Blog post -
Salli chairs keep those hips moving!
I am a basketball player turned into a professional Latin dancer, teacher, and choreographer. As I started dancing at a very late age (my first Latin ballroom competition was at the age of 34) I have had to try to find every possible tool and idea, or biohack as I call them, to give me an advantage in improving the functioning of my body and mind. I count the Salli chairs as being one of those tools. Here is why.
Salli chairs have helped me tremendously in making my normal workdays more like mini movement practices for my spine, hips and back. The health and mobility of my spine, hips, and back is of course of paramount importance to me as a dancer. But probably everyone, especially in the Western world, would benefit from paying more attention to the functioning of their spine and hips. In fact, the creator of pilates, Joseph Pilates, once said that you are as young as your spine is flexible.
Sitting makes us stiff
Most people don’t even realize how stiff their bodies have become after years of sitting, first in school and later at workplaces, often coming home after workday only to do more sitting on the couch. When we don’t have the ability to compare our current state to how good we could feel it is easy to just accept the current state as normal, and not even realize how much better we could feel in our lives.
As a dance instructor I see this every day. Many first time salsa or Latin dancers think that some of the movements of the spine, hips, and back feel unnatural. In fact, it is actually the opposite: the state of their bodies have become unnatural and restricted, and they have lost the natural flexibility of the spine and mobility of the body. Just think of any young child and how mobile their limbs and bodies are.
On the left Mikko with Liz Lira who has won the salsa world championship nine times. On the podium together with his latest dance partner, Johanna Raatikainen – the gold medalists in the Finnish Latin Dance Championship competition, in Senior I class, in 2017 and 2018.
Even athletes can forget to take care of their bodies
Even when I was playing basketball at the highest university level in the United States I did not actually really understand how restricted and unable my body had become after years of monotonous training. This was not really the fault of the basketball, but just me not realizing how to take better care of my body and also to make sure that I mobilize it and help it recover better.
Despite starting Latin dancing at a late age I was able to make it to the Latin World Championships in Miami last year, all the way to the final round. So how did that happen? I have trained hard and done many things, of course, but one of the things in my tool kit I use almost every day has been sitting on a Salli chair. This way I can make sure that I keep my spine in a good position, with some hip mobility exercises to keep myself moving and grooving even as I am working at my Salli workstation.
Train hard but remember to recover
As I have worked with the Salli products and continued my dance journey it has become very clear to me that it is not only important to think how to train hard, but it is just as important, if not even more so, to think how you move and recover between your training sessions. For me that has meant making sure that my body, especially my hips and spine are in slight motion also throughout the day; this makes me feel better also about my other work projects.
Salli, thank you very much for your wonderful chairs and desks. We love your products here at our dance studio and our Biohacking Center.
Mikko Kemppe
Biohacker, Professional dancer
Related links
Topics
- Health Care
Categories
- sitting revolution
- ergonomics
- biohacking
- biohacker
- salsa
- training
- movement
- posture
- dancer
- dancing
- mikko kemppe
- saddle chair
- salli
