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.