School Counselors, Researchers, Educators
( √) What is “Biomechanics of Psychology”?
(WTM -> Wellness Through Movement)
Since the Industrial Revolution, there has been a “great divide” between brain and body that still shapes our education and healthcare systems. Although scientists around the world recognize that there is a foundational, integrative unity quality between motion and cognitive development, our communities, teachers, and schools do not. How can movement change the demeanor of a child? What effects does motion have on cognitive challenges? The science behind the biomechanics of psychology deserves some attention. We need to find bridge builders among researchers, educators, and medical professionals.
What makes something interesting for a student? How does a child stay focused? What helps establish and maintain the sense of centeredness? “Centeredness” is often described in psychological terms such as calmness, groundedness, steadiness, and mental balance. Look at the words used. All these words for centeredness also have a physical aspect: calmness, groundedness, steadiness, and balance. Why are we not helping teachers and patients learn how their bodies can be tools for learning and healing?
When the word “mind” is used, we think of thoughts. When the term “body” is used, we typically think of the physical structure of bones, flesh, and organs. The biomechanics of psychology is neither and both. The psyche is a swimming of physical structure to feed perception.
The patterns of emotions, thoughts, or actions create a framework of living structure through sensations.It is in the character of these subtle sensations that are inseparable to how the mind functions. Scientists may refer to this living structure as proprioception, body ownership, or neural elasticity. In WTM, this living structure of consciousness is termed the Sensory Body (SB). To help teachers and health professionals raise healthy, happy, and intelligent people, the carriage of the mind needs to be familiarized. Behavioral patterns mirrored in patterns of muscular-skeletal function are of great importance and deserve attention in both psychology and education.
WTM lessons are one way to provide practical steps and concepts based on what research knows and on what parents and teachers are struggling with in their children. What helps bridge the gap between biomechanics and the psyche is the nature of a gravitational field, motion, speed, and timing. It is through motion, every action influencing emotions, sensing, and feelings, that we learn how to perceive. And every emotion, sense, and feeling influences motions.
Think of another word for motion as “life.” The synthesis of cognitive and psychological functioning integrates through the hidden structure of muscular-skeletal impressions. Within the qualities of motion, there are triggers of chained reactions. These impressions gain insight into a type of conversation of impulses. These impulses are recorded with the body for the mind to learn. In other words, the biomechanics of psychology is a hidden type of structural “brain.” With attention and motion, the SB can be brought into awareness to help children learn. When the word “awareness” is used in this context, it means the experience of sensory knowledge. Sensory knowledge is sensations and actions organized in motion and married to the brain. When in the SB, insights into how the body influences perception become clear.
When we taught children to be aware of changes in their bodies to changes in their character, the end results matched our predictions. When children’s bodies became more functional integrated, that is, with balance, groundedness, and steadiness, mental balance, and attention behavior also improved. We tested it: “Testing WTM.”
In contrast to learning a particular movement, the end goal was for the lessons to trigger experiences of sensations that reflect physical character in behavioral patterns. More can be understood about the process in the talk,Six Body to Brain Strategies,” and in the work of Moshe Feldenkrais.
If a child experiences the structure of action as conversations, what influences attention becomes clear. From movement, a different kind of understanding from physical sensations helped change demeanor, attention deficiency, and perception.
It is well known that children and adults alike learn more easily through activity. What intersects concentration and sense of self comes from more than just in the brain. We are living creatures of mind, body, and soul. When they all work together, they work better. Wellness Through Movement hopes to support others in building a bridge between research and education by sharing practical steps we did with the mind as the body.
Tips for working with children: They learn better through play. Playing involves more of the senses and sensations. See the book, A New Sensory Self Awareness,for games or this tab. In summary, lessons use attention, sensation, and action to feel connections of emotions, thoughts, and the biomechanics of structure.
Note: If you are working with adolescents or adults, learning awareness of the SB develops by integrating cognitive reasoning with the sensations of motion, attention, and perception. Contact us for more information about working with older populations.
