The Wonder of Gravity II

(Previous blog about gravity: link to Wonder of Gravity I)

Gravity has a huge effect on our body. It impacts on our blood pressure, our bone density and our muscular system. The two areas that are of interest to me are the bones and the muscles. Bone density is what helps our structure and muscles (for the sake of this musing I’m including ligaments and tendons here) gives us stability. 

Because gravity is acting on us all the time these two areas are getting a mild workout continuously. The ongoing force of gravity is by default ensuring you maintain some form of structure and stability to remain standing. Essentially our joints are either collapsing under the force of gravity (pronation) or it is using resistance against it (supination). A delicate balance of both pronation and supination are required for a fluid balanced motion.

This delicate use of pronation and supination combined with our base (what our feet are doing) help to determine the best placement of our centre of gravity (CG) for any given physical task. If our CG moves past the line of our base, we will fall (see what I did there) victim to the forces of gravity.

What does this investigation into gravity have to do with mastering learning to fall as an actor? For me there are two forms of falls we can do as actors. 1. Where my feet remain on the ground during the fall and 2, when they don’t! One of these falls obviously has a higher degree of risk. My focus here is on the first where my feet are on the ground.

Something causes the body to fall, the effect is; it falls over.  Simple enough. Simulating a human falling means to embody the force of gravity. We are essentially feigning that our CG has moved past the line of our base. The conundrum is that if we replicate that we endanger many parts of our body; coccyx, wrists, skull and kneecaps to name but a few!

Therefore, the art of falling lies in our ability to disguise the safe harbouring of our CG within the base line so as to not actually topple over and yet give the impression we have done so. A wonderous physical alchemy of the supination and pronation of ankle and knee joints combined with an acute use of and harmony of gravity.

The Four Seasons

"There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens." (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

What are the four seasons? What do they mean? How can I draw on this natural occurrence to inform my life and my flow through it? Spring, Summer, Autumn & Winter. Simple enough. A Christian view could be to crawl, walk, sit & stand. A Daoism view could be interpreted as: no form, form, life & death. Something to keep in mind is that I have no control over the seasons. With this reminder comes acceptance, a signal of the inescapable or the unavoidable of my experience in life. When I come to be at one with that then I create less resistance or grind to trying to be in control of the outcome. Like a sculpture working with the grain in the wood rather than against it.

The seasons remind us there are opposites that work in tandem and complement each other. With life there is death. To totally understand beauty of something it is good to see the entire picture, which may include acknowledging the opposite. In this way it is a healthy prompt that over coming adversity is sometimes best done through yielding and I don’t mean submission but exercising control through using the power of the overwhelming situation against itself as found in the martial arts.

We are (in southern hemisphere for my northern friends) about to enter Spring in a few weeks. This is an opportunity for renewal. A chance to reinvent. An opening to see yourself afresh. I have sought to find a new venue for my classes. To shake up my own terrain and the awareness that this is happening as Spring is about to blossom is not lost on me.

With Spring comes a time for reassessing. An opportunity for growth… to crawl. To revisit the discipline of your movement skill base. Seeing this skill through the lens as the craftsperson that you are: an actor. With discipline comes rigour, with rigour comes consistency of skill. With this solid consistence skill can come informed choices in movement sequences or combat choreography.