Movement is good for you! Increasingly medical research is underscoring the health benefits of bodily motion. Yet this is hardly news. Prior to World War I, Rudolf Laban began giving movement classes in southern Switzerland. In the nearby Kuranstalt Monte Verita, according the Mary Wigman, “there were a number of very sick people who believed that the warm sunny climate would ease their suffering.”
An elderly lady bound to her wheelchair who suffered from an incurable kidney disease was among those attracted to Laban. Wigman was asked to assist Laban in a private movement lesson with the afflicted lady, although Wigman was terrified that something terrible would happen if Laban made the woman move around.
Wigman describes the lesson in the following way. After the afflicted lady was wheeled into the studio, Laban lifted her into another chair and conversed with her. Gradually he introduced relaxing exercises of the head, arms, and shoulders. Then he went so far as to make her lift her legs and move her feet! As Wigman recalled, “The drooping body of the suffering woman started to straighten up, the dull eyes came to life. It was as if she had been raised from the dead.”
Wigman continues: “It was then that for the first time in my life I understood how much natural healing power is inherent in the movement of human body if, focused on the individual case, the movement is correctly perceived and well applied in the right dose.”
The following blogs explore the healing power of movement further.