(√) How is WTM movement different from exercise?
Reframe the definition of movement to “a witness between intention and action.” Nature, through the laws of physics, is the fundamental properties and behaviors of the physical world. Nature encompasses the study of matter and the forces that govern their interactions. These “interactions” are what will be termed “movement.” The topic of movement as the conversations, different than exercise, is the key to understanding the uniqueness of the Wellness Through Movement methods.
Wonder about movement as something more than just physical, and you will learn that movement in the human body is also trying to teach us how to learn. Physicist Moshe Feldenkrais applied his knowledge of physics and human development to create practical applications of motion to understand human consciousness. As a result, his methods also change behavior. It seems simple, and it is if we are aware of the body it is. For children unaware of their bodies and cognition not yet developed, the child enters the body as if it is conversations between an inner and outer self.
Children feel more than they think. The stages of development before cognition develop are driven by dialogues of multiple sensations and the need to move. The forces that govern these sensations for a child are like sounds on a loudspeaker influencing attention. The results? Children need to feel their bodies. The nature of these influences from sensation is calling to enter the body. Move.
The tendency is to try to get these children to get beyond the need to move and focus. With Wellness Through Movement, the movement is a good thing. The nature of movement is ultimately trying to connect to the limits and struggles. Watch their movements and wonder about their its internal message. There is a connection between their movements and emotions to how they learn. In Wellness Through Movement, we teach by observing movements to understand how to teach, even academically, from the whole child.
Ripened awareness of the body for children creates astonishing changes. The results range from longer attention spans to simply being kinder and more supportive of their peers. Through the movement lessons, even physical conditions improved, such as insomnia. In time, the children resourced the WTM methods on their own at home.
When needing to handle stress, violence, or depression, they turned their attention to their physical nature to process reasoning. One child’s testimonial spoke about his “inside me and his outside me.” His inside me was very shy and scared. His “outside me” was cool and aloof, and the result was that he had no friends. Children could feel the discord. The most significant and sustainable results happen with children between the ages of five and eight. At the age of eight, the ego starts to really take hold.
Here’s a (GSA) link to the intro program that helped children feel the nature of their bodies influencing their minds. In full disclosure, please understand that organizational movement lessons of Part II will be necessary for severely challenging behavior. Here are some lessons from the book A New Sensory Self Awareness for children with less severe behavioral conditions. Seek professional help in neurofeedback and the Feldenkrais method, Functional Integration® (FI®). (Find a Feldenkrais Practitioner®)
Attention professionals in research, movement, and education: WTM Lessons used.
In Summary
When reading the WTM lessons, reframe from the idea of movement as just an exercise and to get the children moving. Beyond just the five senses (sound, touch, smell, taste, & feeling) there is a sense that can feel the physical sensations of the emotions inside the body’s structure.
(√) Does the idea of movement organization affecting behavior apply if children seem normal?
Even healthy functioning children use movement to develop and discover themselves. Everything they do, think, and feel involves movement. However, they don’t always get what they desire with their actions. When desire and action don’t match up, movement becomes a teacher. Why is this important in later years? The window of opportunity for how a child learns needs to be in the child’s awareness for the child to process challenges from external demands.
Imagine a baby who sees a bottle on the floor. Although the feet and legs move, the baby doesn’t propel forward to get the bottle. The “fumbling about” is a developmental progression that lays the foundation for alignment, balance, and coordination. This fumbling stage is crucial to how the child learns to develop, achieve a goal, and build self-confidence. The nature of a baby’s actions is continually negotiating between the brain and body to find ways to achieve success. Perception, or how the child sees life and the self, develops from the movement experienced in a situation.
Movement teaches the body how to organize parts. In WTM, we use the body and the feeling inside a movement, not to achieve a motor skill but to enhance the nature of the synergy between emotions and what actions filter hearing, seeing, or doing. In other words, a child gets a chance to feel a sense clarifying words said and actions done. It is the feeling during the action that integrates the body, senses, and mind! When the three senses, body, and mind work together, children can express where they are having challenges. More importantly, the movement gives the child a tangible sense of the reality of negotiating between the inner and outer worlds.
