Join Ted Dimon beginning March 16 for an 8-week intensive course on the principles of developmental movement.
The stages by which a child learns to achieve upright posture and the full range of motor skills is a remarkable journey from the most primitive to the most advanced forms of balance and locomotion. As adults, studying these developmental movements makes it possible to effect improvements in the working of the muscular system, to gain insight into how to move efficiently, and to progress from more basic to more advanced forms of balance and support.
To do this requires an educational curriculum. That is, students must be presented with the topics and skills that make up the subject, and then shown a clear path of learning that will lead toward mastery of the material. This course will be an in-depth examination and practical exploration of that curriculum.
There will be theoretical content to help students understand the context of developmental movement. Our human upright form is the culmination of an ancient sequence of vertebrate animal evolution, beginning with the simplest head/tail forms, through fish, through four-footed land animals and transitional, two-footed primates. We will study this evolutionary history, exploring the vertebrate head/trunk organization, the tensegrity arrangement of bones and muscle, and the nervous system that underlies all vertebrate movement and perception. We will explore human embryonic development, and the spiral arrangement of our musculature.
The bulk of the course will be devoted to practical exploration. Observation of harmful tensions in movement, the practice of non-doing, the skill of “directing” and organizing one’s own awareness to make restorative changes to the muscle system: these are the skills that form the heart of the curriculum. Next are the study of infantile sequences of movement, and the classic developmental postures that reflect five distinct evolutionary stages:
1. Prone and supine, or lying fully supported on the ground
2. Primary crawling and foetal positions (elbows, knees, forehead)
3. Crawling on all fours
4. Clambering and four-footed support of the trunk
5. Rotational movements
Finally, there is the study of movement, proprioception, and inhibitory control. When we have learned to make use of developmental postures to make restorative changes, there remains the issue of the harmful habitual patterns of movement that throw the muscle system back into disorganization. As part of mastery of the subject, we will explore how to bring our actions to a more conscious level, learning how to act without bringing into play our own harmful muscle tensions.
Classes will meet on Mondays and Wednesdays for 8 weeks at 10:00 AM, NYC time. Every Thursday will be a review of the week’s material and procedures.
For more information and a full schedule, and to enroll, please click here.