge blind spot and just to make that vivid I am going to show you a few slides that I snapped yesterday, and then I got permission from the people to Brought to show them so that I'm not just talking about abstractions. I'm talking about as I'm talking about people who know To do certain kinds of exercise and eat a certain way and and so on and then look at it What it is we are doing are you having trouble? Oh, let me let me get it. I Think it we lost my slideshow here And So that's the only button you touch great and as you can see, you know lean life and a little bit hunched forward are we all seeing the same thing and It's not just him there we are you know vibrams and we're paying close attention alert and Not exactly with the most with the optimal posture and we're not alone I had trouble finding anybody who was sitting anywhere near upright This is all of us and we're about as aware as people get of the value of you know primal paleo ways Here is our president Aaron of the conference and Aaron not only let me Show his slide, but agreed to come up on stage I asked him do you mind and then I went even further I said would you do it bear back and he said yeah, I'll be a sport. So this is incredibly Generous of him. He is going to take off his shirt and he is I We are gonna begin with Discovering how it is we could sit better in the chairs that we've been given Okay, just the shirt And we can unmute the image Thanks so much so So you're just gonna sit without doing anything Special and we already have a reference point. So there's no cheating and So you can see that you know like many of us he has a tendency to be kind of forward slanted curve for yeah So let's see how we can change this and you do the best you can in your chairs follow along, okay? So we're gonna set the bottom well back in the chair like as far back your bottom goes scooch back back back Okay, and I'm gonna move this cushion up. It'd be nice if you guys had something to provide you traction Like with my little stretch that cushion here here. You can see but it's okay These chairs can actually work and you can also use a towel Or you can use something that has friction to give you a little bit of rise as the idea towel Blanket or these chairs are decent. So now what you're gonna do is come hinge away from the backrest Like he's doing just a little bit and then he's going to place his fists on the bottom of his rib cage Little bit higher. Yeah, so you're touching bone and you're gonna come and kind of almost like a mini crunch Curve forward. So it's just the top Not so much the head and shoulders, but the top good now. You're gonna grab the chair someplace Like that and you're going to push down so as to further elongate your spine You're gonna create a little bit of extra length. So push down keep curving forward So the tendency is for people to do kind of like this stick out their chest every time you stick out your chest What's actually happening to your low back? Yes, it's curving and it's shortening opposite of what we want. We're looking for length not contraction So you want to stay curved forward then you use your hands to create a little bit of extra lift So lift lift lift and then like a picture hanging from a wall You're gluing yourself to the well. He has nubs. You have a wooden backrest that kind of works Okay, so just stick there and then let go Okay, now can you feel a little bit of stretch? Cool next so you can see we all agree his shoulders are a little forward So how would you ordinarily fix that like yesterday? You were beginning yet pull back. That's what we often do. How long does that last? 10 seconds maybe Or what we also do is like our parents what were parents tell us to do Sit up straight. Well that doesn't last long either and it's not good for you because you're contracting here You're compressing everything is squishing your discs here doing nasty stuff. Okay, so it's not practical and it's not healthy Let's not do it instead For this part we can do a shoulder roll It's very simple. It's even easy And it sustains itself. So one at a time a little forward just the shoulder and up and We're going to go back back back. We're looking for a place to ratchet the shoulder. That's pretty good and You can see you see how your hand came in closer to your body It's no longer out there and you just relax and what you're going to discover is it actually stays there and that's cool You know, you don't have to hold it back. Let's try it one more time a little forward a Little up a lot back. We're trying to kind of ratchet the soft tissue back It's like you're looking for a notch That's a little bit further back than usual now the one little forward a little up lots back. Totally relax Okay, now this chair actually is kind of letting you slant back and that's a problem because that's sending your head forward So I'm going to prop you up a little more vertically. Let's start over You know fold the substance and then give you a little bit more vertical Support just that and then let's length them come away curve forward and grab the chair and Push up Make your back extra long, but still keep curving forward. Yes, and now hook yourself Kind of like a picture hanging from a wall and then let go