Miracles of Movement

This cheerful group of mostly 20-somethings joined me yesterday in a workshop at the Tamagawa Twins　Studio to explain Alexander’s discoveries - which I am writing about every weekday for the next month.

They are all Pilates Educators – masters of Voluntary Movement.

What do I mean by that?

Yesterday I wrote about your Postural Support System – a name I made up to help us identify one of FM Alexander’s most significant discoveries. I assume you read that, so let me introduce its partner in movement…

THE VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT SYSTEM

This name I didn’t make up.

If your Postural Support System is a local train, then the Voluntary Movement System is the Rapid Express. It’s the nervous system’s version of the Shinkansen – Japan’s bullet train. 

FAST.

It takes only two motor neurons to fire off any of your voluntary muscles – one in the brain, one in the spinal cord – then straight to a muscle fibre, which is the smallest cellular part of a muscle. It’s incredible.

Alexander teachers love to call this “doing” - as opposed to “non-doing” which describes how the Postural Support System works. I wrote about this yesterday.

When Pilates Educators, Yoginis and Olympic athletes are considering a movement, they are exclusively in control of their Voluntary Movement System. We even have fast-track nerve fibres that can hustle along our voluntary requests while the old local train plods away alongside giving its support.

Of course, after a lot of practice, these voluntary movement requests are automated, but this is an entirely different kind of automation compared to your Postural Support System’s unconscious activity. Sometimes FM liked to refer to these as “conscious” or “cultural” habits, which makes complete sense.

Meanwhile – back to the plodding, local train i.e. your Postural Support System. The truth is, your Postural Support System is so much better informed about what’s going on. Instead of involving only two motor neurons to reach a muscle fibre, there are literally hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of motor neurons shouting out their opinion about what needs to happen next. It’s a cacophony of neural chatter. It is the product of 500 million years of evolution, while your Voluntary Movement System is more like the new kid on the block.

The age, activity and complexity of your Postural Support System defies analysis – there is like a huge stone wall of incomprehension surrounding it. This is one reason why I believe it is absent as a significant governing concept in the current-day neuroscientific analysis of movement.

But Alexander found a little door through this stone wall of incomprehension. One day I am sure his discovery will be recognised as the Holy Grail of movement analysis. FM showed us where to find a magic key that can open the door to miracles of movement.

What is this magic key?

Stay tuned.