Physical Architecture & Imagery

I find the use of a combination of particular imagery (imaginative visualisation) and tactile information (directed touch with a partner) can assist structural alignment, balance and movement range. Here are a number of images and partner exercises I will at some time use in class.

The flow of energy down the back of the body and up the front of the body.

I often imagine that I am standing half under a waterfall so that the water is flowing down over the back of my body and legs, 

and drawing a zipper up the front of my body

This corresponds with the real physical forces acting on the body, namely the pull of gravity (compression) and the tensile upward thrust of the arches of the body (foot, pelvis, rib-cage/shoulder girdle) through the long bones to spine to head.

(Todd, 191)

With a partner we could trace the pathways of the fascia that interconnects to encase and support all the bones, muscles and organs in the body. We can follow down the "superficial back line" and up the "superficial front line"

and we can follow the spiral line and feel how the sides and front and back of the body intersect

(Clark, 74)

Arches and bridges in the body

I let my imagination move into the interior of my body, to visualise my structure in comparison to architectures I see in the world around me.

I visualise the body as the Eiffel Tower, 

the arches in both planes 
(fwd/back and side/side) 
creating the thrust upward 
to support the narrowing spire of the spine

Multi-directional support

I also imagine myself inside larger structures or forces as a way to achieve balance, support and/or release...to be part of the bigger picture and feel the integration of the whole body at once.

 ...supported by the multi-planes interacting...feeling the longitudes and latitudes...the rooting down under the earth and up into the stratosphere, the support of the air around me...

inside a three-dimensional sphere (kinesphere) 
as in Da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man"

imagining myself connected into the longitudes and latitudes of the globe of the earth 
—the longitudes running down past ears, through shoulders, hips, knees, ankles; 
the latitudes running through the skull (ear to ear), the rib cage, the pelvis

I also refer to the planes in relation to the movement sequences: forward/back as the sagittal or 'wheel' plane; the vertical side/side as the 'door' plane (frontal/coronal); and the horizontal as the 'table' plane (transverse).

To visualise opening in the joints in the body, my favourite image is to imagine my laying torso (in constructive rest with knees up) as an airport main runway, the edges of which run through shoulder to hip, knee, ankle middle toe...and my arms (at diagonals to my laying body) as two taxi-ing runways leading to the main runway...

I imagine each joint lit up as night markers for the runways

Recommended Reading

Todd, Mabel. (1968) The Thinking Body: a study of the balancing forces of dynamic man. Brooklyn: Dance Horizons.

Clark, Bernie. (2016) Your Body, Your Yoga. BC, Canada: Wild Strawberry.