Republic of Movement

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"Movility" (beyond "Position-fetishism")

(Disclaimer: the term "movility" here is used tongue in cheek, and is definitely not intended as a lexical solution.)

Evolution doesn’t stop as you go from flexibility to mobility.

The ability to actually move into, out of and around a position, not just in one or two scenarios but within a variety of scenarios, from a variety of other positions, across a variety of speeds, etc, is a higher level yet (shall we say… “movility”).

This perspective is less about the position itself, and more about what it connects to. You don’t get there by hyper-focusing on the element itself, by sitting and precisely articulating a single joint or pattern over and over… instead, you need to actually connect the pieces, and with variety.

You need to attack the position not as a "bridge" (a stretch of territory between two other territories), or as an "island", but as a flexible "nexus", capable of closing and opening in any direction, at any time, for any purpose. In a way, this de-emphasizes the position, and puts the attention on the system as a whole.

This is uncomfortable for us. We're so attentive to the party tricks that we've become accustomed to looking for the obvious, and what's more obvious than a snapshot in time? What's easier to see than the position held? To see the contortionist achieve a position and hold it just long enough that our eyes can digest the most easily digestible of movement characteristics, and then move on, before the banality of position-fetishism rises to the surface of our consciousness.

The higher level is to blend...

not just to toss some ingredients together into a salad, but to homogenize a mixture, so that nothing seems separate. By destroying the acting philosophy of the party trick, and instead looking after the quality of the connectiveness. Here, we don't see contortionism, but instead breakdancers, capoeiristas and traceurs. (But as Guatarri/Deleuze point out regarding any evolved form, these are quick to calcify and devolve).

While mobility work can be great for addressing weak links, often the weak link (from the perspective of the big picture) isn't the mobility itself, but the connecting of the pieces. Because this sits one-plus conceptual level(s) above mobility work, it's a bit more complex and ends up neglected - there are too many gray zones. It's easy to create one or two connections to a position, but how do we OWN the position- connecting it to everything else?

This idea means we need to go beyond the muscular and connective tissue components; it's not enough to think in terms of the chassis here. Instead, we go to the wet-ware - the basal ganglia and cerebellum, to the movement pattern processing functions, where context defines what we look for, and what opportunities we can carve out from the scenario.

And then, when you've gotten to this layer, it's necessary to make the jump again. To integrate one level above…

This kind of approach shows up in a movement practice, but NOT in a mobility practice. Don’t get stuck combining a “mobility” practice and a “strength” practice and an “acrobatic” practice… Become the unified field phenomenon - evolve into a movement practice.