Bendy, Tight or Wilting… Which one are you ? 

Archetypes Are All Around Us

Archetypes shape, guide, inspire, and influence our lives in countless ways, often without us realising it. They act as universal patterns of behaviour, playing a role in how we think, act, and relate to the world around us.

Plato referred to archetypes as Forms—ideal templates or blueprints that pre-exist in a realm beyond the physical. Carl Jung described them as “primordial images” and “the fundamental units of the human mind,” embedded deep within our collective unconscious.

These archetypes are brought to life in the stories we tell. Every character you encounter in books, on television, or in films represents an archetype. Whether it’s the hero like ‘Superman’, the mentor such as ‘Yoda’ or the villain such as Jareth From ‘Labyrinth who played the classic trickster archetype. 

But did you know we all have movement archetypes too. Phillip Beach, in his groundbreaking work Muscles and Meridians, explores archetypes as primal movement patterns deeply embedded in human development and physiology. These archetypes, as he describes, are the foundational postures and movements that shape how our bodies interact with the world and evolve over time.

Beach suggests that archetypal movements, such as squatting, sitting, crawling, and reaching, are inherited from our evolutionary past. These patterns are hardwired into our neuromuscular system and represent the most efficient ways the human body is designed to move.

Taking this idea a step further it’s clear to me that us humans also have postural archetypes too.

Physical traits 

• Hypermobility 
• Likes to hang off joints 
• Has difficulty maintaining postural stability in certain movements 
• Increased risk of injury around the joint such as dislocation

Milly hanging off her joints 

Emotional traits 

• Bendy’s often like to go with the flow 
• They are not be fans of structure and can often lack boundaries 
• They can be a pushover
• They are often very creative with many becoming arts or musicians 

Focus points for training 

The big key with Bendy’s is proper strength training. They can often move very well but lack control and strength over that movement. Bringing the yang of strength training to their already overly Yin bodies will make for perfect harmony. 

Bendy’s often gravitate towards Yoga or other flexibility based methods simply because they are ‘good’ at them. It’s not uncommon to see Bendy’s do the splits or some crazy looking Yoga pose, but the truth is that Bendy’s would actually get far greater benefits from doing the things that they’re not quite so good at. 

I personally think that Bendy’s that are correctly trained can make for some of the best athletes in the world. When you move well and you can ‘own’ all those ranges you become unstoppable

Physical traits 

• Limited range of motion in muscles, joints or the fascia 
• General stiffness in movement 
• Chronic tightness particularly in the area such as the neck, back and shoulders 

Emotional traits 

• Tight is often reflected in guardedness. They are cautious and often reserved. 
• Stress can be an ongoing battle and they often feel ‘’stuck’’ 
• They are not great at giving up control and often need to be in the driving seat in order to feel comfortable 
• They often feel the need to present themselves as strong and dominant

Focus points for training 

Tighty’s or Gorilla’s would do well with extra mobility work along with breathing drills to release tension. Tighty’s often like to ‘rush’ and get things done as fast as they can but this is nothing more than ‘speed hiding need’. 

Tighty’s are often incredibly strong but burn out very quickly. This is partly due to their inability to relax within movements and simply breathe 

My personal go-to’s include lots of time on the ground simply rocking back and forth to calm the nervous system and rolling from supine to prone and prone to supine to down-regulate through tactile feedback 

Physical traits 

• Hunched shoulders with a forward protruding head
• A sense of heaviness and lack of energy 
• Weak stabiliser muscles 
• Knee valgus 
• Flat feet

Emotional traits 

• Wilter’s are often apathetic to the world 
• They often have feeling of isolation, sadness and depression can be common

Conclusion 

Understanding the Bendy, Tight, and Wilting archetypes provides valuable insight into how the body expresses balance—or imbalance—through movement, posture, and tension. These archetypes reveal not only physical tendencies but also emotional and behavioral patterns that influence how we move and interact with the world.

By identifying your dominant archetype or a combination thereof, you can take intentional steps to restore balance.

These archetypes remind us that balance is not about perfection but about adapting to what the body needs to thrive.

Side note – These are not the only posterual archetypes. I would argue there are many sub-categories including the anxious type, the asymmetrical one sider and the aligned. The 3 postural archetypes are simply just what I consider to be the most common.

If you’re wondering how to achieve an aligned posture… well it’s easy, just carry food on your head 😉