Rhythm is sensing your harmony, ease, and free flow of energy. Relaxation does not mean going limp or collapsing. Relaxation is using the appropriate sets of muscles to perform a movement without bringing in other sets of muscles not needed. Relaxation means moving efficiently. It means resting while you are moving. The most essential gift of life that we all have is energy. The conservation and creative use of this energy is controlled by the rhythm in the way we move our bodies.
The inability to relax is often so enmeshed in emotional blocks that we are unaware of making relaxation the most difficult skill to achieve. Bad habits unconsciously reflected in our movements and body also prevent us from experiencing relaxation.
As we discover how to move naturally, operating out of universal principles that govern all bodies, we will gradually replace old tired habits with rhythmic and relaxed movement. As we discover how to reach every part of our body we will break up these emotional blocks that drain us of so much energy; instead we will experience rhythm and relaxation, and the enormous pleasure, harmony, and satisfaction in ourselves through sensitive movement awareness.
I believe natural movement has many values for you: you can be yourself and discover your own style rather than being like someone else or taking on an imposed style. You can learn about yourself. Natural movement leads to the potential of self-realization. You can heal yourself. You can increase your range of movement and your range of feelings and experiences and thus grow and develop on a personal level. Natural movement is a reflection of the life force.
In the larger work Movement Ritual I, from which this article has been excerpted, I have presented a series of movements which I call Movement Ritual I. In this brief essay I can’t give you the entire set of movements, with the accompanying drawings.1 Up to now I have given you my general approach to movement. I now want simply to stress the importance of doing a set of natural movements every day. I will describe some aspects of Movement Ritual I and then will give you the transitional movements which can lead either into the full ritual or into the daily tasks of your day.
Commonalities in Bodies
Movement Ritual begins with an awareness of breathing—a most natural way to begin since breathing is important both to the physical efficiency of our movements and to our psychic behavior. This point cannot be stressed too much.
At present, the diaphragm is the least understood part of the human body. It is tied up with every living function, from the psychic to the structural, and affects the most remote points of the body. Like the equator, it is the line of two great halves of being: the conscious and the unconscious, the voluntary and the involuntary, the skeletal and visceral. Improper use can divide these two halves, whereas an awareness can connect and make your movements whole.
One of the essential aspects of breathing that applies to movement is your mind observing the breath cycle.
The rhythmic cycle of breathing is in three intervals:
1. As you inhale, draw a fullness of air into the lungs deeply and effortlessly; allow the rib case to expand, be soft and resilient.
2. As you exhale, the air departs from the lungs until they are empty and the rib case sinks.
3. Between the inhalation and exhalation there is stillness. Linger in this stillness, wait, and the air will return of its own accord.
The breath will always lead; it is involuntary. There is no one proper way to organize breathing in relationship to movement. Each movement, according to its intention, will relate to breathing differently. Throughout Movement Ritual you will become aware of how to use your breath to make your movements more efficient and effortless.
As the breath is the flow of all the movements in Movement Ritual, the spinal column is the organizer. Imagine your body in this manner: the axial skeleton is the spine with the head, ribs, and sternum (the pelvis, arms, and legs all being outgrowths).
Along the spine are all the essential systems of the body including the nervous system, the digestive apparatus, the circulatory, respiratory, urinary and reproductive systems. It is for this reason that the movements of the spine become central for your attention and care. To understand how your spine operates, you need to understand that the spine has four curves.
In order to lighten and support your body you need to lengthen the spine. To increase your range of movement, to release tension, and to maintain healthy tone in the body, you need to become flexible and strong in the muscles surrounding your spine. You need to cultivate an accurate balance of the parts in your skeletal framework. Movement Ritual I is structured to emphasize this. Every movement is organized around spinal action. Drawing towards or away from the spine is inherent in every movement.
The lumbar or lower back region has the greatest built-in flexibility and capacity for strength, and consequently demands our greatest attention. Your ability to support the entire spine and shoulders, arms and head from your lower back makes this area sensitive to strain. Dr. Rene Calliet has written a book on the lower back-pain syndrome and in it claims that 80% of the members of the human race at sometime in their lives are affected by low back pain or injury.
Your spinal column is also central for the integrity and consciousness of your pelvic region. Through the use of your pelvis, hips and thighs, the balancing of parts, mobilization of weight bearing, shifting directions, and lifting takes place. The pelvic area has long been considered by the Chinese to be the body center, a holy and spiritual center, and visualized as the color red, symbolizing energy.
Differences in Bodies
Although our similarities are obvious, our differences are many and need to be taken into account, in terms of self-expectations and for deriving the most personal benefits. There are general differences that have to do with racial and cultural customs as well as age, occupation and sex. These differences have hardly been tapped as a source of study. Anthropological and sociological information would make valuable resource material for artists and educators. Racial and cultural differences I have noticed within the multi-racial community at the Dancers’ Workshop are that people of Asian ancestry tend to have flat-looking backs and a strong earth grounding. The Black members of our community tend to have short strap muscles and a sharp curve in the lower back, with enormous fluidity in the spinal column and pelvic region. (I carefully use the word “tend” to indicate a tendency rather than a stereotype.) Architects who lean over drafting boards have a tendency towards hunched shoulders, and people who are under continuous pressure tend to have forward heads and tension in the neck. I have danced with children for twenty years and was amazed to observe that youngsters tend to be just as tight and have similar postural problems as oldsters, and the people fifty years and over very often are as capable in movement as those twenty years and under. (T’ai Chi masters reach their ultimate perfection between eighty and ninety years of age.) Although men tend to be tight in the hip joints, with practice they can loosen up. Women are sometimes open around the hips but just as often are as closed as the men. Shorter people and children have an ease with gravity that taller people with long limbs may have to develop. Wiry types tend to be fast and darting in movements. We have all noticed that obese people can be light as a feather.
Differences are fascinating and can be appreciated and valued as positive ways of enriching movement with unique experiences and styles. Preconceptions of how one is supposed to move based on a preconceived belief system rather than true understanding, leads to conformity, uniformity and blind acceptance of arbitrary aesthetics. This type of prejudice is repressive to creative growth.
