Talk the Walk

This was an interesting exercise in several ways, but I think what is most fascinating to me is the way that our bodies and our muscles perform so many complex actions "automatically". From breathing to digestion, to tying shoes to standing to walking, the things that we do regularly fade out of our conscious domain and seem to take care of themselves; but any one of the activities when analyzed seems to engage many parts of if not the whole body.

Standing on both feet

As with any automatic action it took me a few moments to even recognize that anything was really happening at all. I was standing barefoot on a hard wood floor and could feel my feet planted firmly against the cold wood. Soon after beginning to stand I noticed that my weight was pitched slightly forward onto the balls of my feet, creating a slight tension just below my knee caps. From there the tension extended up into my hips, with a tightening of the buttocks. I shrugged my shoulders trying to relax into the pose, and as I let them slack I tuned in to the tiny fluctuations at my core. I suddenly recognized the extent to which my stomach and entire core are involved in maintaining effortless balance. Now I could feel the tiny muscles in my feet, tensing and releasing ever so slightly as shifts in the core of my body necessitated minor adjustments. Next I tried to relax everything systematically, seeking a state of total stillness. Each time I released something in my shoulders, neck, back, feet, I could feel something tense or gained awareness of something already tense somewhere else. I closed my eyes and found that much of my balance was based on fixed visual cues. I didn't actually lose balance to the point of falling or even tilting, but I could feel a forward/backward tension that I am normally oblivious to and found that the minor shifts in weight and muscle resistance became more pronounced than with open eyes. Finally I tuned in to my breath. This let me actually relax, firmly planting the entire souls of my feet on the ground and allowing an ease of balance like I am used to.

Standing on one foot

Standing on one foot was a very different experience. I have enough practice standing on one foot to make it a more or less easy activity. However, there is nothing about it that is automatic. I immediately feel my balance start shifting from left to right and back again regardless of which foot I stand on. My foot becomes a rapidly responsive pivot, rolling towards the inside or out as needed to help maintain balance. My balance is very different too, not poor but much more nomadic, refusing to anchor at one spot and instead shifting from here to there. It seems that any adjustment, no matter how small, to my center of gravity requires innumerable muscles to reposition and respond. Two feet seem strongly anchored, one is more like a light tether. My weight drops at my hip and I feel the dominant leg sink into the socket, my arms extending like wings, rising or falling in minute or dramatic amounts to compensate as my center of gravity falters. I notice a tendency to fold slightly at my center, as though remaining full and upright will expose me to the wind and compromise my stability. I want to look forward and down, perhaps my bodies way of making sure that if I fall I am ready. The tension is less at me knees and instead at the bottom of my calves and ankles, tops of my quads. There is little difference between my left foot and right, though my left has a bit more balance, my right endurance. It must be from hackey sack.

Walking normally

Walking normally (or for that matter doing anything “normally”) at the same time as trying to analyze my walking was difficult. This is partly because every time I pay attention to walking, I, through force of habit, try to walk better; to correct my posture, engage my core, go from heel to toe with equal pressure throughout the step. I believe this is the result of a specific period in my life when I was studying trapeze and walking an hour to and from work each day. Trapeze requires many muscles to be toned in the neck, shoulders, and back, but the primary muscle group involved in most trapeze motions and postures is the abdominal core. One day I was speaking to my instructor about core strengthening and she mentioned that properly engaging the core while walking is one of the most effective methods. Since then I have paid close attention to how I walk. So for this exercise, I had to spend some time figuring out how I actually walk instead of walking how I know I should walk.

What I found is that my feet bow out slightly, giving me a very minor duck-footed walk, seemingly more pronounced on my right foot than left. (afterwards I looked at the soles of my shoes, and sure enough the right foot had worn more along the outside, indicating a preference for placing more weight along the outside of the foot.) I also noticed that I tend to look slightly down and hunch forward a bit. I would say that this is consistent with my posture in general, but was still interesting to note that I am pitched perpetually forward, leading from my head. As a person I would say I tend to do the same socially, lead with my intellect and let my physicality follow (though I have consciously started balancing these things in recent years.) And then there was the actual physical process that my muscles go through. Leg swings forward from hip, straightens, heel touches, depresses, and weight shifts as step arcs through foot. Shin muscles contract as leg swings forward, then expand as calf contracts and leg bends, foot contacts. Arms swing cross-laterally in seamless time with steps. This makes my hips stay relatively fixed so that they feel almost like they are floating in place.

