ABSTRACT
In childhood development, acquisition of an upright posture is a fundamental milestone; for the first time the child “stands on his own feet”; in his selfacquired upright posture, which he only adopts duringwaking hours, his individuality takes on an immediate bodily presence. – Human uprightness is not the expression of specialization, of adjustment to external conditions; it represents a consummate equilibrium of the forces active in the formation of the human gestalt. R. Steiner [1999, 29] compares it to the results of a paral lelogram of forces: the head’s spherical shape, the brain, which almost floats in the buoy ancy of the liquor cerebrospinalis, “the entire human head constitutes a reproduction of the cosmos.” This forms a contrast to the long bones, particularly those of the lower extremities, which the human being can position directly in his axis of gravity, thereby relieving his musculature.
