For
models, posture is critical. Posture affects how you
come across, how healthy you look and how your clothing is displayed. Posture
is an all over body thing, it’s not simply about a high head and straight back
– though that’s a good place to start!
Posture advice for models
Most people think posture just means standing up poker
straight, stick your chest out and look straight ahead. But it’s not as simple
as that.
Body balance
The first thing to check is whether your body is balanced
and straight. Stand in front of a mirror, with a straight vertical indicator
behind you, such as a pole or doorframe. Does your head lean slightly to one
side? Are your shoulders even? If not, try to get everything even and see how
it feels. The first step is becoming aware of your posture, and where there may
be imbalances. Once you’ve indentified areas for improvement, you can start to
make corrections.
Of course this doesn’t mean that when you’re working as a
model, you’ll never pose at an angle – but a model should be a blank canvas,
and any angles should be deliberate, not ingrained. This is particularly
important for
catwalk models.
Height and Lift
‘Stand up straight!’ Well, yes,
good posture is about
standing up straight – but people often strain to stand up straight by
stretching their neck, arching their back and even going on tip toes. To get a
real natural lift, and gain the most benefit of standing up straight, you need
to think whole body. Start with your legs, make sure your standing foundation
is firm, with an event weight on both feet. Legs should be straight but not
locked. Them rather than focussing on the spine, think more about the chest.
Take a deep breath and feel your body lift and tyour spine extend as you do so.
Make sure your heas is light on your neck, and isn’t leaning forward. Finally,
ensure your chin is straight out (not up or down). Standing up straight in this
way will give you natural even distribution of body weight and restore the
natural curvature of the spine
Relax
One of the most common problems when attempting to improve
posture, is that people get really tense and stiff – which is completely
counter-productive. To combat this, give your arms and legs a shake out to make
sure you’re not holding any tension, and take a few deep breaths. If you notice
any particular areas of tension, focus on gently relaxing them. Another problem
with tension is that it affects the balance and lift of your posture. For
example, if one side of your neck has knots in it, your head will lean towards
that side.