I walked by a shop window, and when I realized that the reflection in the glass was me, I was stunned. I had to do a double-take. Who was that woman with rounded shoulders? I spend hours at my computer, constantly bending forward to read or write something. I have done extensive study, through the Harkness Ballet of New York, about imagery and alignment, and I realized that somewhere along the way, my posture—and how I see myself—had gone astray. Once the feeling of a posture has been firmly established in our brains, we only have to recall the sensation and our body will automatically respond by reproducing the posture. The firmer the image or memory of this posture, the more mental pathways we have to improve our alignment. This is how postural image, that is, a picture of ourselves in a certain posture and the memory of that posture, …