nice and now shoulder roll little forward up back and totally relax forward up Back comfortable And now for the head what we'd like is for the neck to go a little bit So allow me to just gently guide you so your chin is going to go down and And your neck is going to back of the neck is going to get taller And we're looking for something that's relaxed and Upright okay, and then and that doesn't have change overnight But you can see that that's some improvement Yeah, and what's nice is that his back is getting this therapeutic stretch How many people in the audience have found it with the chair? Yeah, a little bit of stretch. So that's one way to navigate a chair like this I'm going to show you another way and For that we're going to come forward on the chair and We're going to sit on the front lip because let's try just halfway Okay, so suppose you sit there and you just relax And kind of slumps right everybody can try that kind of collapse a little bit And then if you're thinking about having good posture, how would you fix this? How would what would you try you yeah? You'd kind of try to tense up and then look here He's got this extra curve in his back and that extra curve happens because the muscles alongside are now Contracted they're like a too tightly drawn bow string. Okay, so if you imagine the bow is like your vertebrae and The muscles are like the bow string and if the muscles are too tight the bow string is too taut Then it's pulling the bow into an unnaturally arched thing and you have a little ditch in your back And that's not healthy because inside all those discs and nerves and are getting squished Okay, so we don't want that we don't want to be upright and tense. We don't want to be relaxed and slump. So what's the fix? Well, I'm gonna have you just relax back and I'm gonna show a few more slides Yeah, so you can go ahead and just lean back take a break Do your little stretch sitting if you like and then we're going to Show what we'd like to see So this is what we'd like Aaron to transform Guaranteed down to the butt cheeks and you're gonna be so so One of the you know, there's so many characteristics to observe and these Ubong tribesmen they've got Even groove in the spine. They've got their butt back. They've got these arches in their feet They've got their feet pointing they got all kinds of stuff going on but we're gonna focus on their behinds being out behind them and if we What happened to my up? It's the same shape that you see in every little kid I call it a J spine Okay, and we're just gonna focus on this characteristic. The spine is fairly straight and then the behind is out behind okay and You see the same Characteristic in all of our ancestors if you go back to the Greek statues you go back to the Cambodian Bodhisattva figures go back to old photographs Old sculpture and you see the same Characteristic this J spine the behind is out behind there's a big curve. It's down low in the back It's not up high where we think we're supposed to have a curve where all the ergonomic chairs and stuff Try to fashion a curve in your back, which is why? They don't work so well and why we're spending a hundred billion dollars a year on back pain. I mean We just not only are we lost but what we think we should be doing is off base as well and It goes it's worse even our experts the fitness experts and the medical experts and stuff the model that we use Which is a s-shaped spine? This is what we think we're supposed to do look at any and anatomy text This is what's presented as the normal human spine This comes from an anatomy book published in 1911 Okay, and it's really different and this is the one that makes sense It's forgotten. This is what we need to go back to this is the same shape You saw in the U-Bang tribesmen in the kid in the Greek statue the behind is out behind here's where the behind is L5 s1 Which is a wedge-shaped disc? Has a wedge-shaped space that fits all these other discs which are little hockey pucks and our cylindrical Have a cylindrical space as opposed to being squished into something No wonder everybody has degenerative disc disease and Arthritic spines because look at the edges of the bones squished together. That's not that doesn't work either Here it's all nicely ordered. This is what we want and when we were stretch sitting So his back was up against the stretch that cushion here all those muscles were getting stretched out and we were restoring and reasonable space for all the discs and the Nerves as well the nerves exit between the pairs of vertebrae. They need room What let's focus on the behind behind one of the reasons you want your behind behind is because that allows the rest to Stack half decently. Yeah, and so we're gonna explore that So we already saw the way he was sitting Well, you know the way when he wanted to be upright yet to kind of exert himself and then there was this hollow in His back and it was more like that S-shaped spine and when he relaxed then it was more like a C-shaped spine Okay, and if we continue like that then by the time where? 