In his Nîmes office, the light is soft and the silence is almost studious. Here, no futuristic machines or screens covered with colored curves. Just an attentive look, a standing patient… and a simple question: how do we stand in space?
Steven Maché welcomes his patients with the quiet curiosity of practitioners who observe before acting. At the age of 45, this engineer from a medical background turned to posturology almost out of intellectual necessity. “I needed to understand”he confides. Understand why certain bodies constantly compensate, why pain persists despite treatments, why balance becomes disrupted.
Since October, he has set up his equipment on Avenue Jean-Jaurès and receives his meetings in a clear and pleasant setting. The session always starts with the feet. With the shoes removed, the patient simply stands up. The arch of the foot and its supports already tell a story: weight distributed asymmetrically, discreet sagging, shifting support. “The foot is a major sensor. If it gets disorganized, everything else follows.” The pelvis shifts, the shoulders adjust, the head projects. The body adapts. He holds. Until one day he gets tired.
The assessment lasts almost an hour and a half. Verticality tests, detailed observation of posture, evaluation of sensory sensors: vision, inner ear, proprioception. Because posture is not just a matter of muscles. It depends on a permanent dialogue between the nervous system and these sensors which inform the brain of our position in space.
Support in relearning
Steven Maché knows something about this. It was in London as a student that he discovered during a conference that he was dyslexic.. “It shed light on so many things! Especially my educational background. I had poor results in French, but I was very good at maths so at the time, we didn’t look any further.” A diagnosis that is extremely widespread today and which science is looking into. The latest investigations have highlighted that one of the possible causes would be an oculomotor disorder: the eyes poorly stabilize information, forcing the body to constantly compensate. And when a sensor malfunctions, the nervous system works harder. And it wears you out.
Patients come for stubborn lower back pain, stubborn neck pain and migraines. Others consult for attention disorders, diffuse stress, a feeling of instability. In children, from eight or nine years old, certain academic difficulties can be illuminated differently when we observe the posture and coordination of the eyes.
Depending on the information collected during the assessment, Steven first takes care to refer to specialized health professionals: orthoptists, orthopedists, etc. Because posturology then offers an adjustment, which can sometimes change everything. A thin, almost invisible sole may be enough to redistribute the support. Some specific exercises re-educate the gaze. The body finds space. “We don’t force, we support”he insists. Follow-ups generally last four to sixteen appointments. The time necessary to give the nervous system the opportunity to integrate the new landmarks. Because one of Steven’s specificities is this support during relearning. “Because the body must relearn how to evolve without the crutches it had built up until then and evolve in a completely natural way from now on with the right posture for the patient.”
Posture as a vector of healing
What is striking when discovering this practice is the almost philosophical dimension of the approach. Posture tells us how we inhabit the world. One shoulder higher than the other, a tilted head, a crushed foot reflect years of silent adaptation. Restoring more stable support sometimes means restoring a form of confidence.
At a time when screens capture eyes and freeze necks, the discipline asks a simple and radical question: how do we really stand? For Steven Maché, the answer lies neither in performance nor in constraint. It holds in a precise, almost imperceptible fit. Until the body stops fighting and holds on. Standing.
Understanding the issues of Posture
Meet next Thursday, April 2 at the Coeur d’Amelite, near the Nîmes convention center, to understand the issues of posture with Steven Maché. Meet at 6:30 p.m.
