Imagine – Mind Moving
Have you ever tried to imagine what you look like as you move around?
Imagine that you film a day of your life, from the moment you wake up in the morning to the moment you go back to bed at night.
Take yesterday for example.
Now condense your yesterday into a speeded-up film.
Play this mind-film back to yourself, watching closely the progression of movements and positions that make up your day.
For now let's consider the early morning moving.
This is a time when you go from being totally inactive to beginning the activity of the day.
Watch the transition from lying flat to standing up and taking your first morning steps. Then trace the positions and movements that constitute your early morning, for example;
washing
bending over, twisting, turning and leg hopping that makes up the movements of taking a shower.
drying yourself
side-to-side torso-twisting and strong arm movements that towel your back, bending, reaching and turning for drying limbs and other parts. Zoya Cherkassky Nnadi
dressing
Climbing into trousers, stretching into sleeves,
Zoya Cherkassky Nnadi
teeth washing
horizontal sliding movement of your wrist and arm and sustained grimace of your mouth as you brush your teeth,
preparing and eating breakfast
reaching up and crouching down to cupboards, shelves, fridges etc for plates and eating components of breakfast, then the brief breakfast sitting (often a snatched sitting down that knows it will soon be getting up again).
In modern life the morning is one of the most inherently physical parts of the day.
We have been doing these morning rituals since we became able to do them as small children, and much of these movements are done automatically, demanding little thought (unless there is some problem when the simplest stretching into a sleeve can be painful and difficult).
But just for one moment consider the continuum of these movements and imagine they make up the unwitting choreography of your morning dance.
How good is the choreography?
How good is the dancer?
How well do you dance through your moves and steps (twisting, bending, crouching, reaching)?
And what could you do to improve this morning dance, to make it smoother, more efficient and more elegant?