70 it'll be like an I shaped spine That's a real short I because everything starts fracturing and kind of compressing melting into itself We don't want to see we don't want an S. We don't want an I that is all short and we want a J Okay, we want a J and so let's explore how we get this down on this Chair the best way is to sit on the front lip so that you can Have this kind of effect where the behind is truly behind now By the way, if you have a l5 s1 herniated disc or you have some significant back issue Don't do this way. You know come to me in the break and I'll help you because you need a little bit of custom Guidance, but otherwise explore coming to the very front and Then instead of being like this guy where you're sitting on your tail and you're kind of relaxed and slumped you can Begin to Like maybe it helps to have your knees low like put one leg out one leg under whatever it takes to get you Behind to really be behind so lift up lift up and lift up your cheek bones Buttocks and really set them out behind. There we go. So you're kind of tipping over the front edge a little bit Okay Yeah, that's good And now it helps to do the shoulder roll because otherwise your full weight of the arm is pulling forward so one at a time and the other one and You know it takes a little doing like we could use a little more curve and there are all kinds of techniques to get that But for now, let's just pull the buttock flesh like lift up and kind of pull your buttock flesh back not very elegant, but it works and Now totally relax and Let's help the neck as well because that also helps if the neck is lined up because otherwise head is heavy It's pulling forward throws everything off So now there's all kinds of magic that can happen You still need a little bit more tip like scooch forward almost like you're falling over the edge Yeah, there now. Can you find a kind of sweet spot where you can relax? It's easier to be upright like if you Shoulders back neck tall And now if you relax you don't kind of crumple as much as before agree That's what we're looking for upright and relaxed not relaxed and slumped and when you get tired because it's relatively new Just go back and do whatever you want to do to relax, but So how are we going to make this change because if all groups this is the group that could do it really and It takes a lot of pieces One is knowledge like this is this is My husband and me doing a tuck tuckie butt to our oldest daughter our oldest child because we didn't know any better So right knowledge it really helps to be informed. You want to hold a kid with their behind You want to have furniture that with the be you want to know to do this to have your behind behind you The second thing is to have half decent furniture because this won't do we can't be doing this to our kids We can't be putting them all the baby furniture now is shaped like this It's ridiculous. It's like training them to self-destruct this gut this needs to change and Grown-up furniture. This is you know, so then we have this habit We also need to beam it out like when you have good posture whether the people around you know it or not They are influenced when you have poor posture So it's our obligation to beam it out once you know and so on you know You can sit and go back and I'm very grateful. Thank you Furniture helps so this is I'm very proud finally we designed a chair that slants in the front allowing this stack sitting that has nubs That allows the stretch sitting working on it. This is our first creation To help people go back to what their birthright is, you know, this is This guy's a carpenter. He bends all day working on his Stuff It doesn't mean you have to be hunched. Yeah, look at his chest. So how do we get their shoulders? Roll don't pull your shoulders. Don't try to be upright. Just roll one shoulder at a time Check out what happens to your chest Okay, because you have breathing that goes on, you know when when you have your shoulders open The breathing happens normally and it provides a healthy stress for the shape for your rib cage And then that fashions a more full rib cage if you're like this Then you don't move much here and then your breathing is going somewhere else and so this it all fits together Your lungs needs a certain shape and orientation your digestive organs need Their space, you know, no matter how well you're eating if you squish it all into some space like that that it's not designed for that's a problem So you guys I am going to charge you with the responsibility of Educating yourself find it in your own body. It's amazing how much benefit this can lend you Really and beam it out Peer group is another important thing. How do we remind each other in a kind way? That's not like in sit up straight. It doesn't have to be scoldy and nasty. It can be really positive I was thinking this kind of sign like almost like a bow like if you see someone now We all know let's try for one day if you have someone or you know who you feel okay to just do this with It's like a bow and that's our little sign to you know, do a shoulder roll or Are so and if someone doesn't want you to be signaling they'll let you know that otherwise As an experiment, I've never done this before Let's agree little sign and let's see what we can do in the next two days to be a little more comfortable a little more beautiful beam it out to ourselves and our extended community later