Many of you who follow me may know by now about my furniture free home, or what should be better described now as my ‘low furniture home’ as I do now have a few more traditional furnishings. But even with a regular bed, and a couple living room seats (I keep them not overly comfortable on purpose, no Lazy Boys here), I still make sure my home is very focused on passive and active movement.
So why sit on the floor?
There are many reasons; you can practice mobility. It allows you to get on many more irregular positions. It has you move more. And getting up and down from the floor promotes strength, flexibility, mobility and even longevity.
Knowing these benefits, I really focus my floor sitting practices by using a number of sitting positions that I will cover. Make sure to check out my blog on ‘Functional Furniture: College to Classy’ to see some interesting non-traditional western seating that may help you discover the best ways to fuse movement and irregular positions with home décor.
> Coincidentally, as I am getting ready to post this, I just received an email today from The Blue Zones newsletter named ‘Why the Okinawan Practice of Sitting On The Floor is Linked to Health, Mobility and Longevity’. And a quote from this article, “Studies corelate the ability to sit and rise from the floor without support with a longer life expectancy. Sitting on the floor also develops musculoskeletal fitness”.
Below I have posted my 7 Sits. The seven sitting positions that are the most functional to our overall mobility, flexibility, basic body strength and long-term health.
My 7 Sits
1. The Crosses – this actually is an umbrella category, as there are quite a number of ways to sit cross-legged, but here are my 4 go-to’s (and believe me, I cannot even do them all).
A - The Standard
B - Stacked knees (Fire Log position)
C – Lotus (high feet)
D - The Butterfly: While technically not a cross position, I include it.
E - Cow Face
2. The Straight Up
3. The Kneel
4. The 90/90
5. The In/Out
6. The Take a Knee
7. The Worldly Squat - A note here. I actually find having a very low (12 inch, and remember I’m 6 foot 4) stool can help me with this. It is primarily a visual reminder to sit in a squat, and I can sit on it and do some lite mobility work, leaning my weight onto one leg or the other.
*Using a squat stool to help me get low.
Practice all of these sitting positions as often as possible. If one of them feels tight or uncomfortable, try changing positions a bit, but also spend time trying to figure out why and working on it. There is no set amount of time to be in either, the goal is to just be in them as often as possible.
Watch for my next article on functional furnishings to add more movement to your home.