posture
edyong | July 16, 2009In the world of horse-racing, the horses understandably get all the attention but much of the thrill of today's races depends on the jockeys. Their modern riding posture - the so-called Martini glass - has led to a dramatic improvement in race times, by making things much easier on their horses.
Modern horse-racing has been going on for over two centuries, but in its earliest days, jockeys would ride vertically. The modern, crouched style was only developed in the late 19th century in the US. By 1897, it has been adopted in the UK and by 1910, it was a global phenomenon. The new posture…
edyong | March 31, 2009Classical ballet is one of the more conservative of art forms. Dancers express emotion and character through the same vocabulary of postures that was originally set in 1760, and often with entire choreographies that have been handed down for centuries.
But even amid this rigorous cascade of tradition, there is room for change. Over the years, successive generations of ballet dancers have subtly tinkered with positions that are ostensibly fixed and limited by the physical constraints of a dancer's body. The only changes ought to be a result of the dancers' varying abilities. But that's not…