He who controls movement controls it all
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He who controls movement controls it all
When I was at primary school in the 70’s we did PE (physical education) and musical movement three times a week. We didn’t really play sport as such but were encouraged to be active and explore how the body could move.
During musical movement for example, the teacher would play a piece of music and we would be instructed to sway like a tree or fly like a bird during the slower pieces, or buzz around like a busy bee to the faster tunes.
There were no constraints, or you must do it like this or like that, instead there was the encouragement to allow the body to move, to stretch your arms and legs, to tilt or twist and to allow the movement to simply flow and come out. It felt so natural to do so – to ask the body to move in the way as a child we imagined a bird would fly or a tree would sway. Each child was free to move and express their body however they felt to – this is how my body wants to be.
It was so beautiful to witness 30 young children enjoying how their bodies moved without restriction or instruction, with their own flavour and unique style.
As I got older PE became about sport, gymnastics, athletics, competition against the clock, the tape measure and each other. There was focus on technique, on pushing the body to see what it could achieve. Run faster, jump higher, get to the ball first, smash the volley, win the point. The freedom of just moving and being with the body was no longer the objective.
Hold the racquet this way, move your body like this, pump your arms and get those knees up, sprint for the line, run through the tape.
Exercise was now all about pushing the body into a set configuration and way of movement to achieve a result, even if it felt unnatural or painful.
Watch a group of young children run; they are at ease, flowing, with differing gaits and styles. Some are naturally faster than others and some more co-ordinated but no matter their style there is a naturalness and freedom in the way they move.
Now compare that to an athlete doing a 100m sprint. Their body is conditioned, hard, mechanical, configured to produce speed; there is a form to aim for that ensures the most force is converted into forwards propulsion, their breath is held and body tight as they push, push, push for the line. What became of the child who moved and ran for the sheer joy of it, guided by the body and not what they had been trained and instructed to do?
It is as if exercise has purposely been set up to change the way our bodies move, to configure us to apply a set way of doing things not only in sport or at the gym but in the way we walk, sit, stand and go about our day. No longer does the body move with the simplicity and carefree nature of the child but it marches to the beat of how it has been shaped from outside by society and life.
Why is that? Why have a way of life that conditions our movements: stand up straight, hold your knife and fork like this, make your writing neat and your letters this shape, colour within the lines, take your hands out of your pockets, don’t drag your feet when you walk? We are coached from every angle and in every aspect of our life in how to perform, no different to the sports star or the 100m sprinter. Yet it is not so obvious, for the sprinter has a program, drills, reps and weights that they perform over and over to perfect their body to be the lean, mean running machine. Yet are we not also being conditioned, programmed and drilled from a very young age how to move, instead of being afforded the space to explore our body and how it wants to pick things up, hold things, put one foot in front of the other, get dressed, take a bath, cook a meal, make the bed and on and on I could go?
Everything is movement – breathing, blinking, swallowing, sleeping; we are in movement 24/7. Even when we are sitting at rest there is still movement, so if you control movement, you control the being, the body and its expression. Repeat a movement often enough and it configures the body to be a certain way.
Through movement a gentle, sensitive child who is responsive and connected to their own body and its rhythm can be made to become hardened, racy and disconnected like an automaton going through the motions. Yes it moves but there is no real life within it, there is no quality in its movement, it has been programmed to perform, the movement has become denatured.
I’m sure you’ve heard expressions like ‘you are what you eat’ or ‘your thoughts shape who you become’. What if we are what and how we move? And if so then it would make sense, and hopefully it isn’t a leap too far, to consider that how we move will shape and dictate what we are and what we become? And hence how we think and what we can think.
Thus, if you can control the way people move, can you control what they become? Is that why there is so much emphasis and effort placed on exercise, sport and more covertly on training us how to walk, talk and even think through the movements we make?
If this were so, then a real villain and evil mastermind who wanted to take over the world, just like in the movies, could then easily do it through controlling or conditioning our movements.
But isn’t that exactly what we have? A way of life that controls movement and hence it, the model of life we live in, controls each and every being within its field.
Consider it for a moment.
Observe animals in nature and how they move and respond to all that is around them; they rely on an innate instinct that impulses them to move. That instinct is a form of intelligence that signals to the being (animal) when to eat, how much to consume, when to shelter, to breed and foster young, to make for high ground during a tsunami or to know when there is a storm approaching.
So if this is the case, and it is, then would it not follow that we have an innate instinct or quality that impulses and signals to us how to live, that provides us with a quality of movement that allows us to access an intelligence within that knows how to move, what to eat, how to walk, exercise, speak and think and how to be in each and every moment. And what if that innate intelligence came from something grander and more magnificent than this plane of life and the human world that can be experienced from our five senses?
It would not make sense that if the animals and every living form on this planet naturally knows how to be and is moved by its inner intelligence, that as humans we need to rely on being taught and shown how to do things from outside of ourselves.
Could it actually be that within us there is a greater intelligence and wisdom than our minds can perceive or is allowed to know because our movements have been set-up to shape us to not know?
How is it that we can live in a way that is not so intelligent – do we see monkeys smoking, lions overeating and getting fat, do we see neurotic and anxious birds or depressed ants who simply can’t get up on a given morning and work in harmony with their colony. No, we do not! So why is it as human beings we live in such discord to our own body and each other where sickness, depression, ill mental health and obesity are through the roof. And this doesn’t even take into account abuse, war, rape, child trafficking, domestic violence and more.
Is it because our movements are so discordant and out of alignment to what we actually are and how we are meant to move?
Our bodies are made up from the same matter and particles that form the Universe.
The Universe moves, flows and expands in a natural order that carries a quality of unity and harmony, for in truth The Universe and all within it, including us, are made from, in and of the body of God.
The stars and the planets and all the space between them move in orbits and cycles that do not clash or jar with one another but respect and allow each piece of the Universe to be and to move with the quality it is here to represent and to respond to.
Our bodies are no different; we are designed to move in and by that same quality. Our particles respond to the impulses and quality of the Heavens, the Soul and God immanent. And left to our own means, free to move in accordance with those impulses, we would be the living replica of that quality and our way of life would be one of Love, Truth and Harmony and not what it has been shaped to be today.
And here comes in the Ageless Wisdom and The Way of The Livingness – a way of life that allows us to re-connect to the quality within, the intelligence and the wisdom of The Universe – God. The quality that impulses us to move in true movement to return to the Soul and the love that we are from.
Filed under
Competition, Fitness, Harmony, Livingness
