Posture Throughout History
Many different disciplines have studied, defined, and described health related-benefits to posture.
Posture has been depicted in the art work of ancient civilizations, presented in the science and practice of yoga, and taught in the arts for millenniums.
Posture is currently studied scientifically as human biomechanics and treated directly or indirectly by therapists, chiropractic physicians, podiatric physicians, osteopathic physicians, and medical physicians.
Much is told of posture and its relationship to health and longevity, even dating back thousands of years. Ironically, a human physical characteristic considered for ages as a direct reflection of health is virtually disregarded during the clinical practice of most physicians today.
The role posture plays in health and longevity was perhaps best described in the Riddle of the Sphinx.
The Riddle of the Sphinx
Dating back over 2.500 years is a riddle told to be of great importance.
"What is it that walks on four feet in the morning, two at noon, and three at night?" Those who could not answer this riddle were to die. Greek mythology names one man, Oedipus, who solved the riddle by answering: "Man,” who crawls on four limbs as a baby, who walks upright on two as an adult, and who walks with the aid of a stick in old age."
The fact that man is the answer to the riddle may not be as important as how and why man is involved.
The riddle basically describes the postural changes of man who begins with an infant body, too week to assume an upright position. Why is it that this small body strengthens in response to the environment and soon stands on two legs with upright posture? Why do the same forces that strengthen posture in our youth begin to destroy posture once we approach our adult size? Why must the destruction of posture result in a body too weak to stand on its own, requiring a prop to hold it upright?
The riddle promises freedom from death to those who could solve it. Unfortunately, even though the riddle clearly identifies postural instability as man's most important obstacle to a path of health and longevity, it does not explain why it occurs or how to alter its course. Why the posture of man must follow this short path from birth to death is not yet understood. Unique information found only here at theta-orthotics may truly unlock the answer to human health and longevity.
How to alter man so as to avoid the rapid fulfillment of the riddle has been addressed for thousands of years by as many enlightened human beings. Reports of devoted practitioners of posture describe healthy bodies up to 140 years of age. Impressive, but hardly the age reported in the Old Testament of 800 to 900 years for all those described from Adam to Moses.
Clearly, the object is to change the outcome of the riddle and stop the postural degradation that results in physical weakness that is soon followed by death. Those capable of altering postural restructuring, such that a 50 to 100 percent increase in longevity has occurred, have spent significant portions of their lives performing techniques that improve and strengthen posture.
Any technique that could increase longevity, beyond those currently taught, would require either a significant decrease in those forces responsible for postural degradation or a significant increase in those forces that generate postural stability.
Much controversy surrounding the Riddle of the Sphinx suggests that the riddle is not yet truly understood. Some suggest that the answer lies deep within the sphinx herself. I would suggest that the answer lies within the riddle. Not only who the riddle pertains to but why and how the riddle relates to the postural changes described.
Theta-Orthotics
PO Box 1574
Riverton, Utah 84065
1-800-558-4382