This last week, I have spent a lot of time moving in the Australian Bush. Hiking, strolling, climbing trees, sitting, laying, standing. I have also been doing a body awareness practice in the mornings and trauma release therapy. Throughout this immersion I have been attending to the feelings and sensations in my body and being especially interested in how I can move without causing pain to my lower back. Indeed, knowing how I am moving when i experience pain has been part of my education.

Below are 7 things that I’ve learned this week. They are provisional and open to refinement and further exploration. I’d be interested to know if any resonate with you. I hope my interest in kinetics inspires you to bring more curiosity and creativity to your own moving life.

7 (provisional) learnings about movement from my time in Nature

Life is a pulsation. We live and move by pulsation. We live and move by balancing and unbalancing opposite forces (tension|rest, inhale|exhale, active|receptive, direct|tangential, nutrition|shit, hope|despair, pain|pleasure. The pulse of life is between water and light. God and Earth

We are omni directional movers. Front|back, left|right, up|down and inward|outward

We can transfer momentum and change direction most easily and naturally by applying Will/energy at the point of balance/stillness. Applying Will/energy at imbalanced points results in contrary tension and can lead to pain and effort

All movement is relative to the Earth and God in the planes of toward|away and together|apart.

Yielding allows full contact, deep muscle relaxation, healing and preparation for new movement. Tension can dissipate when we sink or breathe into a movement fully. Even/especially through pain. It also opens the door to the VOID and the fertility of the unknown next moment. Invariably, this new movement will be more harmonious and integrated.

3 points of contact allows for optimal weightshifting|balance and rotation through our axis. We can employ the movement of the spiral as we shift through axial planes.

Life moves in circles and lines and spirals and is always oscillating between motion and at rest. Also, there is movement in rest and rest within movement.