Customer Reviews

Ageless Spine, Lasting Health: The Open Secret to Pain-Free Living and Comfortable Aging

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I have had back pain for 35 years, and have tried many things that have helped temporarily, including Tai Chi, Rolfing and other massage, Alexander Technique, chiropractic and yoga. All would help for a while but the improvements were temporary, because until I began studying under Jean Couch at the Balance Center in Palo Alto I didn't understand what the core problems were, and how to address them. Now, I am on a course of continuous improvement in my body, and able to sit, walk, lie down in any position and even run now without any pain or discomfort. I've been getting better daily for several years now, and it keeps getting better and better!

The primary lesson is that in the 1920s, flapper fashion brought about a change in posture that was unprecedented in history, and which has continued (and worsened) to this day. As we grow up, we learn these postural changes implicitly and explicitly from the people around us and the images we see in the media and film.

By studying photographs and artworks from before 1920, looking at contemporary indiginous people from around the world, and by studying young children before they begin to take on this cultural posture, we find that natural, comfortable stress-free posture means natural alignment of the body. When the body is aligned with itself and with gravity, we do not need to constantly hold ourselves against gravity. This allows us to move (and be static) with the maximum amount of relaxation possible. Who doesn't want that?

Kathleen Porter's wonderful book brings Jean's teaching to a much wider audience, and provides a terrific introduction to this critical knowledge. The photographs will provide you with a new model of what it is to inhabit your body comfortably, with a comfort, strength and solidity that you may have never imagined.

The information is not esoteric in any way. It is extremely practical, and while it may take years of self-reminders to completely unlearn a lifetime of habitual patterns, you will get immediate results that you can feel every day, and you will be on a path of continuous improvement.


Like the leaning tower of Pisa, when we are misaligned gravity will continue to pull us over. We have a choice to make: either continue our path and be bent to the ground, or go the other direction and align ourselves properly with the earth. The choice is yours: for the rest of your days you're going to either get more bent or more straight.


Nowadays when I meet people who haven't seen me in a few years they are amazed that I am taller, more vigorous, younger-looking and healthier than ever. I tell them that yes, I'm getting younger and younger all the time ;-) and I tell them why. It is my wish that everyone join us on this wonderful journey. Kathleen's book is the perfect beginning. Now it is up to you.

I have to tell you this book was a real eye-opener in so many ways. The entire concept of this book is to show us how we have fallen into wrong alignment of our body. I know that sounds uninteresting and confusing but believe me this book is neither. Our author, Kathleen Porter, explains the proper alignment our body should be in and how we lost it through the years. She goes into detail of the harm this has done to us and how it has contributed to allowing much pain within us and also the many problems of the bow look as we age, and that is just a few of the many problems improper alignment can bring. She uses words that are easy to understand in her explanations, shows pictures that will blow your mind away and gives us many ways to help our body get back in the correct alignment.
It amazed me in one part of the book where the author shows that a small woman had more strength than a muscle body builder and she explains how and why. I really liked this book and I have been sharing it with my family, several of whom are suffering from back problems. Don't get me wrong, it isn't just about correcting back problems but it's about overall improvement in our health. Give this book a try; I think you will find some incredible information that will definitely enhance your life.

sounds like it would be a boring topic, but it is anything but. Kathleen Porter's wonderful book, Ageless Spine, Lasting Health is readable and informative. Her explanation of the importance of natural alignment is easy to read and understand, but what is compelling and convincing is the collection of photos she has from around the world. Seeing with your own eyes the difference between balanced, healthy posture and artificial, improper posture is eye-opening to say the least. The saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words," is never more true than in this wonderful book.
As a yoga teacher I was reminded again in her book of the value of natural bone alignment. I have been able to share Porter's information with students, hopefully setting them on the path of greater overall health and well-being.
You have just got to see the photos in this book. A compelling tale they tell of how important it is to be conscious of how we hold our bodies and the difference between muscle strength and over-all body health.

So everyone should read this book. Ageless Spine, Lasting Health is an accessible, positive tutorial on our backs, and everything related to them - shoulders, head, ribcage, arms. The author has answered questions that I have worried about since I was in grade school (tilt the pelvis back, or front? go for perky breasts or relaxed ribcage? and what about the belly???). It's everything you need to know, and more, about your own architecture. Well illustrated and well written, this is a great book.

