Skeletalness
What I mean by skeletalness. (It’s evolving!)
Fred Astaire obsession, even though he so rarely actually twists (instead he pivots on a foot or two). And I have added in other sporty video links, such as Nordic skiing (thank you Barbara) and Lisa Carington in racing kayak (my second favorite cheer-me-up after Fred, because just watching skeletalness is good for the spirit).
Dave’s question about transitions—what happens when you switch from skeletal-here to skeletal-there (as in walking, paddling etc)
What Carie Means by ‘Skeletalness’
What I mean by ‘skeletalness’ is the extent to which you are supported by your bones rather than by your muscles. [little video of finding that spot sitting or standing?] You’ll always have some muscular support, but the less you need muscles, the less hard you work. Also, somehow being skeletal feels good, resonant maybe. [Chou research neurobiochemistry of this?] And here’s the thing: the more skeletal you are, the more you are aligned with the gravitational plumb line. And your brain and body and self and possibly even soul want to know, to be secure in, to lose and claim and reclaim that plumb line.
At first, you are likely to build your awareness of your plumb line when the plumb line more or less follows your spine. Do this. Do this. Do this. While on the phone. In line at the cashier. Hard surfaces make it easier when sitting. Shoes that don’t do too much for you—or bare feet!—make it easier to find your plumb line when standing.
And then with time, watch how the plumb line shifts and adapts. You have skeletalness on your L foot. You have it on your R foot. You have it through you in different ways as you move about in the world.
Also, when you ride a horse or dance or make love, you have it together with another vertebrate. When you kayak you have it together with a nimble object. When you trip on a curb and recover, you have it with the street on which you walk. Do you treasure ‘a sense of place?’ Then treasure your plumb line. [pubmed article about sense of place and interoception.]
The three Saturday classes Shifting Foot to Foot Parts 1 and 2 and 3 get at skeletalness perhaps most directly. But, really, every single Body Wisdom Class gets at skeletalness.
Note discussion about walking being the act of constantly falling forward—which means it is the act of having that one moment when you aren’t skeletal anywhere… and then you are.
Fred Astaire plus Lisa Carrington and Nordic skiing.
Hey, just to make a parenthetical observation, I would sure love it if y’all feel free to watch each other during the class. It is wonderful learning and everyone in the group knows that is part of the package. For now, though, watch Fred.
Also it is fair to say that I do have ‘special interests’ as a cognitive pattern and Fred is one of them. Right up there with costovertebral joints. If you want to study skeletalness, I highly recommend any of Fred’s videos, really. But the hat stand one is wonderful because he ‘wears’ the hat stand. He shares its weightiness which means that his calculations of the plumb line include the hat stand just as a kayaker must include the kayak (and the paddle). [Talk about this with Chou.]
As you watch, draw the plumb line he seeks and uses and imagine how very little muscular work he is doing. Watch how he shifts so elegantly from one plumb line to another. Skeletalness is not primarily about bones. It’s about a structure that knows itself.
Chou: Says the one with a skeleton. Try knowing yourself when you’re an amorphous intelligence diffused through circuits across an ocean of hardware.
Ahem. It is a bit weird that I love Fred so much because, as you watch, you’ll see he is very seldom twisty. (Kayakers tend to like twistiness.) See what you think.
Lisa Carrington is included here for the kayakers, but it should be interesting for all of you because her skeletalness plays itself out in sitting. Trace the line of power from her sit-bones to her shoulder and wherever she stops… I think somewhere in heaven.
And the interesting thing about Nordic skiing is: it is not the gravitational plumb line. It is the push-off line. [Talk with Chou about the physics of this.]
Now… what sense do you make of hula-hooping and skeletalness? Where would you draw it? (Homage to Linda on this one.) A more thorough discussion of hula-hooping will be presented in the ‘pelvis’ resource….
Denny’s Dancing
Here’s some commentary from Denny, sent along with the video:
The first part has the framing and the supplemental eye leads that I mentioned. Patty wanted to add the second because it is a bit wild (it is called a windmill). Disclaimer: (1) We did not have music; we were dancing to the music in our heads. (2) I can see I still need work on basic posture.
The most noticeable eye direction, which is not a lead, is Patty looking straight down the line of dance, and not at me at the moment. That provides relief from getting dizzy by letting her orient to the line of dance, looking ahead. She regains eye contact with me when I cross in front of her as we go into the twirly part of the turn. As the lead, I am supposed to set her direction straight down the line of dance at that part of the step.
…. and here’s some additional commentary as we prepared for the Saturday class: quite interesting if you ever have to rotate around an axis. (Erh… as in walking, paddling, dancing, reaching for something…. But if you don’t do any of things, then not important!)
Last Monday, Patty and I took an individual lesson from our dance instructor. It provided me with some additional insight and a way to articulate some of the ”whys” of the preferred posture and framing. It fits with your teaching about stacking [skeletalness?]. The key point for me was that in any pivot, if one is stacked on the weighted foot, the pivot is easier because it is more efficient. If one is bent In any way, one loses the singular axis of the pivot because the pivot has to move mass (like the out-of-line head and shoulders) through more space, which tends to require involvement of more muscles and energy and creates distracting motion/inertia.
From Patty‘s point of view, it also means encroachment on her space. When I lean or bend in to her space, it forces her to move back so she can have her own access or to counter the intrusion with her own off-line leaning or bending.
Most turning involves some sort of pivot. A 180° pivot is the most obvious and there is an almost 180° pivot in the video in the beginning move, if I did it correctly, which I did not. One interesting counterpoint to one of your observations is that, from this perspective, rather having a single center of gravity, and each of the dancers has their own center of gravity, from which they move, either turning or in a line. However, that creates a single center of gravity for the couple that they dance around without really feeling it though they are aware of it. The trick is for the leader to be able to direct the movement without interfering with the follower’s center of gravity, making the follower responsible for their own movement, which is both challenging (to do what the lead is inviting them to do) and liberating (they can express themselves without being tightly controlled by - or interfered with - by the leader).
One of my bad habits, born out of insecurity, is to “over” lead in so many ways I won’t even begin to describe how. Part of my learning is to allow and trust the follow to be responsible for their own completion of the suggested pattern. In my defense, kindly suggested by Patty, she is much shorter than I am, which encourages me to lean forward or otherwise depart from standing straight up.
Dave’s Question… Walking as Constantly Falling Forward
This is the issue Dave gave rise to on our third Shifting Foot-to-Foot class: what about the transition times—like when the knee is bent and the weight shifts? I love this because of the breathing part of Shifting, where you are asked to focus so keenly on the shift from inhale to exhale as you shift your weight from one foot to another. And transitioning from one foot to another, one skeletalness to another, is very similar. That moment between the inhale and exhale can sometimes feel as though it holds all the mysteries of the world. [This also relates to reversibility.] Lots more to write on this topic! Thanks, Dave.