Knowledge of Movement Principles
Have you ever given this a thought… Life can be more comfortable and healthy with a foundation of knowing how to move my body with less effort and more power. Welcome to the study of movement education.
I’m here to share movement principles that are fundamental to my Posture-Movement Education based on the Embodiment Method created by Dr. R. Grant Ramey, PhD. For more background on Dr. Ramey and to view movement principle #1, see the post of Day 41/60.
It is day 42 of my 60-day wellness achievement program. Today is the third post that continues my posture-movement education series. I will explain the 2nd movement principle and also read today’s daily stoic along with some commentary. You can use this link to watch my FB live session.
Hands Move, Body Moves
I introduced this movement fundamental first on day 28. It means to employ whole-body movements whenever you do anything. This is the essence of the 2nd movement principle and you can hear Dr. Ramey explain more below.
With the movement education I offer, awareness is the key before you do anything. The concept behind this principle is to move your whole body as one, instead of just pushing a particular body part. For example, when you throw a baseball, use your entire body and not just the arm. Feel the energy start at the feet and travel up the body rotating the torso into the shoulder, then into the arm, and then out of your hand.
Now, you may think, what’s the advantage of whole-body movement? Let us review why the EmbodiChair is the world’s most comfortable chair – See below.
Moving your whole body disperses the strain on your body parts and distributes it evenly. It doesn’t put one particular part, for instance, your arm in the above example, at the risk of higher stress. This way of movement uses less effort and results in more force. And that’s the goal I want you to achieve by using this principle. It’s an easy one, isn’t it?
Use the Comfort Scale
Whenever you do anything in life, energy is consumed and stress is created. Our goal is to minimize energy and maximize our power. We can use an imaginary comfort scale (see photo below) to measure any movement or position. By use of the comfort scale, we can assess how much strain is going on. The comfort scale is a number line graph from 1 to 10 where 10 equals maximum strain and discomfort. As I said on day 40, 1 equals minimum strain and energy, and maximum comfort to the number 10 equals maximum strain and energy causing us maximum discomfort.
When I talked about getting comfortable sitting on day 32, I mentioned that there is no right or wrong position or way to sit. You can sit any way you like, but rest assured that every sitting posture or movement equates to a certain amount of energy and strain. The goal should always be to maintain as much comfort as possible is all you do. This requires the intelligence of connecting your feelings with your movements and positions. The comfort scale helps you measure how comfortable you are when you move. Let’s live life mostly in the green and set up an alarm system to alert us when we move into the yellow or red zone. Life is tough enough as it is. Why pile on more stress and discomfort with unconscious stressful postures and movement in the red zone?
Get Down On The Mat & Grapple!
If you have been following my 60-day cleanse updates since day 1, you might already know that I am a big fan of Stoicism. On day 38, I mentioned my take on Stoic Philosophy. Every day, I read The Daily Stoic, followed by Ryan Holiday’s interpretation to simplify its meaning. The one I read today, on September 20th, was so insightful, I wanted to share it with you.
The title is LIFE ISN’T A DANCE, and it is a segment from Marcus Aurelius’ meditations. It says:
“The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing because an artful life requires being prepared to meet and withstand sudden and unexpected attacks.”
Can you relate to that? I find it amazing because we all know that there is a lot of pain and suffering that goes on with everyone. So let’s expect the hardships and arm ourselves with the proper mindset of good philosophy. Take the hard twist and turns of life as a wrestler. Don’t expect to dance with the lions and tigers of life. Put on the good fight because life is worth living! Find out more about Stoic philosophy HERE.
You can use this page to read other blog posts and see what wrestling maneuvers I use to navigate this wonderful journey on these sixty days to help myself heal.
