Frozen degrees of freedom

We have a lot of freedom of movement. The body can shift into many configurations, most of which we will never explore. The movements we make in a day represent a tiny sliver of our available actions. We have many degrees of freedom, but we’ve frozen many of those potential moves.

Maybe teachers, friends, and family taught us not to make certain gestures. Sit up straight. Don’t fidget. Why are you looking at me that way? We get socialized into a stiff, rigid upright human form.

Social anxiety is probably an extreme reaction to this pressure, and I’ve been researching some interesting perspectives on the idea of freeing up movement in the body.

• Feldenkrais: A therapy that re-educates the nervous system by focusing on small, subtle movements and heightened sensory awareness.
• Systema: A martial art that emphasizes fluidity, adaptability, and responding to force rather than rigid opposition.
• Choreutics: Dance exercises that provide a framework for exploring the qualitative aspects of movement by focusing on “efforts” (combinations of weight, time, space, and flow).
• Constraints Led Approach (CLA): Athletic training that uses constraints to free up movement by setting up tasks with specific constraints (e.g., equipment, environment, rules) that encourages individuals to discover unique and optimal movement patterns that are specific to their own bodies and the given situation.

What I find interesting is how each of these approaches has a slightly different focus of attention.

• Feldenkrais: An internal sensory focus to refine how you move for greater ease and efficiency.
• Systema: A holistic and adaptive focus to respond fluidly to dynamic situations.
• Choreutics: A qualitative expressive focus to understand how movement unfolds in terms of effort and space.
• CLA: An external and goal-oriented focus to find adaptive solutions to problems.