January is often a month of reflection, a time to think about past and future, pattern and change.  Consequently, this month’s blogs are devoted to four individuals who have reflected on pattern and change in human movement – Henri Bergson, Warren Lamb, Irmgard Bartenieff, and Judith Kestenberg.

The French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1941) was deeply affected by the instantaneous photographs of Eadweard Muybridge.  While these snapshots of moving animals and people revealed aspects of movement too rapid to be perceived by the naked eye, Bergson also discerned that such images turned movement, which is an undivided process of change, into a series of static images.… Read More

In the Preface to Mastery of Movement, Laban cites the story of the centipede who became immobilized and died of starvation because it was ordered to “move first with its seventy-eighth foot, and then to use its other legs in a particular numerical order.”  Laban sees this as a warning against “the presumption of attempting a rational explanation of movement.”

Nevertheless, Laban knows that making movement the subject of focal awareness has many benefits.  For him, “application of the common principles of impulse and function is the only means that can promote the freedom and spontaneity of the moving person.”… Read More

Everything we do requires effort.  If we want to use our kinetic energies wisely, some degree of self-observation is required.  Yet this can be difficult because of what Michael Polanyi has termed subsidiary versus focal awareness.  Both aspects of perception are involved whenever working with tool.

For example, in hammering we attend to both the hammer and the nail but in different ways.  We watch the effect of our strokes in order to pound the nail effectively, yet we are also alert to the sensations in the hand holding the hammer.… Read More

Effort stood out when the dancer Rudolf Laban was asked to provide advice on efficiency in factory labor during the Second World War.  It wasn’t what workers were doing, but how they applied their kinetic energies that became his key concern.

Shifting the focus from what to how isn’t easy.  If you are like me, you have a long list of things that must be done before the holidays and the end of the year.

Everything on that list requires effort. … Read More

The holiday season can be stressful, so it is worth making an effort to work smarter, not harder. We could take advice from an expert named Jonathan Bing. Praised in song and verse, he liked to save trouble.

For example, he reasoned that if he never got up in the morning, he could save all the trouble of going to bed. This came in handy during the gift-giving season, for here is what he did with the trouble he saved:

“I wrap it up neatly and sent it by post
To my friends and relations who need it the most.”… Read More

In the 1870s advances in photography made it possible to capture rapid movement. Eadweard Muybridge was the first to do so.  His instantaneous photos of animal and human movements created a sensation because they captured aspects of movement never before seen by the eye alone.

Visual artists took notice.  The painter Frederic Remington simply incorporated Muybridge’s images into his paintings of galloping horses.  Other artists, such as the sculptor Auguste Rodin, claimed that Muybridge’s photos gave the appearance of someone suddenly stricken with paralysis, destroying the illusion of movement.… Read More