All of life is expressed through a range of motion.
Range of motion governs the capacity to experience virtually every single aspect of life, including one’s senses, from one extreme to the other, and everything in between. Consider: Whispering or shouting, raising or lowering your heart rate, walking or running, opening or closing your eyes, having a lot of money versus being broke, crying or laughing, being angry or being joyous, excitement or depression, happiness or anger… even a full stomach or an empty one.
Range of motion can be measured on a gradient scale.
The Vitalogy scale of physical range of motion.
Having more physical range of motion (ROM) reduces overall stiffness and stress on your joints, increases flexibility, and better maintains both the physical structure and abilities of your body (including keeping your internal organs in their proper position). This also results in more efficient use of your energy.
The benefits of having full Range of Motion.
Stretching is a natural instinct.
Children are immensely flexible, partly because they are always moving their bodies. For adults, today's lifestyle doesn't facilitate physical activity. That’s why the VitalBody course is designed to help you discover patterns of movement that provide your body opportunities to utilize a vast range of motion, including your balance and coordination.
DEMONSTRATION: In Vitalogy workshops we demonstrate "airplane spinning," spinning like a top with one’s arms outstretched. Remember doing that as a kid? It was fun! Why did you stop? Kids have good balance and coordination from performing movements like airplane spinning. That type of action maintains and challenges the body's capacity for coordination, yet another form of range of motion. People can't do many physical things in part because they stopped doing them years ago and are out of practice (if you don't use it you lose it). What did you do as a child that was your expression of youth? Doing activities to promote the maintenance of one’s coordination and balance is especially critical as we get older.
Youth presents the opportunity to explore through the body. As long as we continue that and maintain our physical capacity, youth is never completely lost. Using the body for physical expression was an important part of growing up. We don't recognize the necessity to continue to do it, especially now since technology regiments our life so much.
TRY THESE RANGE OF MOTION EXERCISES:
Sight: To develop eye range of motion, try focusing your eyes on the tip of your finger raised in front of you, hold it for five to ten seconds, then look at the horizon for five to ten seconds and back again to your finger. Repeat the cycle for a minute or two. A lot of people require glasses as they get older simply from spending years looking at short distances, i.e. computer monitors and TV. This points out the need for range of motion, even for our eyes.
Hearing: Hearing ranges from the barely audible to the point of deafening. Practice what musicians do before performing. First play some music quietly. This focuses the hearing and makes it precise. Then play music fairly loud, allowing your ears to become accustomed to higher volume levels. Playing music at both ends of the sound spectrum "warms up" the ears and prepares them for activity (putting the ears through a ROM). This procedure allows musicians to better tolerate high volume during performances. The next day they won't suffer from "band head," a form of hangover resulting from their ears hearing too much volume for too long.
Speech: Warm up your vocal chords just like your ears. Typically, a singer practices by going up and down the scale and raising and lowering their decibel output. Talk and/or sing softly then louder, then softly, then louder again. Making random noises in conjunction with lightly shaking your body allows your vocal cords, neck, shoulders, and chest to relax and work together. Actors often do this before performing.
Emotions: Consciously use your entire body to express various emotional states – your emotional range of motion expressed through your body. This is a healthy and safe form of release. If anger is the issue, for example, connect the anger with how it feels in your body. Go ahead and tighten up your entire body on purpose, hold it a few moments, then slowly release and feel the anger dissipate. After a few times the anger will lessen. Any strong, negative energy can be freed up and released in the body this way. The flow of energy, which is what emotions are all about, has to stay open and unrestricted. When it bottles up, like cars on a freeway, you stall and get backed up.
Rules of Thumb About Your Structure
Posture refers to how the body is held up under gravity. Alignment is the proper positioning of parts in relation to each other. Skeletal alignment is what creates your posture. Alignment and posture (how the skeletal structure is carried) directly affect energy expenditure. Walking is posture in motion, going from point A to point B against the resistance of gravity.
Three elements of posture.
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