Let the Posing Begin!

For those of you who have never seen a figure competition, it consists of walking onto the stage, standing in front of the judges and turning quarter turns to display all sides of her physique. Then the competitor walks & stands to the side of the stage while the rest of the contestants do the same quarter-turn routine. Once all competitors have had their individual moments in the spotlight, the judges will call out certain women to stand side by side for comparisons. The ladies who have not been called must wait in a relaxed* position of the stage.

It all looks pretty simple. Walk on stage. Turn around a few times. Walk to side of stage. Stand there. Come when called. Return to side of stage. Walk off stage.

Turns out it's not quite that simple. I have had the pleasure of working with my Posing Coach, Sheilahe Brown, twice now. Sheilahe is a National Level bodybuilding competitor who looks absolutely FABULOUS. And her personality is bigger than she is!

Sheilahe showed me how to properly stand for the judges in a *relaxed pose. It's just like standing any other time, except that I hold in my belly, stick out my booty, lift my chest (she didn't care when I said, "That's as high as it goes!"), hold my arms like parentheses at my sides, relax my hands, hold fingers in a "ta-da" position, push my shoulders forward (to show off the lats), tilt my torso backwards, hold my head up high, keep feet together, turn knees outward, slightly bend knees, no - straighter, no - bend them again, and smile. See what I mean? Relaxed.


Once I got that down, the hour was up. Okay not really. I haven't gotten it down. Yet.

We did actually work on other things in that hour. We worked on a proper turn - relaxing the arms, keeping eye contact, tilting shoulders properly for the side views, stepping to the side vs. stepping back, turning on toes, always keeping the belly tight and smile working! Lucky for me, the back view is just like the front Relaxed view -- so, No Sweat.

Oh wait. I forgot to mention the sweat. Let me tell you it is not easy keeping everything contracted and tight and lifted and tilted while trying to look relaxed. I think I sweat more during my posing session than in a normal training session. "Sweated"? "Swote"? shrug.


The good news is that Sheilahe didn't make any adjustments to my walk, other than keeping my torso turned toward the judges. Imagine the Egyptian paintings: feet and hips face forward, shoulders turned sideways. And keep my strut. You got it. (Insert Bangles joke here.)

I'll be working with Sheilahe more in the future - the more comfortable I get with how it should be, the easier time I'll have on stage. Any given moment at home or around town you might see me practicing the Relaxed Pose. If you see me sweating while standing still, please make sure I'm smiling. And that my chest is up. And booty is out. And....you know the drill.