Effort and Imagination

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effort and imagination“Effort is visible in the action movement of a worker, or a dancer, and it is audible in song or speech,” Laban observes in Mastery of Movement.  “The fact that effort and its various shadings can not only be seen and heard, but also imagined, is of great importance for their representation by the actor-dancer.”

Awakening the imagination is an important part of enriching one’s dynamic range.  Laban draws a close link between imagination and playing.  During play, he explains, the child experiments with all imaginable situations —  offense, defence, ambush, ruse, flight, fear  — searching for “the best possible effort combination for each occasion.”  He adds, in children, “we call it play; in adult people we call it acting and dancing.”

Effort patterns become habits as one matures, Laban notes, and that is why young humans “have a much more varied scale of effort capacities at their disposal than their elders.”  This statement reminds me of Isadora Duncan’s observation that most people resort to a set of habits, and “with these few stereotyped gestures, their whole lives are passed without once suspecting the world of dance which they are missing.”

Revitalize your own dynamic range and stimulate your movement imagination in the forthcoming Red Thread workshop, “Expanding the Dynamosphere,” July 22-23, in New York City.

Beyond Mechanical Movement

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mechanical movementIn discussing the actor who is an artist, Laban writes “this kind of performer concentrates on the actuation of the inner springs of conduct preceding his movements, and pays little attention at first to the skill needed for presentation.”  In other words, this actor focuses on the inner intention to move.

For Laban, this inner intention manifests through visible behavior as EFFORT.  Effort reveals itself as a fighting or indulging attitude towards one of the four motion factors of flow, weight, time, and space.  These attitudes color the way a given action is done, imparting a perceptible quality and making movement meaningful.

As human beings, we can exercise a great deal of conscious control over how we move.  We can learn to make a physical effort – to be gentle and to push harder, to move quickly and gradually, to control and focus our motions or let them flow freely and indirectly.  We can put on a good show.

Without linking thought, feeling, and action, however, movement becomes mechanical.  From Laban’s perspective, meaningful effort requires inner participation.

Activate your inner springs of motion in the upcoming Red Thread workshop, “Exploring the Dynamosphere,” July 22-23, in New York City.

Effort Shape and Individual Difference

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movement pattern analysisLamb affirmed that “effort goes with shape organically.”  Yet careful study of an individual’s movement pattern will reveal an emphasis on effort more than shape, or vice versa.   Lamb came to feel that this difference was fundamental and significant.

For example, he observed that an emphasis on effort reflected an Assertion-oriented approach to decision making.  Such a person is driven, applying his or her energies, both physical and mental, to make things happen.  This decision-maker gets results by focusing, applying pressure, and setting the pace.

An emphasis on shape reflects a Perspective-oriented approach to decision making.  An analogy to drawing is helpful here.  If I’m drawing an apple, and I change my position relative to this object, my view and perspective also changes.  Thus shifting places and shaping the body allows the decision-maker to see the situation from different angles, broadening the scope, gauging value, and projecting the steps needed to reach a goal.

Recent pilot studies have shown that the relative emphasis on either Assertion or Perspective is predictive of how much information and how much time an individual needs to make a decision.   These results demonstrate the validity of movement  analysis when compared with other established criteria for discerning individual differences in decision making.

There is, of course, much more nuance in a Movement Pattern Analysis profile.  From a research perspective, however, it is vital to test the most global factors first before digging deeper.  With positive results to date, research efforts can continue.  There is still much to be learned!

Effort and Inner Life

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Effort is not only about doing; it is also about being, or what Rudolf Laban calls movement thinking.  “Movement thinking could be considered as a gathering of impressions of happenings in one’s own mind, for which nomenclature is lacking.  This thinking does not serve orientation in the external world but rather it perfects man’s orientation in his inner world.”

Laban relates movement thinking to effort in the following way: “Man’s desire to orientate himself in the maze of his drives results in definite effort rhythms.”  Laban goes on to describe these drives in effort terms.  The way he conceives it, there are four effort drives:  the Action Drive, the Passion Drive, the Vision Drive, and the Spell Drive.  Laban’s mapping of effort rhythms makes it possible to explore this world and its inner landscapes by moving mindfully.  I had one such adventure during my training to be a movement analyst.

I chose a phrase with the Spell Drive configuration in it.  The Spell Drive combines effort qualities of space (direct or indirect), weight (strong or light), and flow (bound or free).  Spell is the timeless drive, hypnotic and mesmerizing.  As I note in Meaning in Motion, “When our sensation of the passing of time disappears, we usually find the experience to be slightly unreal, even uncanny.”   And that is indeed what happened to me.

I struggled to embody an effort rhythm combining strong, bound, and indirect qualities.  When I finally succeeded, I was transformed into a Grendl-like creature.  It was a very real experience. It shook me up, and started me on a long journey to understand the psychological ramifications of effort.

We use effort to assert our will over things in the outer world, but the effort choices we make also influence our inner worlds.