i wish i'd had deportment lessons

I go to weekly exercise class at a local residential home. One thing we all have to try to do every day x10 is sitting and standing from a dining chair not using hands..
Gets easier as we get stronger.
Maybe that could help your strength?

I wish I'd had elocution lessons. I hate my voice now. I have good grammar and do not drop my h's or t's, but my vowels really betray me.

Think about joining Silver Swans Ballet Group. Ballet classes for the over 55s. I love it, I'm 72. Some group have people in their 90s in them. It really helps with deportment, even for small , round, overweight people like me. It is lovely to find at the end of each class you still have a smile on your face and feel uplifted. There are groups all around the country.

My Dad used to tell me that I was tall. He probably hoped I'd take after him, 5' 11" and slim till he died at 89. However, this had the effect that I walked with a stoop as I didn't want to stand out. I have never really got rid of it, but I didn't grow o be tall. I am 5' 5". Thanks, Dad.

If I concentrate, I can walk straight, and it does make a difference to your confidence and attitude. It also helps to wear nice clothes and take a general pride in your appearance. Hard to do when you're wrinkly and flabby and loaded down with shopping bags, though.

It's not even a phone!

Sometimes it is autocorrect that thinks it knows best.

Actually I can, it's my fingers

I thought it was just me and everyone else had little teeny phone keyboard sized pointy thumbs that dont hit 3 letters at a time!

I can't spell either!

Actually I can, it's my fingers

notanan my posture has never been great (not just from lack of efforts) so I made sure my DD had ballet lessons and their posture is excellent.
We used to get a mark for posture on our school reports, mine was usually no more than a C.
petunia I was never likemthe Duchess!
Jane10 I am going to practise getting up from lying on the floor before I rssume my yoga lessons!

lucywinter
I just get annoyed with myself

Petunia, I know just what you mean. I took so much for granted and now I'm really frustrated with my body for not behaving.
Last week I went out for lunch with a group of old and dear friends and they commented that I looked nice and had I lost weight?
Most definitely not.
I had put some skinny trousers on and then was totally unable to get my socks on (b****y osteoarthritis in my hip and knee).
So, dear reader I did the only possible thing and put on a pair of heels on those bare feet for the first time in ages. And wow, they did look good. I only had to walk a short distance and we all had such a good laugh about it.

I do think that how you walk and move generally can be very telling of age.
I was once seriously startled to see (from behind) what I thought was a very old woman in the street - only to realise once I’d caught up with her that it was someone I knew well, who’s younger than I am! And there were no particular issues to account for it.

It was purely the way she was walking, and since then (when I remember!) I’m very careful to stand and walk ‘tall’, not hunched up and wavering about.

Mobility as in being able to get up from the floor is a different thing IMO. My knees aren’t bad, but I know that certain things will set them off, so little Gdcs know that I won’t sit on the (hard!) floor to play with them - I sit on a sofa close enough to join in.

I would just like to go back six years Jane10. The ageing thing cut in so suddenly.

But would you go back to being young again Lucywinter. I'm OK just being me as I am. Some days I'm better than others.

Sorry to be a ray of

Yesterday I got home from a walk I used to do easily just a few years ago, and I sat on the garden seat and cried for my lost youth.

You have to allow for a bit of the old osteoporosis in the spine. And the fact that everything goes south willy nilly sooner or later.

I wish I believed you, notanan2. I did a lot of ballet in my youth, and now I am almost 80 I doubt if it shows at all. My mobility is terrible and I can’t stand up straight. I know a ballet background often shows in the way the head is held, but I think I’ve lost that, too

I keep a photo of myself in ballet pose and tutu on my bookcase, not to show off but to remind me I once looked like that. Not sure whether it’s good for morale or not!

I can get up from an armchair no hands, but not from squatting position. (I vaguely remember what squatting is)

^ I can crouch / sit and get up without hands.^

No good telling us that Vegansrock without saying how old you are. I can't do that at 78!

My mother sent us for deportment lessons when we were around 10 I think,I remember the lady who taught us very well,she was tiny.Many years later mum and I were walking through town when an old friend approached and said I knew it was you because I recognised Paddy's very "proud" walk .Nothing proud about it ,just head up shoulders down bum and tummy tucked in .
I believe that if you can stick with the rules it makes you appear more youthful .I dont think it was more than six months but it certainly stuck with me

I think you CAN tell a woman who has been a dancer in her youth as she ages.

A lot of these women who learnt deportment also learnt ballet and I think the muscles remember

I always dress standing up including socks/tights/stockings, knickers, trousers as balancing on one leg is good for core muscles.
I clean my teeth on one leg also.

Pilates is good I believe the D of C does Pilates. I can crouch / sit and get up
without hands.

I do try to think about my posture when I’m out walking.

It’s surprising how many people my age walk with their head jutting forward.

Ok we will probably never be as straight and upright as we were when we were younger, but it’s possible to try to be more upright within our own capabilities.

I am sure it’s better for our spine too.

ha ha jane-i'd forgotten that particular indignity

My granny used to encourage us to walk with books on our heads as she was made to do when she was a girl. By the time I knew her, she was quite bent with 'lumbago', but a picture of her as a young woman shows her with very dignified posture. I can't say I continued to follow her advice!