Kathleen Porter's book is must reading for anyone suffering from spinal disorders including disk degeneration, disk herniation, or back pain. The book presents a well reasoned, practical approach to an area of fundamental importance that probably does not receive enough attention in research and in treatment of spinal disorders. She provides an approach to reducing stress on the inter-vertebral disks and muscles through alignment of the bones by adopting a natural posture. While there is little scientific data to provide an evidence base for the importance of the approaches that she advocates, the anecdotal evidence and theoretical analysis that Ms. Porter provides with the use of photographs and schematic drawings makes for fascinating reading, and seems sensible and plausible. As a physician working on development of new non-operative treatments for spinal disorders such as disk herniation and low back pain, I would recommend the book to anyone interested in assessing different non-operative approaches to the achievement of improved spine health.

Are you plagued by aches and pains on a regular basis? Have you come to accept them as a normal part of everyday life? If so then this book may interest you very much. If not then the book may still interest you before you have those problems. Author Kathleen Porter examines how the spine should be aligned for continuing health and to prevent problems. This natural alignment creates a natural balance and comfort that makes the muscles of the body relaxed and comfortable because the spine correctly supports the body instead of the muscles trying to hold it up. She does an excellent job of describing exactly how the body was meant to work and how to return it to normal. The basic premise of this book is that with regular practice and awareness you can return your body structure to how it was meant to work. Ageless Spine, Lasting Health is a recommended read.

Kathleen Porter has created a highly informative as well as beautiful book about an important health issue....one that has been overlooked and sorely neglected (pun intended). Her simple yet powerful discoveries, innovative techniques, clear writing, and aesthetically superb layout make her book exciting, fun, and easily approachable. Anyone with a whisper of body pain....and who doesn't?...or anyone with a pinch of curiosity about health and well being will greatly benefit from the knowledge collected in this book. Finally, someone has revealed a concept so simple, yet so powerful. It's about time.

This is a great book which broke me out of the muscle-bound-fitness mindset, which actually can cause more problems by creating tight joints, inflexibility, tension, disc damage, and poor posture. Kathleen Porter's writing and examples are very convincing. I recommend checking out Stuart McGill's (The leading PhD back specialist) books on low back disorders for a very scientific perspective on back health, which supports Ms. Porter's book. These two authors' books have made me much healthier and have saved me a lot of (damaging) exercise time.

This book shows how the human body is designed to work, and how real fitness can come from standing, sitting and walking in a more natural way. The answer will not be found in developed muscles, but in muscles and properly aligned bones working together the "right" way.

Everyone has seen pictures of women in Africa and Asia carrying improbably large bundles on their heads, with seemingly no trouble at all. How do they do it? Having developed muscles is not the answer. They can do it because their spines, and the rest of their bodies, are in natural and proper alignment. Any structure, whether it is an arch, a building or a human skeleton, can carry a lot more weight when it is properly aligned than when it is not properly aligned. The book includes plenty of photos of aligned, and mis-aligned, skeletons.

The Western conception of fitness (the more developed muscles, the better) is actually bad for the body. For instance, strong rectus abdominis muscles, or "abs," are supposedly necessary to support the back, and they must be firm in order to be considered attractive. Cultural standards, to which all must conform, frequently have little to do with what is healthy or natural. Actually, relaxed "abs" allow the bones of the spine, sacrum and pelvis to naturally align to each other, and let the deeper transversus abdominis, or "corset" muscle, provide the required support.

The book also includes exercises, with pictures, showing how to sit, stand and walk so that your body's alignment will start to return to normal (didn't know you were doing it wrong, did you?). Realigning your body, and getting rid of your bad habits, will not be quick or easy, but it will help, even if you don't have any acute pain.

If the medical profession can only suggest a long and expensive course of treatment, you owe it to yourself to read this book, and try the exercises first. You will be glad that you did.

Overall, this is a good book. It shows how a more natural posture like that of young children can help reduce pain. It contains many pictures of people in cultures around the world who have this straighter, natural posture which allows them to carry heavy loads on their heads with no difficulty. (As an aside, if you want to see pictures of people carrying bricks and rocks on their heads, this is book for you; I started getting the sillies half-way through the book after seeing all those people with rocks on their heads not to mention the sacks of potatoes, firewood and bags of grain.)

On the con side, this book is poorly edited, especially when it comes to the photographs. That is, sometimes the text refers to photographs that aren't there, or left and right photographs are mixed up. It also has a few pages of hippy New Age philosophy, which I guess is pro, con or neutral depending on your point of view.

There is information in this book that is not in Esther Gokhale's "8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back," but if you had to choose between them, I would get Esther's book. It's larger, has more and better pictures, and is a professional effort.