Tina Hermensen

This is a 1965 Lydia Lane article. Enjoy!

(No photo, sorry!)

“Lack of confidence can cause many problems and much unhappiness,” Tina Hermensen believes. “When my mother asked me in an emergency to take over her modeling school, I found that most of the girls had enrolled because a feeling of insecurity. “It was interesting to see the great change in their appearance and personality once they had gained assurance that their clothes, hair and make up were right for them,” she told me on the CBS-TV The Loner set.

“I began training them to correct their posture. You can spoil a good impression when you don’t stand and move gracefully. The common mistakes are these,” Tina said, as she amused us by walking slumped over, swaybacked, slue footed, moving from the knees with a sort of waddle and walking with stiff legs putting the heel down first. “Once posture is corrected, these aults tend to disappear,” she said. Here are two of Tina’s favorite posture exercises: Bend over, touching the floor with your fingertips while keeping your knees straight.

Keep your neck relaxed and try to come up one vertebra at a time. When your head is erected your body should have balance. Try to retain this feeling when you walk. To build a strong back, stand against a wall, heels a few inches apart. With knees bent, try to press your back so tightly against the wall that you cannot push in one finger.

Slowly straighten your knees trying not to have a space form in the center of your back. “Practicing every day will eventually make it possible for you to press your spine flush against the wall. When this day comes you can be assured of an erect posture,” Tina said.