A few days ago I posted a link in the Ancestral
Movement Facebook group to a very well-written, deep and interesting article by
Jon Yuen:
This article inspired an important discussion in
the group and was a catalyst for some great ideas. It raised some interesting points to consider.
There is one aspect, which Jon mentioned, that I
would like to discuss separately – the generalism of movement.
The search after this quality does not belong exclusively
to the world of Movement Culture. This tendency appears in Monotheism, it is
THE SUBJECT of the General Systems Theory of Bertalanffi and it is an important
ingredient in many other methods, systems and theories.
There are a many different cultures in the
world, each one unique. All cultures
were created by unique personalities and differ in many ways, although there are
always many common features.
The value of every culture, including every
system or art of Movement Culture is its uniqueness, but still we instinctively
look for generalism, we feel that there is something deeper than culture, more
natural for us and more profound.
As to Movement Culture this
"something" is the true archetype of all our movements. This archetype
consists of three parts –our inborn statokinetic reflexes, our inborn behavioral
reflexes and our natural human biomechanics. This is our Movement Nature.
A few words about human biomechanics. Our
bodies move in joints. This means that all of our movements consist of a great variety
of rotations of different body parts and their combinations. The human body
differs greatly from all other living beings. Although humans have a lot in
common with other living creatures we are unique in our body, movement, mind
and spirit. It's like culture – every culture is unique, but there are a lot of
things in common. Let's say evolution created unique human Movement Nature. If
we would be non-human animals our motion would be harmoniously evolved from inborn
reflexes according to natural biomechanics, but we are humans. For good or for
bad we create things. In that respect we are like nature, but without its ultimate
holistic harmony. We create things such as tools, theories and habitual
movement patterns. These movement patterns have social and cultural roots. Due
to our restrictions, including a lack of harmony, these automatic movement
patterns very often clash with our Movement Nature.
Many of us realize that and try to address this
issue.
Simon Thakur wrote a very nice piece about it in
his site http://ancestralmovement.com/about/
:
" …by exploring
and rediscovering patterns of movement and awareness that are part of our
species’ history, both recent and ancient. Through the practice we aim to
recover the strength, agility, balance, grace, joy and ease of
movement, profound relaxation and quiet mind that are our birthright
as human beings. To rehabilitate old injuries and prevent new ones, to make
ourselves and our families and friends happy and peaceful, to come back
home to our senses, our bodies, our communities and our place in relationship
with the rest of the living world".
I believe that
things are even more profound. Our evolutionary ancestors are still alive and acting
within our bodies and minds. Many years ago I was enormously excited by Carl
Sagan' book "Dragons of Eden". Years later it was "Your Inner Fish"
by Neil Shubin. In the interim I discovered the wonderful books of Russian scientists
Eskov and Chaikovski with their brilliant understanding of the evolutionary
development of living creatures, their anatomy and physiology. I also
discovered the revolutionary works of Profs. Bernstein, Feigenberg and Berg. I
was lucky to be in close connection with Prof Feigenberg, who was a prominent student
of Prof. Bernstein, the founder of Soviet biomechanics. In the context of this
article I especially appreciate the Motor Control Recapitulation theory by
Bernstein. According to him, all our movements have a number of ancestral layers.
Carl Sagan wrote about "dragons within us" or ancient ancestral structures
within our brains. Bernstein revealed that these dragons are not only still
alive within us, in fact act through our bodies!
In order to
allow our movements to flow naturally and unrestrictedly we need not only to
explore and rediscover the ancient patterns of movement, but to let them act
freely in harmony with their descendants (Let my dragons go!). We have to stop
our "superior" automatic human oppression.
Science already
discovered that our bodies are actually ecosystems. Now I suggest the same idea
about our movement. It is an ecosystem exactly like our body.
Every human
movement is actually a collective movement of all our ancestors. When we look
at something they stare along with us. When we think about something they think
together with us. When we do something it's our collective action. Our
ancestors did not disappear, they won eternal life through our lives, they live
and continue to think and move through our minds and bodies. This is our
Movement Nature. The only way to achieve complete harmony of our mind and body
is to learn our Movement Nature and to live and move accordingly. When we act
this way our movements become effortless and light as feather, as if they
happen of their own accord, and our body and mind experience natural lightness,
happiness and harmony.
Back to the Movement Culture.
For hundreds of
years Western civilization tried to conquer nature, to subdue it to its "superior"
culture. It was wrong and now we realized it.
I believe the time
has come to realize the same in relation to Movement Culture and the movement
community in general. Let us stop our attempts to subdue our Movement Nature to
the "superior" cultural achievements and methods.
My students and I already made
first steps in the practical implementation of this innovative and most promising
approach. We are only in the beginning of the road and collective effort is
needed in order to achieve more progress.
We all can benefit greatly if
we study Movement Nature first and then, taking it as a basis, harmoniously develop
our own unique skills, systems and methods of physical and mental training.
This article is a call for
cooperation and mutual action. There is a way to take our movement arts toward a
much higher level. Together we can do it.
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