The past few days have been an interesting experiment of combining Z-Health workshops with some serious winter driving. So, two days of talking about efficient movement and helping over 20 people improve their movement vocabulary, and then several hours of harrowing driving over Snoqualmie pass and some highly inefficient movement.
To review the Elements of Efficiency:
- Perfect Form. In R-Phase, this means hitting the target. In winter driving, I’m going to call that staying on the road and not getting in an accident. Managed to not violate that element, much to my relief.
- Dynamic Postural Alignment. Generally, this means maintaining long spine for that given position. In winter driving, that would be sitting up straight in the car. During the 70mph wind gusts with blowing snow, I can almost guarantee that I was hunched over the steering wheel!
- Synchronized Breathing and Respiration. This means breathing with the movement – but oftentimes we need to start with just remembering to BREATHE. I frequently broke this element of efficiency when I couldn’t see the road or a gust of wind grabbed the car!!!
- Balance of Tension and Relaxation. This means that you should only have tension where it is in necessary – for example, a clenched fist during a hip circle us unnecessary tension in the arm/fist. Given that my hands and legs were cramped when we got out of the car 4 hours later, I can virtually guarantee that I was holding excess tension. Of course, the argument could also be made that the level of tension that I held in my body was appropriate to the situation!!!
When adhering to the elements of efficiency, it’s important to understand that it is a continuum. When mastering movement, you proceed from 1 to 4 – and it doesn’t matter if you have mastered the tension and relaxation if you aren’t hitting the target (or in the ditch!). Likewise, the path to inefficiency is going from 4 to 1 – the first thing most people do is carry unnecessary tension. In my case in the care yesterday, Katie kept asking me to not grip the steering wheel so tightly (which led to an interesting discussion as to whether this was necessary tension!)
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