Slow Walking

The primary take away form this experience as it differed from normal walking was the idea of time domain and cadence. When walking normally, I feel muscles moving through familiar and incredibly smooth and seamless transitions from heel to toe, foot to foot. There is no real sense of start/stop, but rather an ease-in/ease-out. Muscles work in unison to accomplish the locomotive goal, expansion and contraction penduluming effortlessly. But when I slow the whole thing down, the parts are revealed and the perceived continuum of muscular engagement becomes granulated. Like the eye trying to track an invisible nothing through space, fluid motion is split into fine jumps, discrete moments. I find that maintaining a consistent slow speed (below the speed of simply ambling or walking slowly) is almost impossible. My heel touches and the body wants to accelerate into the rest of the step. With an incredible degree of conscious effort I am able to slow down, but it always feels like I am midway between movement events, never quite occupying a state of moving.

Afterwards I couldn't help but think about how this applies to so many of our learned behaviors: we don't slam a foot down on the gas pedal, instead we ease into it, cueing off the acceleration of the vehicle and weighing it against our expectations from previous experiences; when we speak we don't try to say every word at once, but rather use pauses and inflections, variations to pace, to contextualize and layer meaning; when we ride a bike we slowly shift application of force from one pedal to the other. The act of moving through space is done, summarily, on a human scale and on human time. Obviously, but incredibly.

Backward Walking

The interesting thing about slow walking was the way in which familiar and un/subconscious actions were rendered apparent and perceptible. With backwards walking it was very different. In one way it is the forward action reversed – the toes touch first then arc through the foot to the heel, heel lifting off last and pushing a fully extended leg back. The movement components are familiar from a logical and rational perspective. The actual physical experience however, was much more alien and only resembled normal walking insofar as certain movements could be isolated as reverse to their regular counterparts. The sense of familiarity and muscle-sense or muscle-memory was simply not there. Suddenly spatial relationships that guide our movement are out the window. My normal sense of proprioception and knowledge of self other spatial dynamics are called into question and I wonder with each step if I might hit something.

C

Standing and Walking

Standing on both feet. While I do notice a subtle tension along my feet, up my legs, and along my back, this state seems the most unconscious. If I shift my weight to one side and allow my body to regain its balance, I become more aware of the muscular act of standing, yet before I can know exactly what I’m doing, muscles in my feet and legs have already corrected themselves. I have a certain ‘sense’ of balance, which I find hard to identify or describe. When I think about it, it seems that this sense is a combination of which muscles are tensed and whether or not I’m falling and in which direction. Consciously, I’m thinking in terms of directions rather than muscles. If I begin falling to one side, I wish to tilt inversely and my muscles do the dirty work.
When I shift to standing on a single foot, the activity becomes much more conscious. I begin falling from side to side, and based on previous experience and muscle memory, I know to rock my standing foot side to side, tensing the muscles up either side of my leg in turn. This appears to shift my weight in the correct direction and balance out my body. If this falling becomes to much, I find myself tilting my entire torso to the side. If this too fails I find my arm opposite the direction that I am falling shoot up into the air, as this happens, I feel that this has an effect on my sense of balance and could theoretically help shift my back up. When this fails I find myself falling down, and my arms are shooting up to brace the floor rushing up at me.
Walking, here my l find it hard to determine exactly what I am doing. This process is very very hard wired. I can break up the motion, first my heals hit, the ground rolls along the outer sides of my feet, with my toes taking the pressure last, then my knees tense, I shift forwards, and the other leg swings ahead. But this does not capture the fluid complex minute actions of the act of walking.
Moving backwards becomes more of a conscious act of figuring out the best way as I do it.

Walking Exercise

1. Standing normally with both feet, observe how your body works to calibrate its balance. Try this with your eyes open and closed. What are your muscles, joints and limbs doing? How are your other senses participating?

When standing normally on my feet, I noticed that my main sense of balanced seemed to be in my feet - specifically the outside edge of my feet, not the side that has the arch. I felt very stable, even with my eyes closed. The muscles behind my knees seemed to be tightening slightly once in a while, and my knees needed to be unlocked to get a proper sense of balance and blood flow through my legs. I don’t think my eyes were that essential for keeping my balance, since I didn’t notice much difference between having my eyes open and my eyes closed. I know that the inner ear is very important for balance, but also my sense of touch through my feet was important, I think. Feeling my feet touching the ground gave me a sense that I was standing upright and in no danger of falling over.

