Vergence and the Ideal

Although it’s rarely defined, there is an ideal for human movement. It’s frankly baffling to consider the myriad modalities that have developed over the years, each of which claims to improve movement. None of these myriad disciplines can seem to agree on a definition of the ideal towards which they aim. A funny situation indeed.

The moving body is a physical system — as such we can be reasonably sure that it conforms to particular rules of physics. Why then does so much confusion persist as to what improves the quality of movement?

In this piece I’ll organize my thinking around one physical principle, one which may be quite familiar to those who’ve studied with me for some time. I’m referring of course to Constructal Law, defined by Adrian Bejan of Duke University. It is a formulation that accounts for the emergence of design in nature — in both animate and inanimate flow systems. It states:

“For a finite-size system to persist in time (to live), it must evolve in such a way that it provides easier access to the imposed currents that flow through it.”

Let’s examine this.

“For a finite-sized system…” You occupy physical space. While the particularity of your being isn’t bound merely by flesh, when considering the movement of the body, we have to consider the bounds of the body. Given that you aren’t boundless, we can say quite easily that you’re of finite size. And the structure of the body is constituted of an incredible number of interrelated parts, organ systems made of organs made of tissues made of cells.

“To persist in time (to live)…” Constructal Law applies both to animate and inanimate systems, and we must consider “living” as a special subset of “persisting” in this case. A river may not be alive in the conventional sense, but it does persist across time as a recognizable entity. Likewise, although the various components of the body are in a state of continuous change, you maintain a recognizable form across time.

“It must evolve in such a way that…” Within this formulation it is implied that change has a primacy in the universe, and the critical reader will note a paradox is introduced. In order for a system to persist, it must change. The question of degree is nested here as well. If there is too much change, we can easily say that the original system no longer exists. Likewise if the system fails to change, then it will be unable to maintain itself within the changing demands of the world around it. No system exists in isolation. As Heraclitus said 2,000 years ago, “No man steps in the same river twice.”

“It provides easier access to the imposed currents that flow through it.” Here we must wonder what currents flow through the various systems that we observe, noting that currents may not be so obvious as those within a waterway. Consider a tree. We know that water moves through it. Likewise we know that oxygen and carbon dioxide move through it as well. Energy moves through it too. As we observe the form of the tree we can begin to make some inferences about what its various structures are for. The leaves of a maple are a fine example. They are incredibly well designed to convert energy from the sun’s rays into chemical energy. Likewise the branching venation within each leaf allows for easier movement of fluids (xylem and phloem, which move nutrients and sugars/proteins) through the system.

The form of any flow system is organized based on the currents that flow through it.

If we’re thinking of the human system, one of the clearest currents to consider is the movement of mass across a landscape of resistance: friction, gravity, and physical obstacles (it goes without saying that movement of mass is not the only current. You’ll no doubt recognize that the movement of information through the human system is of equal — if not greater — importance).

With this basic premise in place we’re able to begin defining ideal human movement. If nothing else, it is characterized by the ability to move one’s mass across a landscape with as little wasted effort as possible. Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais often said that it is defined by the ability to move in any direction at any time with as little hesitation or preparation as possible. It’s the capacity to respond to the world without internal restriction.

This last point is of primary importance.

In his formulation of Constructal Law, Bejan wrote that if he were to add two words to it, the words would be “given freedom.” As more constraints are placed upon the flow system, it finds its ability to self-organize effectively more and more inhibited. You’ve no doubt seen waterways that stagnate and turn foetid when the water is prohibited from moving. In the face of significant constraint, the system — as originally defined — fails to persist.

This provides a clue as to how we might best go about improving human movement, enabling the system to organize more and more closely in accordance with the ideal: we remove internal constraints. We can begin to investigate what doesn’t move within the system and perhaps determine both what the restriction is for and how the restriction persists. These bottlenecked areas of localized constraint offer the most opportunity for improvement in the organization of movement.

Consider that in the case of walking it doesn’t matter much how well the spine moves if the ankles are restricted. Compared with somebody without that restriction, the person in this situation will have to exert more force to compensate for the constraint of ankle restriction.

Ease in movement is in large part defined by the absence of muscular force. When force is exerted to contract a muscle, energy must be expended. Thus we may well presume that in order to move more easily through the resistant landscape one of our primary tasks is reducing the amount of muscular force needed.

I’ve written before that the way we do this is by improving the mechanical efficiency of the body, focusing primarily on organization of the skeleton. The bones act as a series of levers, upon which the muscles exert force. If you think about a see-saw on a playground, there’s a reason the fulcrum is in the middle. If it were to one side or the other, one child would have to exert much more force on their side of the see-saw to move the other. It’s a mechanically efficient design, assuming roughly equal weight of the kids.

The farther in front of my spine I position my head, the more I feel the weight of the skull.

Try it.

Slowly move your head forward in space, and notice how the musculature along the back of the neck is required to contract more and more in order to counteract the pull of gravity acting more and more unfortunately through the skull. This is not a mechanically efficient organization, is it? Without the support of the structures beneath it, the head becomes cumbersome, and its movements become rigid.

Bring the head back to its original position, and look to the left and the right. Take note of the quality of the rotation. Then move your head forward in space once again, and once more look to the left and the right. Compare the quality of these two movements. Which provides greater ease in moving the mass of the skull through the landscape?

Clearly it is easier to move the head through space when it is organized over the spine, compared with placing it out in front of the spine. In the latter case the musculature involved in rotating the head is already involved in supporting the weight of the head; therefore more force must be exerted in order to move it a comparable distance.

This gives us a clear point of reference for how we might go about improving our movement: always know where the support is beneath the moving structures. In the absence of support there is a necessity for contraction of the muscles in order to stabilize. Any additional movement then demands greater force generated by muscular contraction, wasting energy in the process.

Now, you’ll recall that I titled this piece “Vergence and the Ideal.”

There’s something like “the Anna Karenina principle” at work, based on Tolstoy’s famous line:

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Knowing that there is an organizing ideal for human movement allows us to converge towards a clear point. All good movement is alike. However, the way that each person experiences the movement towards this ideal is entirely divergent. This may seem obvious at first, but stay with me. Something happens within the individual as they organize their movement more and more in accordance with the ideal. They experience a greater responsiveness and develop more agency within their lives. To paraphrase Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, the things that once seemed impossible become possible, and then those things become easy and satisfying. The individual finds themselves more and more free from habitual restrictions on their perception and action, and as a result they begin to see opportunities around them where before there were only obstacles.

Considering that each person has a unique historical experience that in-forms them, it’s only reasonable that each individual experiences this restoration of freedom to choose in different ways and applies it toward different ends. Hence, we might think that as the individual converges toward the ideal of human movement, their experience becomes more and more divergent.

The inverse is true as well. There are countless ways to diverge from the ideal of human movement. Injury, disuse, the experience of trauma — each can distort a body in particular ways. Each individual body is a life history written in flesh, revealing a lifetime’s worth of wounds and compensations. Despite the myriad ways that a person can diverge from the ideal, it nevertheless seems that all of this experience converges:

• Mourning over lost capability.
• Insecurity in the face of a challenging world.
• Anxiety over injuring oneself.
• Regret at youth squandered.

The body that moves poorly does so in countless ways, but the individuals who suffer poor movement find a common language for their suffering.

If you want to live as one of the many, move poorly. The world will close itself in predictable ways. If, however, you want to find the dizzying freedom of your own individuality, move well. The world will disclose itself unto you in ways no other may experience the same way.

Originally published on The Ecosomatics Institute Blog