Somatic Mysteries

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We rely on our senses to perceive ourselves and other objects in the world.  We must always regard other objects from a third-person perspective.  However, as I explain in Beyond Words,  “we can combine objective and subjective perspectives when we consider our own bodies.”  This is due to dedicated sensory systems that provide information about one’s own body that is not directly available for other objects.

Nevertheless, the soma can be confused.  Out-of-body experiences, in which people report leaving their physical body and looking down on it from above, are the most widely-experienced forms of somatic misperceptions. … Read More

The Somatic Revolution

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In the previous two blogs I have been contrasting body language and body movement.  Body language tends to isolate still poses and particular gestures from the stream of ongoing bodily action and read fixed meanings into these snapshots.  In so doing, the process of change, which is the essence of movement, disappears, as does the broader context of sequential actions. Body language treatises tend to present a stilted and mechanistic view of movement behavior.  Perhaps this is why much of the study of body language promises to improve an individual’s ability to manage his/her image and manipulate others.… Read More

Body Movement Is In

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Henri Bergson, the French philosopher, was fascinated by how analytical thinking leads us to misperceive our own experience of being alive.  For Bergson, life is an unceasing, continuous, undivided process, a sort of cosmic movement.  Yet, we tend to conceive our lives as passing from feeling to feeling or thought to thought, as if each is separate, unchanging thing.  In reality, feelings and thoughts are themselves in a state of flux, and it is the experience of continuous changes that is central to the experience of being alive.… Read More

Body Language Is Out

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Virtually any time I tell someone that I am a movement analyst, I am met with a puzzled look and the query –“Oh, like body language?”

Warren Lamb hated having Movement Pattern Analysis characterized as body language, and rightly so.  Popular treatises on body language primarily focus on poses and isolated gestures and affix simple meanings to these.

For example, while trawling the internet recently, I came across a “scientific portal on body language” that explained the meaning of various poses and gestures. … Read More

Change of Any Kind Is Recuperative

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In her re-thinking of physical therapy through a Laban lens, Irmgard Bartenieff noted that “the basic activities of the body are lying, sitting, crawling, kneeling, standing, and walking.”  In dealing with back and leg pain caused by a herniated disk, I had to re-thinkthe rhythm of my workday.  Fortunately, I’m self-employed and work from home.  However, like many people, I had become accustomed to sitting at my computer for extended periods of time.   But during periods when my back problems were acute, I could not sit for any length of time comfortably.… Read More

Walking Is Recuperative

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According to a story in the Washington Post, mounting scientific evidence shows that sitting for long periods of time can lead to poor circulation, heart disease, and joint pain.  Unfortunately, many American adults sit for approximately eight hours a day on the job. However, a recent study at Indiana University showed that five-minute walking breaks reversed some of the negative effects of prolonged sitting, especially when integrated into the working day.

This study supports Rudolf Laban’s notion that working activities should be designed to incorporate active recuperation rather than passive rest periods or breaks. … Read More

Exertion and Recuperation

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When the dancer Rudolf Laban began to study work movement in British factories, two concerns predominated.  The first was efficiency; the second was fatigue.  By the 1940s, of course, there were laws governing the length of the workday and providing additional protection for the health and safety of workers.  Nevertheless, repetitive activity of any sort is tiring.  Human beings are not machines.  We cannot repeat any motion endlessly without the need for variation.

In turning his dancer’s eyes to repetitive labor, Laban identified a basic rhythm. … Read More

Movement and Health

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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. … Read More

Using Your Movement Pattern Analysis Profile

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I had my profile made by Warren Lamb almost forty years ago. So I think I’ve learned a bit about making use of the information in the profile.

In an earlier blog I noted that movement is a process of change. I can also say that learning to use your movement profile involves change. There are several distinct phases.

Phase 1:  You want to be 100 percent in every facet of decision making.
The relative magnitude of the different effort and shape elements in an individual’s repertoire comprise the movement pattern.… Read More

No One Wants a Bar of Soap

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There is a well-known marketing adage – no one wants a bar of soap. Customers want to be clean, have soft skin, or smell nice. By extension, no one wants a Laban Movement Analysis. Instead, our customers want to dance better, find a way to stop back pain, or gain insight into self and other.

Rudolf Laban called movement “man’s magic mirror.” He saw that movement reflects motivations, thoughts, and feelings. He drew analogies between the mastery of movement and the mastery of self.… Read More