the movement

honor ancestors, serve descendants, nourish all

How does TRANSFORMATION show up in you?

I learned about transformation in kindergarten as a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly.  Later I learned transformation was the act, process, or instance of change or being transformed.  Now I’m learning that everyday life offers us unlimited opportunities for transformational experiences.

If we look at our human body, we see activities of daily living, (e.g., walking, reaching to a high or low shelf, squatting, etc.) move us into and through what applied functional science calls transformational zones.  Gary Gray, Physical Therapist and educator, shares an excellent explanation of transformational zones.  He says,

“Transformational zones are the sections of a total movement in which the motion changes from the loading direction to the exploding direction.   When a movement transitions from a load to explode, the energy is transformed in this zone.  Understanding transformational zones is as simple as understanding jumping.  In order to jump, you must first load the movement by squatting and then exploding into the jump by pushing off the ground.  The moment your body transforms the energy of collapsing downward into the accelerating through the air is the transformational zone.”

– Gary Gray, founder of Gray Institute

Transformational zones are fundamental to human movement.  We experience them as we

  • Wind-up to swing a bat, golf club, or tennis racket.

  • Pull back the bowstring ready to let the arrow to fly.

  • Yield to gravity and bend our elbows to then resist gravity and “push up” off the floor.

Perhaps the language of "Load and Explode” does not resonate with you.  Daily life asks us to load and unload energy through movement. 

  • We load to prepare to rise from a chair, we unload as we bring our selves upright. 

  • We pick up and put down a full laundry basket.

  • We sweep the floor with strokes of a broom.

  • We climb up and down stairs.

While the study of just the human body is endless, we know we are a human being with an integrated heart-mind-body-spirit.  As we move, the cellular structure of our body and all of our being can be affected.  A personal example of whole-being-experience in a transformational zone is in the below load and unload pattern.

Sometimes going deep into a transformational zone brings up uneasy feelings.  While spiraled and folded deeply into myself, the load pattern (image on the left), my balance waivers, I teeter, and feel too big to be squeezed in so tight.  Stories start to surface that “I’m too stiff, I’m too old, and I’m not good enough.”  I even forget to breathe!  When I’m not breathing the volume of the stories turns way up.  The unload (image on the right) offers a little relief from the too tight feeling, yet still I totter, I sway, and ultimately flop.  Now my curiosity is piqued.

I try this pattern of load and unload several times, in several ways.  With each repetition (and a healthy dose of humor) I find continuity.  The movement itself never feels rote, yet I slowly discover stability, strength and eventually power in the movement.  Likewise (especially if I remember to keep breathing) the feeling of being deep in the transformational zone is less intense and more familiar, and glory be, the volume on the judgmental stories is turned all the way down! 

What do YOU feel in a transformational zone?

Perhaps as you move you encounter discomfort, confusion, wobbling?  It is tempting to avoid movement that makes us wobble.  It is tempting to ignore what is unpleasant.  The sensations we perceive, the emotions we experience, and the thoughts that arise through movement are all teachers.  The invitation to everyone in a human body is to let what is uncomfortable and wobbly teach us. 

What do the wobbles teach us?

Our mind, emotion, and spirit live within every cell of our body.  We can attune our intellect, heart center and consciousness in our cellular structure.  In doing so we cultivate proprioception (awareness of body in space) and interoception (sensing internal signals from your body).  Our bodies are so wise they will teach us.  As we continue to nourish our integrated being through movement, the wobbles awaken proprioceptors, sensory receptors that receive stimuli from within the body.  The more proprioceptors wake-up, the more we enjoy a greater clarity of movement.

You can experience this right at this moment you are reading this newsletter, with the act of breathing. The movement of the diaphragm (primary breathing muscle) goes into its own transformational zone.

  • Inhale - expanding to our full breath in.

  • Exhale - contracting until you are empty.

Try it out.  Take slow, steady breaths.

·     As you inhale, sense the moment at the top of the breath in, the fullness, the moment the inhale transforms into an exhale.

·     As you exhale sense the moment at the bottom of the breath out, the emptiness, the moment the exhale transforms into an inhale. 

The invitation is to move, in whatever way you are able to today.  Let your movement be your teacher.  Let the movement of your own breath guide you through all life’s transformations.

Joins us in the movement. Let’s get our wobble on!

September 2023

Gratitude to Freepik.com for the Butterfly image at the top of the newsletter, and for the Breathing image at the end of the newsletter:

https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/hand-drawn-butterfly-life-cycle_18773159.htm#query=butterfly%20life%20cycle&position=3&from_view=search&track=ais

https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/process-breathing-explained_13634439.htm#query=breathing%20diaphragm%20movement&position=3&from_view=search&track=ais