2. Try the above exercise standing on one foot.

This time my main sense of balance was mostly in my ankle, I think. I could feel my ankle wobbling a lot to try and keep me upright, while my foot stayed mostly stationary. I also felt considerably more secure with my eyes open this time, since it reaffirmed the fact that I wasn’t falling over, since I no longer felt completely stable. The sense of touch between my foot and the ground was still important though.

3. Walking normally (preferably outside or somewhere where you can walk unimpeded) focus on the activities of your muscles, joints and limbs as you move. What is tensing and when? Do you swing your arms? Rock side to side? Lean forward or back? Land on your heel?

When walking, my heel is the first thing to hit the ground when I take a step, and then my foot sort of rolls down to my toe. I don’t really rock side-to-side or anything, but my hips sway a little bit. I swing my arms slightly, so that my hands maybe move an inch and a half each way from the center of my legs. I can usually feel my calves tightening throughout most of my step except for when my foot is in the air. I also feel some tightening in the back of my knees as I lift my leg to step, but I don’t feel much through my thighs or ankles. The movement of my joins feels smooth and is hard to notice, which is likely a good thing. I have noticed that when I walk up stairs or on a very cold surface, however, I walk with only the ball of my foot touching the ground, which actually feels less tense to my muscles, oddly.

4. Try walking in your normal gait, but slow way down. Again, observe how your muscles and limbs are working.

Slowing down my walk was much the same, but my muscles seemed to have to work harder to walk that slowly. The movement of my joins also seemed a little less smooth. My hands didn’t move as much when I walked slowly though.

5. Try walking backwards (be safe!) and observe the difference in your body's effort.

When walking backwards, I noticed that the first part of my foot to hit the ground is the ball of my foot, and then it rolls back onto my heel. The initial moment of impact puts some strain on the back of my ankle though. It also seemed to pull the muscles in my calves more, and felt strange in the back of my knees. My hands didn’t move at all when I was going backwards, and it didn’t feel like my hips swayed at all either. I also noticed it took much more mental processing to walk backwards than it did normally.

Standing/Walking

Ex. 1: When standing still, I feel the weight of my body maintained at two locations: the balls of my feet and inside of my heel. This is based on the orientation of my feet, which splay outward. My knees bend slightly, and are the primary way that I seem to make adjustments to my balance; as my body slightly sways forward and back (seemingly caused by my breathing), my knees flex slightly, and change the triangular relationship between kneecap, heel and the balls of my feet. When I open my eyes, I’m surprised to see that my vision is unaware of these movements, automatically making the micro-adjustments necessary to maintain a steady gaze.

Concentrating on my other senses, I only notice a slight shifting of my hearing acuity from one ear to the other as balance points change. It isn’t drastic, but noticeable when I concentrate on the matter.

Ex. 2: When standing on one foot, my ankle is activated, as is the entire foot. With a new dimension to balance-keeping (since the lateral stability is gone), my ankle loosens and is constantly shifting, attempting to maintain control. The entire foot is now active as well, with the outside crescent of the foot called into service to make a more stable base. I also feel the tendons in my lower leg working hard to allow the ankle to move but not buckle.

Ex. 3: Walking is a whole-body function. From the swinging of the arms (which reminds me of the Seinfeld sketch about Molly Shannon and Raquel Welch not swinging their arms while walking), to the rotation of the torso, tension and release of the tendons of the knees and the flexing/stiffening of the ankles. I find that my foot “rolls” through the walk, taking the initial impact at the heel, pausing slightly, then releasing though the outside of my foot until propelled off the balls of my feet. I find, though, that as I concentrate on certain aspects of walking, they become uncomfortable and unnatural, leading me to questions if I’m “doing it right”.

Ex. 4: Slowing down with the walk was very difficult, because as the pace slows, many of the mechanisms for balance become ineffective. The arm-swing/torso-twist is no longer useful, because it causes all sorts of balance issues. The same is true with the rolling action through the foot; the natural rhythm that occurs during walking is impossible to time-stretch, because it can be painful to leave pressure on some of these spots for any length of time. Also, since my knees are shot, they don’t respond in the same was as during my normal walk; they are not fluid in motion, and instead lock up at crucial parts of the exercise.

