natural movements: general 749

There are so many aspects that impact the ways we move. Just a very few (early) ones: suitable / unsuitable temperatures, friendly / unfriendly voices, unfamiliar noise, pleasant / unpleasant lighting situations (eye movements / reactions), (reactions to) our curiosity to learn new things, supported / unsupported anxieties, humiliating experiences, ascriptions (…, family-internal, and societal). All these experiences and the patterns they help shape in our movements echo throughout our existence. These experiences all affect (the ways we make use of) our senses, give input to the ways our bodies grow, the ways we learn to see and define ourselves, and the ways we move (in the world). This is the way things are. But, how then do we “naturally” move through the world? What is then so particular about so-called natural movements in a bodymind practice? 

The term natural is used to describe all kinds of things in daily life, natural and unnatural. Its concrete meaning in a bodymind practice is, therefore, also often difficult to grasp. The idea behind these so-called natural movements we are striving for and working with in a Tao Te Ching oriented bodymind practice, is to tap existing potential to interact more congenially, more flexibly, more creatively, and more constructively with what we face while we move in the world as the physical entities and parts that we are. The existing potential we (want to) tap is the constructively enabling potential that we sense as (unnecessarily and) unfortunately inhibited, blocked, “buried” in our being, hence unnecessarily not natural to us.

By moving through movement sets* in high numbers of repetitions over the years in a wide array of movements involving all parts of the body we check and improve the ability to coordinate well with other movements (“internally”/ “externally”), the surroundings, … as far as we can possibly observe and sense these processes and interactions on conscious, and subconscious levels.

This tapping is a process-oriented approach. It is an open networking process. It is a piece in the weaving of a living piece of art, moving in between conscious and unconscious fields.

* Like the ones that I practice and teach – 詠春拳拳套 the Wing Chun forms, 少林易筋經 the Shaolin method for transforming the tendons, 陰陽功 the Yin Yang method, 五行功 the Five Phases method, and 導引功 a tao-yin method. But of course, there is an endless number of such movement sets developed in the (healing) Taoist and Buddhist traditions.