Deportment and female body language – a guide

Deportment and female body language

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Hand Gestures

When looking at your fingernails. Extend your fingers wide and hold your palm out.

Men tend to curl their fingers and bring them close to their face. Women will extend their fingers with their palm out and admire them from afar.

Another mannerism you will want to get used to is when you go to adjust your hair to pull it way from your cheeks or eyes. Don’t curl your fingers up and stroke the hair away. Instead, extend your fingers, this time holding them together, and flip it with the back of your finger-nails and fingers. A little head motion is also helpful. Flipping hair is one way to subtly flirt a little as well.

Whenever you are clutching something or making a fist for any reason don’t curl your fingers under. Let the pads of your finger tips touch your palm instead so that you can see the nails very clearly. Sometimes when you are walking swiftly you may hold your arm straight down with your hand in this fist position. The goal is to help reduce the amount of jiggle in your breasts.

If you are sitting at a table and want to lean your chin on your hand try the following. Place your elbow on the table extending your arm up vertically and let your hand relax. Rest your chin on top of the back of your hand. Or by extending your thumb and first finger out. Place your other three fingers in the fist position described above and place your chin in the L formed by the two fingers such that your finger extends up by your cheek.

Sitting

The key to sitting is to remember to keep your thighs together. If you have larger thighs you might try crossing your legs at the ankles. If you can manage, cross your legs so both extend down one over the other.

Before sitting down. Back up to the chair until you feel it with the back of your legs. Sit down and brush your skirt from behind to make sure it all comes forward. I like to sit sort of diagonal. Cross your legs at the ankle and touch the right side of my right calf with the side of the chair or couch. Turn my torso a little to the left.

Your mother always told you to sit up straight. Now is the time to be very conscious of that. If you are fairly masculine and a little heavy you will have a small belly and the more you slouch the more it will show. The more you stretch and sit up the more lean and self confident you will look.

Fold your hands in your lap always extending your nails when possible. Try to relax and feel natural.

Walking

Walking feminine, is one of the most difficult things to learn how to do. Although, once you know the techniques you can practice until you feel you have it right and then practice some more.

Watch and Learn
It’s suggested as a first step to take a trip to a busy shopping centre, sit down in a high traffic area and watch women walk. Watch the ones that are in a hurry, those that are taking their time, and others that are talking to their friends. Each walk is subtly different from person to person and what they are doing. Watch someone and close your eyes and imagine your self walking in their place so that it feels right. Once you have captured a few styles you like then while you are in the mall go find a full length mirror if you do not already have one. You’ll need it for practicing.

Get Ready
The next step is to go home and get dressed if you aren’t already. But do not just get dressed. While you are going through your routine, think of yourself as a girl. Throw any traces of masculinity away.

Walking Techniques
The basic foundation is simple to understand but it takes a little time to get down. Stand up straight and walk from the hips. Men walk from the legs. Women walk from the hips. Lean back slightly and extend your hips forward and let your legs and feet follow. If you are wearing heels, (you might want to start with 1″ or 1/2″ heels) be sure to point your toe forward slightly so that your heel and toes come down nearly simultaneously.

Be sure to have a handbag with you when you practice. Those that have a long shoulder strap wear on the shoulder.  Clutch the strap with your hand using the fist as described above then extend right arm down relaxing your hand if wearing on the left shoulder your opposite hand can be turned our slightly at the wrist pointing away from the body – many women swing their spare hand quite a lot compared with men.

Always look up and forward. Never look down at the ground. And try to hide your face. Look up and smile. If you are nervous, scared, or uptight then it will all show through and you will be appear suspicious – this is often why people stare and not you actually being ‘read’! They maybe thinking that woman looks suspicious – what’s she up to over there? The more you panic the more suspicious you look!!! And the situation can get quickly out of control!

Walking Gracefully
An ungainly gait can spoil a girls impact. If you waddle, weave, shuffle, mince, march, bob, or strut then would you like to learn to glide with queenly grace?

A graceful walk is actually good posture in motion; the traditional training method is to practice with a book on your head. Now, balancing a book (or anything else) on top of your head forces your body into proper alignment – and that is the foundation of both good posture and an attractive walk! Here’s how your body should shape up when alignment is correct: rib cage vertical, not tilted forward or backward… pelvis straight (if you had a tail, it would hang straight down, not tucked under between your legs!)… knees and feet pointing straight ahead. A plumb line would fall just in front of ankle bone, just behind kneecap, through center of hip joint and middle of waist, shoulder, ear lobe. (If you’d like to check yourself out, you can hang a tape measure down a full-length mirror and see.)

When you walk, your footprints should look like this: Feet are turned out just the tiniest bit and placed in almost a straight line – only an inch or two apart. The length of your stride is determined by how tall you are and how long your legs are. (Average stride is about one foot for women.) If you are long-legged and take small strides, your walk may be of the mincing variety – like a goose, it looks silly! Conversely, if you’re petite and have a long stride, you may look like a drill sergeant pompously marching along, and you need to shorten your stride a bit. In doubt about your footprint pattern? Try walking barefoot in wet sand. How your body’s weight is distributed when you stand or walk is vital.

The Mensendieck method of body mechanics advocates training muscles to automatically maintain the balanced standing position: Weight is not on heels, but on the ‘inner margin ball’ of the foot, just behind the big toe. Place your feet in a parallel position, tighten buttocks and inner thigh muscles, lower the shoulder blades and stretch the spine, pulling your head back and up (never let your head poke forward like a turtle). There! That’s the balanced standing position, and, once in it, your figure will look its very best! Now, relax a bit (but keep your weight on the inner margin ball of your feet), and start walking slowly. Swing legs from the hip socket (without twitching derriere at every step!) and keep your body aligned: shoulders level, head up and back, shoulder blades lowered, rib cage vertical. With each step, your heel hits the ground first… then weight instantly rolls forward along the outside edge of foot onto the big toe – with which you push off for the next step. This shift of weight is done smoothly, with a continuous, fluid motion.

Don’t take giant strides or tiny baby steps
Don’t toe in or toe out
Don’t Shift hips from side to side
Don’t lead with your head
Don’t swing your shoulders
Don’t bob up and down
That’s all there is to it! Happy walking… You never looked better!
Attitude
You have to appear self-confident. You have to condition yourself so that you feel that this is something you do every day of your life!

Remember think and behave positively, not suspiciously!