Effort and Human Potential

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Since the discovery of neuroplasticity (the lifelong capacity of the human nervous system to regenerate and form new neural pathways), we aging Baby Boomers have been admonished to reinvent ourselves and learn new things, presumably so we will stay young forever.

This is, of course, hard advice to follow.  Not everyone wants to take up scuba diving or have a second career. Moreover, we are creatures of habit.  And one hallmark of skilled movement is that it has become, at least in part, automatic.

The common, everyday movements we make are the hardest to change.  We ascribe little significance to such habits until they are interrupted.  I speak from experience.  I postponed microsurgery for a herniated disk, not because I was afraid of the surgery, but because I dreaded the aftermath – six weeks of no bending, twisting, or lifting!

To prepare for these restrictions, I not only had to rearrange my home, I also had to rehearse moving in a different way.  Avoiding twisting and lifting didn’t seem so hard, but no bending?  How many times a day did I bend my back without even noticing?

Nevertheless, as Rudolf Laban explains, man “has the possibility and advantage of conscious training, which allows him to change and enrich his effort habits.”  This kind of change can almost be thought of as a meta-effort, or what Laban calls “humane effort.”  This is the effort applied to overcome habits and to develop more desirable qualities and inclinations.

Laban continues, “We are touched by the suggestion of quasi-humane efforts of devotion, sacrifice, or renunciation displayed by animals.  Such may or may not have a foundation in fact.  But we take it for granted that every man is able, and even almost under an obligation, to foster such kinds of effort.”

These quotes are taken from Laban’s book, The Mastery of Movement.  But he is not merely discussing the mastery of movement, he is also addressing the mastery of the self.   Or I should say “selves.”  For our humanity rests, not only on the reiteration of an embodied identity based on effort patterns, but also on our capacity to change movement habits through humane effort, and by so doing, change ourselves.

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.

Effort and Assertion

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Every voluntary human movement involves applying energy to change the position of the body.  Energy can be applied in many different ways.  Rudolf Laban referred to these various qualities of kinetic energy as effort.  Similarly, the moving body can trace many different shapes as it traverses space.  Consequently, the human beings possess a richer range of motion than most other species.   As Laban observes, “When jumping the cat will be relaxed and flexible.  A horse or a deer will bound wonderfully in the air, but its body will be tense and concentrated during the jump.”   A human being, however, “can jump like a deer, and if he wishes, like a cat.”

Voluntary movement is intentional. Thus our bodies serve as an immediate means of acting on the environment to our satisfy needs.  We must make an effort to act.  However, according to Warren Lamb, “Effort goes with Shape organically…. The fact is we can never do Effort without Shaping and, if we emphasise the Shaping we still have to make an Effort.  The two are a duality, inseparable from each other, and fundamental to balance.”

Though fundamentally inseparable, it is possible for an individual to place more emphasis on effort than on shape, or vice versa.   This differential emphasis will characterize how the individual goes about acting in the world.

For example, Warren Lamb found that when a person emphasizes effort, he or she takes a more assertive approach.  Being assertive is commonly seen as being direct in claiming one’s rights, insistent, demanding and even aggressive.  In movement behavior terms, however, being assertive simply means applying one’s bodily energies to make things happen. The assertive person will believe that almost anything can be accomplished if he or she maintains focus and applies enough pressure at the right time.

This is the effect of an effort emphasis focused outwardly, on doing.  But effort also plays an important role in the inner life.  I take up this subject in my next blog.

Movement and Health

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Untitled design (2)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.

 

The Mind in the Body

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According to Rudolf Laban, “The dancer moves, not only from place to place but also from mood to mood.” This simple statement establishes movement as a psychophysical phenomenon. Indeed, Laban was ahead of the embodied cognition theorists, for he recognized that bodily movement happens in two domains – the physical domain of visible space and the psychological domain of thought and feeling.

iStock_000063155001_MediumThoughts and feelings cannot be observed directly, but they can be inferred from how a particular action is performed. Laban conceived the how of human movement as effort — the application of varying qualities of kinetic energy. He went on to hypothesize relationships between the motion factors that comprise human effort and psychological functions. For example, he related the motion factor of space to giving Attention, noting “the predominant tendency here is to orientate oneself… either in a direct way or in a circumspective, flexible one.”

 

Laban associated the motion factor of weight with Intention, observing that “the desire to do a certain thing may take hold of one sometimes powerfully and firmly, sometimes gently and slightly.”

