Full Embodied Movement

Last week I talked about what I consider when changing tempo and intention during a movement practice. I discussed what influences me to go from a slow moment, where I have the luxury to be hyper-aware of my body mechanics, to a faster cadence where I can develop my stamina. I also talked about why I would want to pause on a particular aspect of the moment. I did leave out an intention though.

While it is wonderful to cultivate both slower and faster rhythms of movement I find a profound catharsis in pushing myself to my edge. From an evolutionary perspective, being able to exert the totality of our energy into movement would be a natural part of our lives. While now many of us can go our whole lives without the threat of predation, this was not true for most of our human history. We had little protection against the more ravenous aspect of nature other than our wits and actual fight or flight response. Furthermore, our wild ancestors inherited their instincts from smaller hominids that would have no doubt faced even more predation. Because of this, I think we should make space in our modern safety riddled life for exercising and exorcising these physical needs we developed over so many generations.

There is a danger of injury in re-enacting this primordial dance of course, but with diligent training, we can safely access these human experiences. So then how do we determine when it's safe to embody movement at our most intense level. For the other intentions, I set considerations based on our ability. This intention is different. It's less about us deciding to move into it rather than us being open to the inspiration that pulls us into it.

If these impulses stem from generations of acquired survival strategies as I propose, then there would be an external catalyst to propel us into these states. Let's picture ourselves in the middle of some everyday routine. Now let's imagine in this scenario we see realize a tiger is charging at us. No matter what state of mind we were in prior to spotting the tiger doesn't matter. We are now fully committed to fleeing. for the next few minutes, nothing else matters. Our mind is clear. Thinking takes energy which, energy which is now being used to run from a tiger. Luckily many of us will never know the terror of running from a tiger or any other large predator, but we lose out on the deep mental reset that comes from having death flash before us. Having a moment where our thoughts are growing entirely out of the present rather than being a continuation of our previous thoughts.

So how do we induce these states without liberating all the lions, tigers and bears from our local zoos? Many cultures have danced traditions, that are often entwined in spirituality. In these cultures, it's not uncommon for people to talk of being possessed or ridden by after several hours of dance. This language may fit awkwardly into 21-century ears but it does capture some truth about this experience. We fall into meditative stares when engaged long enough in any practice. The deeper we go into our meditation the more open we become. At the root of all these traditions I believe is a shared strategy inducing people to channel all their energy in much the same way a hungry tiger would. While in these states our bodies pull us where they want to go. While it may take several hours to enter this state it seems to me it is the closest we can come to the level clarity that so many of our ancestors experienced when they were lucky.

Anthony Bruni