The concept of habitus was first used by Aristotle. A person’s habitus is a person’s general constitution, especially their physical build. In sociology, habitus is the way that people perceive and respond to the social world they inhabit. Pierre Bourdieu said that the habitus consists of the hexis, a person’s carriage (posture) and speech (accent), and the mental habits of perception and feeling.

Your posture is a motor response. Posture is an automatic and unconscious position and it represents the body’s reaction to its sensory receptors and the force of gravity. It is maintained through the contraction of skeletal muscles and coordinated by a series of stimuli which are interpreted by the brain. Several factors contribute to the posture, including neurophysiological, biomechanical and psycho-emotive factors.

Posturology is a science-based multi-disciplinary technique that examines the major plumb lines in the human body. Developed in Europe almost 25 years ago under the leadership of Dr. Bernard Bricot, a renowned French orthopedic surgeon, it is an innovative approach to medical science stemming from a need to devise and develop a treatment capable of evaluating the human body as a whole.

It is common for certain modalities and practitioners to focus on a clients’ sensations of discomfort, their various aches and pains, tension, headaches or cognitive issues. Although these are important symptoms to report, their origin and/or reason for repeated reoccurrence is rarely found or cured correctly. Posturology traces these symptoms back to their origins. For example, specific foot problems will result in predictable misalignments; knee and hip problems and rotations.

Essentially, all movement is a succession of different “postures”. Posturology concentrates on recalibrating standing posture, which results in fully optimized movement. If your brain is unable to form congruent messages then your body’s available range of movement will be limited. Think of it like this – your body must first master the art of understanding the sensory signals to first achieve postural neutrality, before it can co-ordinate more complex movement patterns efficiently.