Finally Laban linked the motion factor of time with Commitment, commenting that “decisions can be made either unexpectedly and suddenly … or they may be developed gradually by sustaining conditions over a period of time.”

At the upcoming Embodied Decision Making seminar, we explore these intriguing correlations through movement, observation, discussion, and self-reflection. Find out more…

Writing about Laban’s Choreutic Theory

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I was intrigued when I first read Rudolf Laban’s Choreutics as an undergraduate dance student.  I didn’t really understand it, but I found it inspiring.

Later, when I did the “Effort/Shape” Program at the Dance Notation Bureau, I loved the space material.  I could feel spatial tensions, certain places in the kinesphere immediately evoked images for me, and I appreciated the physical challenge of the scales.

Teaching space harmony, however, presented other challenges.  As I have discovered, many students respond negatively to this part of Laban theory, with reactions ranging from mere confusion to outright loathing.  Over three decades of teaching this material, I have experimented constantly to find ways to make Laban’s notions of space both accessible and meaningful.  Space is, I believe, the hardest part of Laban Movement Analysis to teach really well.

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Writing about space harmony is equally challenging.   As Jeffrey Longstaff once noted, natural language is not well-suited for spatial description.  Laban certainly would agree.  In order to present his ideas about space, he developed elaborate geometrical schemes that are more visual than verbal.  I believe these are brilliant, though not user-friendly at first glance.

Explaining Choreutic theory on the printed page involves two challenges. First, Laban’s geometrical schemes must be presented in a logical sequence.  Secondly, the geometry of space must be related to the felt sense of moving.

I have revised the space chapter in Meaning in Motion:  Introducing Laban Movement Analysis  many times in order to make the material accessible for college students who are just being introduced to Laban’s way of thinking about movement.  In addition to geometrical drawings, I have included photos in which the spatial form of the movement is clear.  And I’ve provided “Creative Explorations” to allow students to embody the material.  For as I note in the book,  “In contrast to standard dance practice, Laban’s outline of harmonic forms leaves most details of embodiment unspecified.  As a result, the mover must draw upon his or her inner resources to bring these harmonic sequences to life.”

Movement Analysis is a Physical Activity

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Like other physical activities, observing movement is a process that involves effort and recovery. The following excerpt from my book, Beyond Words, describes movement analysis as a process consisting of four phrases: (1) relaxation, (2) attunement, (3) point of concentration, and (4) recuperation.

Relaxation
The initial preparatory stage involves relaxation as the observer strives to “get in the mood” for whatever will come. This takes the form of letting go in order to achieve a state of mind analogous to the “unfocused focus” of the naturalist who “goes alone into a field or woodland and closes his mind to everything but that time and place, so that life around him presses in on all the senses and small details grow in significance” (Wilson, 1986, 103).

Attunement
A second phase in the observation process is attunement. Attunement is to detailed movement analysis what a rough draft is to a finished chapter. Attuning allows one to sense the movement process in a sketchy and general way without feeling pressured to describe these perceptions in detail. We have all been observing movement since we were born. Nevertheless, when we are asked to observe, the process often strikes us as novel and difficult. Attuning allows us to use our senses of sight, hearing, and kinesthesis to establish contract with what we perceive, thus warming us up for more demanding tasks to come. 

Point of Concentration
Movement is comprised of multiple, on-going changes in the use of body, space, and dynamics. When we try to pin down what we see, as we do when analyzing movement with the Laban system, the multifaceted nature of the movement can prove to be mind-boggling. For this reason, it is often very useful to choose a single point of concentration and to study that element of movement only. Such concentration sorts the complex movement experience into simpler and more familiar units and keeps the observer from being overwhelmed.

Recuperation
As might be expected, the intense concentration needed for the third phase of the observation process can be quite draining. As a consequence, the observer must build phases of recuperation in, if he or she wishes to keep the powers of perception fresh and acute.

There are many concrete techniques that the observer can use to relax, attune, analyze effectively, and recuperate. Learn how in the forthcoming Tetra seminar. Register by March 1 for the early registration discount.

In Praise of Whole Body Movement

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Shakespeare praised man’s “infinite faculties”. But human beings are constantly in danger of coming apart. Whether we bifurcate the individual into body and mind or even greater divisions (ego, ID, superego; thinking, feeling, sensing, intuiting, etc.), keeping it together is a uniquely human challenge.

Body movement is one medium through which these divisions can be unified. Laban created physical practices to facilitate the integration of man’s infinite faculties. This part of Laban’s work is known as “choreutics” or space harmony. Laban characterizes his choreutic exercises as “attempts to stop the progress of disintegrating into disunity”.

