Uprighting

A Dual Track Training Method

Habitual Explorations

Innate Explorations

Every waking moment we are committing our body weight. It is very much worth learning to do it well — to let gravity take our body mass straight down to Earth — so we can sit, stand and walk freely and easily. 

Innate Uprighting Restoration is a dual track training method that teaches students how to transition from deeply ingrained habitual ways of sitting and standing to a much more effective and sustainable way – using the highly evolved means we all inherited at birth.

Innate Uprighting Restoration consists of Habitual Explorations and Innate Explorations. The Habitual Explorations teach you to become mindful of those habits that have been operating subconsciously since early childhood. The Innate Explorations offer step-by-step guidance to help you rebuild the sensory awareness and motor skills you’ll need to sit easily and efficiently

Students who complete the courses will be among the smallest percentile of humans today who have an awakened weight commitment awareness. You will become able to sit and stand free from the muscular strain and skeletal distortion that comes from years of committing body weight backwards in ordinary sitting. Students will also gain anatomical insight about their bodies and a reborn sensory awareness essential to constructively organizing and guiding their movements.

Both the Habitual and Innate Explorations contain videos of Michael demonstrating, as well as audio recordings with guiding instructions for students to listen to while simultaneously viewing themselves in profile, through a webcam.

Both the Habitual and Innate Explorations are organized in a linear manner. It will be up to you to make them circular. Racing through will get you nowhere. Your habitual ways have been many years in the making. To get a grasp of habit ... on a deep, experiential level ... takes time and repetition.

As with any mindful practice, progress is gradual. The intention is that, by paying attention in your everyday life, you will be continuously building your kinesthetic awareness and chipping away at your habits. It is advised that you keep returning again and again to each of the individual lessons within the Explorations, both Habitual and Innate. As you engage the material, you will be changing your consciousness. Learning is cumulative. Steadily, your ability to absorb and process uprighting information increases. In turn, your approach to, and experience of, each individual lesson will evolve.

Seeing Yourself in Profile: A Unique Experience

Students will need access to a webcam for these Explorations. This is an essential aspect of both Innate Uprighting Restoration courses. Use of the webcam provides students with a view of themselves never seen in real time. In the Habitual Explorations, with this profile view, the shape of your spine comes into clear focus, allowing you to directly observe, maybe for the first time, the inefficiency of your sitting and standing habits. In the Innate Explorations, as you develop your practice of allowing body mass to go straight down, the profile camera is key, enabling you to monitor and better control your movements. 

If You Live in the NY Metropolitan Area . . .

We recommend you take advantage of in-person lessons with Michael. If you live in NYC or northern New Jersey, please visit the Private Lessons page to schedule a half-price introductory lesson. The online courses offered at this website were designed specifically for people outside the NYC area for whom private lessons are not an option. Live, in-person instruction, once a week, is the ideal learning structure.

The first part of the learning process is to start paying close attention to your habitual ways of sitting and standing.

The Habitual Explorations will encourage you to bring an active intelligence to your daily activities, to consciously witness how you are committing your body weight. You will begin to see how committing weight backwards compels the muscular straining and skeletal distortion that keeps you functional and seeing what it is you want to see. You’ve spent decades without witnessing. You can't continue to sit back in chairs and sofas without giving it a second thought. This will keep you mired in habit. But giving it a second thought changes everything, enabling transformation.

You will start noticing that you not only commit your body weight backwards in sitting, but in standing as well ... often out to the side so that you end up standing on one leg. You will start noticing all of the bodily adjustments that happen in reaction to your mis-committing your body weight ... adjustments that have always been happening in the background. The Habitual Explorations will help you bring them into the foreground, make them conscious.

Practicing the Habitual Explorations

The Habitual Explorations are to be practiced both (1) during the course of your normal, daily activities, and (2) in a more laboratory-like setting, with a web camera in place that allows you to see yourself in profile, while listening to the guiding audio instructions.

The Habitual Explorations can be explored in any situation you are in. You have spent all but the first few years of your life not paying any attention to how you commit your weight or how you upright as you sit and stand. To re-learn innate uprighting, you need to become aware of your habitual patterns. In your daily routine, you will have opportunity-after-opportunity to tune in. Without recognizing how you are committing body weight NOW, you won't be able to change. It is a challenge ... but one that pays big dividends.

The Habitual Explorations should also be practiced in a more laboratory-like setting, at least 10 minutes a day. It is essential that you spend time giving your full attention, watching yourself in profile on your computer monitor while at the same time listening to the guiding instructions.

In the lessons, we feature stool or chair sitting since it is the most prevalent form of sitting. It enables us to use the full extension power of the ankle, knee and hip joints, as well as the powerful plantar muscles underneath the longitudinal arch.

REQUIRED MATERIALS (Not Included)

• Laptop Computer
• Webcam
• USB Extension Cord
• Tripod
• Chair & Stool With A Firm Flat Seat

The ability to upright with ease and efficiency is deep within our DNA.

We all employed innate uprighting as infants and toddlers. We needed no instruction in how to get it working. It happened organically.

But after spending a lifetime of constantly committing our body weight backwards without awareness, innate uprighting needs to be recovered; this is difficult. Our conscious participation in the learning process is required. The first order of business is to recognize the spinal distortion that has been created through years of sitting-back.

In constantly dropping the pelvis and lower torso backwards, our upper spines had to constantly bend forward, so that we could continue to see and relate to the world out in front of us. When we dropped the lower spine back a little bit, the upper spine bent forward a little bit. The more we dropped the lower spine backwards, the more the upper spine had to bend forward. This is what has created our big C-curve slump.

In the Innate Explorations we say goodbye to committing body weight backwards. You will choose to drop the pelvis and lower torso straight down to earth ... while keeping the shape of the spine the same as when you were sitting back against the chair support. You don't want to be straightening your upper spine according to habit. The Innate Explorations will teach you how to do it constructively. 

But in habitual sitting we go way past the vertical. To lift ourselves into verticality from this anchored-back position requires uprighting activity far removed from the innate ... employing ilio psoas muscles and large erector spinae muscles in the back that have not evolved for this purpose. That's why no one can sit up straight for any length of time.

Through the Innate Explorations you will learn to bounce yourself up from the front. Efficiently. In a manner that can be sustained. It's fun. But it is anything but a "quick fix." Continual growth and development require continual application. It is a challenging process ... but it is very doable ... with motivation and persistence.

The Innate Explorations require a quiet laboratory-like setting: watching yourself in profile through the webcam while listening to the guiding audio instructions. It is best to practice on a hardwood or tile floor (rather than a carpet or rug) in socks or bare feet – no shoes. Being able to tune into weight bearing sensations is critical. The less these sensations are muffled, the better.

In the lessons, we feature stool or chair sitting since it is the most prevalent form of sitting. It enables us to use the full extension power of the ankle, knee and hip joints, as well as the powerful arch muscles under each foot.

REQUIRED MATERIALS (Not Included)

• Laptop Computer
• Webcam
• Tripod for webcam
• USB Extension Cord
• (Possibly) Adapter to Fit Cord to Laptop
• Chair & Stool With A Firm Flat Seat

✔️ Are among the smallest percentile of humans today who have an awakened weight commitment awareness

✔️ Can sit and stand free from muscular strain and skeletal distortion

✔️ Have gained anatomical insight about their bodies and a reborn sensory awareness