The 📝Postural / Structural Realignment Glossary collects the posture, tension-pattern, and gravity terms used when 📝Postural / Structural Realignment work appears in a Somatic Realignment Therapy session note or protocol, defined in plain language for clients; every term describes a pattern or a sensation, not a diagnosis.
Glossary
A
- 📝Alignment — how the body's segments stack over one another in relation to gravity, described as a pattern rather than a verdict.
- 📝Anterior Chain — the muscles and fascia along the front of the body, which tend to shorten with long sitting.
- 📝Anterior Pelvic Tilt — the pelvis tipped forward so the low back arches more and the belly moves forward.
B
- 📝Base of Support — the area under and between the feet that the body balances over.
- 📝Bracing — holding muscles tight to feel stable, a habit the work aims to make unnecessary.
C
- 📝Center of Gravity — the point around which body weight balances, usually just in front of the sacrum.
- 📝Compensation — one area doing extra work because another is restricted, shortened, or weak.
D
- 📝Differentiation — learning to move one segment, such as the pelvis, without the neighbors joining in.
F
- 📝Forward Head Posture — the head resting ahead of the shoulders when seen from the side.
- 📝Functional vs. Structural — whether a difference, such as leg length, comes from soft tissue and habit, which can change, or from bone, which cannot.
G
- 📝Plumb Line — the vertical reference running through ear, shoulder, hip, knee, and ankle, also called the gravity line.
- 📝Grounding — feeling weight through the feet or seat as the starting point for organizing upward.
H
- 📝Holding Pattern — a habitual tension the body keeps even at rest, often outside awareness.
K
- 📝Kyphosis — the spine's natural backward curve through the upper back; "hyper" means more curve than usual, "flat" means less.
L
- 📝Leg Length Discrepancy — one leg measuring or functioning shorter than the other.
- 📝Lengthening — restoring resting length to shortened tissue so a segment can settle back toward neutral.
- 📝Line of Pull — the direction a shortened tissue drags a segment, which the practitioner traces before releasing it.
- 📝Lordosis — the spine's natural forward curve through the neck and low back; "hyper" means more curve than usual, "flat" means less.
- 📝Lower Crossed Pattern — tight hip flexors and low back paired with underactive glutes and abdominals, a common desk-sitting shape.
N
- 📝Neutral — a segment resting in the middle of its range without effort.
O
- 📝Organization — how a person arranges the whole body around a task or a pull, which is what realignment works on.
P
- 📝Pelvic Neutral — the pelvis balanced between anterior and posterior tilt.
- 📝Posterior Chain — the muscles and fascia along the back of the body, often lengthened and underworked in desk patterns.
- 📝Posterior Pelvic Tilt — the pelvis tucked under so the low back flattens.
- 📝Postural / Structural Realignment — guiding posture and tension patterns toward balance through soft-tissue and movement work, never a spinal adjustment or a structural correction.
- 📝Protraction and Retraction — the shoulder blades sliding forward around the ribs or back toward the spine.
R
- 📝Realignment — in this practice, improved awareness, more movement options, regulation, and ease, not a bone moved into a correct place.
- 📝Rib Position — whether the ribcage rests over the pelvis or lifts and flares forward.
- 📝Rotation — a segment turned about its vertical axis, as when one hip sits forward of the other.
S
- 📝Scapular Position — where the shoulder blades rest: winged, elevated, protracted, or settled.
- 📝Stacking — arranging head over ribs over pelvis over feet so bones rather than muscles carry the load.
- 📝Sway Back — the hips pushed forward of the ankles with the upper body leaning back to balance.
T
- 📝Tone — the low-level resting tension in a muscle, which the work aims to make even rather than high or absent.
U
- 📝Upper Crossed Pattern — a tight chest and back of the neck paired with underactive deep neck flexors and mid-back, the classic screen-facing shape.