Laban’s space harmony sequences trace large symmetrical patterns through the kinesphere, or the space around the body. In conventional embodiment, the right or left arm leads, sweeping through three-dimensional space. This limb action must be coordinated with steps and support through the lower body. This necessitates flexion, extension, and rotation of the spine and changing patterns of counter-tension through the whole body. Laban’s choreutic sequences are “harmonic” because they demand coherent coordination among all the different parts of the body.

To the post-modern eye, this coherence appears simplistic. Post-modernity demands specialization and this is reflected in complex use of isolated body parts in post-modern dance forms. The wit and virtuosity of fractionated movement in hip hop is fascinating and fun. Nevertheless, there is virtue in whole body movement.

So if you are reading this while sitting at a computer, stand up. Stretch. Do a lunge. Make a big shape that involves your whole body. Better yet, come to the Tetra and learn some of Laban’s choreutic exercises. There is more to these than meets the eye!

For the early registration discount, register for Tetra by March 1.

Form and Color in Painting and Dance

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The artist Wassily Kandinsky and the dancer Rudolf Laban were contemporaries and moved in the same bohemian circles in Munich in the early 20th century. Interesting parallels run through their theoretical works.

Kandinsky observed that “painting has two weapons at her disposal: 1) colour, 2) form”. He goes on to note that there is an “essential connection between colour and form”.

An analogous delineation of elements can be found in Laban’s notions of effort and shape. Effort – qualities of dynamic energy – give expressive color to bodily actions. Shape – the imaginary vapor trails traced by moving limbs on the space around the body – give dance its form.

Similarly, there is an essential connection between effort and shape, for as Warren Lamb writes, “We cannot move in making an Effort without an accompanying movement of shaping.”

In painting, both color and shape are fixed in time and limited to a two-dimensional canvas surface. In dancing, effort and shape are constantly changing, appearing and disappearing as the dancer moves through three-dimensional space. In motion capture recording, the dancer disappears but the dance itself becomes visible, leaving a tracery of lines that look as if the dancer has been scribbling on empty space itself.

Nevertheless, Laban observes that this scribble, “can be divided into sections which resemble the Arabic ciphers: 1 2 3”. The forms in dance are produced by the limbs of the body and governed by their anatomical structure. According to Laban, this restricts dance forms to simple shapes from which “innumerable combinations are made”.

In the forthcoming Tetra seminar in March, Cate Deicher and I draw upon Laban’s artistic background for source material to stimulate movement invention and the exploration of shape. Register by March 1 for the early registration discount.

 

Bartenieff Fundamentals and Healing through Movement

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Recent encounters with physical therapy have given me a new appreciation of Irmgard Bartenieff, my first Laban teacher. Bartenieff was a dancer when she studied with Laban in Germany. After immigrating to the U.S. she became a physical therapist, initially working with polio victims. If facing the challenge of helping clients recover from paralysis, she drew on everything she had learned from Laban. The result crystallized in a somatic practice known as Bartenieff Fundamentals, which I studied with Bartenieff in the 1970s.

The physical therapy exercises I was given to do recently were similar to exercises in Bartenieff Fundamentals. Initially I felt comfortable with the prescribed regimen. Over time, however, certain things began to bother me – the emphasis on isolated movement, the mechanical repetition, the limited spatial form. And so I started to rethink my physical therapy, drawing on Laban and Bartenieff.

Bartenieff believed that, “change in any part changes the whole”. So I began to work with my whole body, rather than merely focusing on the part that was injured.

Because Bartenieff didn’t see much value in mechanical repetition, I minimized the number of times I repeated prescribed exercises. Instead, I distributed my practice, doing fewer repetitions at one time, but taking time to exercise a couple of times a day. This helped me find a more healthy rhythm of exertion and recuperation.

I also started to introduce more three-dimensional movement into my therapeutic practice. I used diagonal sequences from Fundamentals and cautiously worked with some of Laban’s transverse and peripheral space harmony scales.

I could enumerate many other changes. However, this is my point – knowledge of Laban and Bartenieff principles allowed me to take charge of my own process of healing. And once I did so, genuine recovery began.

Studying movement is a life-long undertaking. As I have recently learned, re-visiting Laban and Bartenieff’s ideas under changed conditions can yield new insights.

The forthcoming Tetra seminar provides an opportunity for a fresh encounter with these ideas. Click here to take advantage of the early registration discount.