Ex. 5: Walking backwards is a very strange feeling, and causes an increase in the use of more senses. I notice that I’m more aware of the sounds of the environment – as if I’m trying to sense out nearby obstacles. I also notice that I lead with my heels almost as if they were “feelers”, reaching forward without a lot of force, making sure that the way is clear.

I also notice that my pressure center has changed on my foot. I’m up on my heels – partially because the “searching” function of my heel is causing me to spend more time on one foot, and also because I’m leaning forward to try to limit collision. There is little in the way of upper body activity – my attention and movement is all focused lower-body, and my senses are all focused on my heel and the back of my calf in an attempt to immediately avert any perceived collisions. This is an extremely different sensory experience than walking forward.

[ddg]

Smell-o-vision

Here is the movie clip. I hope you all enjoyed the experience!

Sensual Bread(?) from darwin grosse on Vimeo.

[ddg]

Response to obervations of exercises

Exercise 1:

My feet try to balance evenly with each other; even the slightest movement makes the weight shift beneath my feet so that I continue to stand.

If I do seem like I’m going off balance my arms also begin to sway and counter act so that I don’t fall over

My back also begins to either lean forward or backward until an even ground is reached and so that I am sitting up straight.

My muscles (depending on where they’re located) are contracting or relaxing to allow for me to stay standing up straight.

In terms of senses – my vision is associated myself to the rest of the room and searching/scanning the room for special awareness.

When I close my eyes my body adjusts a lot to a loss of vision and my body sways ever so slightly more because it is not receiving the visual cues from what is around me and to center myself.

Exercise 2:

Standing on one food requires much more focus and attention.

My foot and calf muscles rock back and forth much more trying to center by body and not fall over, especially when I close my eyes, the rocking becomes much more intense and I really have to focus special and try to visualize where I am in the space and something to focus on so I don’t tip over.

Exercise 3:

When walking, first my calf muscles tense – especially when I’m on the front ball of one foot about to cross over to the heel of my other foot

Next they release and the top of my feet come into play with my shins to tense after the first muscle group has been released.

My quads work hand-in-hand with my calf muscles, tensing ever so slightly to raise my lower leg and bring my foot forward to take the next step.

My upper body stays pretty straight and aligned and my hands sway a tad, the right moves forward as the left leg moves forward and vise versa – this helping to maintain balance

Leaning forward seems to speed me up, as my body tries to over compensate so that I don’t tumble forward

Exercise 4:

When walking super slowly my mind has to work a lot harder to tell my body what to do, it is not as automatic or nearly as natural as a normal walking speed, where I don’t even think about the movements or muscles being used

Slow walking is much more engaging to my muscles and they have to work harder to maintain the upright position of my body.

I am not nearly as solid in my posture or balance when trying to do this slower and my arms also seem to work harder and bend to over compensate for the slower movement.

Exercise 5:

Walking backwards again takes a lot of effort and I immediately have to look behind me to make sure my path is clear and throughout trying to walk I often glance behind me to make sure I won’t fall or run into something. It is also much more difficult to walk in a straight line and much more balance in my arms and legs is required. I am easily thrown off balance.

My feet seem to roll back to the heel with much more force and effort. Also my calf muscles are put into more use.

Strangely it’s much easier for me to walk backwards while standing on my toes, than trying to do a “normal” walk only backwards.

My hands also do not sway back and forth like they do when walking forwards; the balance is seemingly not needed.

Creative Project 2: hand sense

For this next creative project I had a very hard time trying to determine what I could do to "perform" words associated with the five senses. Building off my first creative project, I again decided to focus on the actions associated with our hands. Not only do our hands experience such intricate forms of movement and touch, but aid in our production of language, relaying ideas and explaining our experience to other people.

With this idea I picked various words from each sense category and chose with intention so that each word could be understood by only using simple hand gestures and movements. Our hands are not only used for one particular reason or purpose, but represent so much of ourselves and how we perceive the world. Therefore this project embodies the idea that our hands have the ability to relay words associated with all 5 senses through the use of gestures and movements. These performances showcase movements/gestures that our society and culture have deemed acceptable and how we associate gestures with specific senses and their identifying words.