It is the body’s feeling that clarifies perception of the actual response to a situation. However, feeling the body can be so elusive that it is hard for a child to understand their internal process. For example, when we ask them to lie on the floor and ask what is touching, many children feel nothing or very little is touching the ground. Surprisingly, when children learn to feel their bodies, they become more aware of themselves and other people. It’s like finding their best friend and a guide negotiating between their inner world and outer world.
The organization of how we move is inseparable to the sense of self.
(√) You say movement affects thinking. Why can’t we feel movement affecting our thinking?
This is a very important and good question. Sensory knowledge is what feeds the brain, helping it think. In scientific terms, the answer to why we can’t feel the thinking body is the lack of “body ownership.” Look into research on body ownership to understand why we forget the body when we consider education. We are not born aware of the sensory knowledge of the body structure. Sensory knowledge must take decisive action to acquire.
Moshe Feldenkrais, a world-renowned physicist, developed the method of movement to teach awareness of sensory knowledge. His method was taken and functional integrated into developmental movement. Nowhere in the world is the study of sensory knowledge so complete as with the Feldenkrais® Method.
(√) How can I help children have the healthiest development in both mind and body?
Children’s senses are very acute. They are feeling creatures. Don’t just try to calm a child by taking a deep breath. You have an opportunity to help children become aware of what they feel in their bodies, so they can learn about themselves. When I say “feel their bodies,” I am talking about the feeling of sensation in a motion, and the forces that govern and help reflect sensations of interactions between the inner and outer worlds.
For example, if the child is an infant or toddler, give them freedom to move and explore in a safe but challenging environment. (See Magda Gerber’s research) Movement is their teacher by the design of nature. Let nature unfold freely. Let them climb, fall, tumble, and get up again. Learning how to face challenges at a young age will help them for a life time.
If children are 5 or older, the first step we use to help them feel their bodies is with a lesson called Pancake Body (page 40). As explained above, with children lying on the floor, we ask, “What is touching the floor?” Often, children reply, “Nothing.” We begin to help develop this sense by teaching them to become aware of where body parts are touching the floor. Every body part has muscles. Muscles respond to thinking, actions, and emotions, and thinking, actions, and emotions respond accordingly to muscles. Again, as mentioned above, these recordings capture sensory information that influences their behavior and brain function.
An astounding observation in our research was that, in every child with behavioral challenges, we observed awkwardness in their lower-body movement. When the movement was integrated through the Sensory Body (the sense that feels properties of form with behavior), cognitive behaviors and healthy development led to healthier behavior.
A word of advise, when you look at movement in a child, see through the behavior and into what the body is doing that could be affecting the mind. Try to understand how the feeling of their organization may create instability, hesitation, or irritability. Look at their “movement” from the ground up through their feet, legs, and torso.
Children are feeling creatures that have to move. For healthy development, children, by nature, need to have the freedom to move. Their bodies are in thirst for what they need. Look at the Movement Teachers and Science pages for more tips.
(√) Why is the feeling of movement in children’s bodies so important to development?
We have a child who had a very awkward movement while climbing stairs. The child was mute and didn’t seem to follow any directions. When attention and movement came together, something magical happened. The physical structure is one of the primary influences on the development of behavior. Experience it, and everything in life changes. When this child was taught to sense the intricate actions of his body, everything changed, cognitively and emotionally.
This concept of movement altering cognitive function may not be easy to understand, as we are talking about a new type of sense. It is the experience of motion attached to behavior to teach the brain. When this connection between the brain and body is felt, a new sense develops. We call this sense the Sensory Body (SB).
Starting in utero, an infant’s movement begins to teach the soul the sense of the body. From this sense of the physical, the self then develops. We’ve spoken about this many times on the website. From the physical sensations of the body and the sense of self, the child learns a certain way to engage with the external world.
We find that many new parents know what their young child is trying to do and want to help them with that movement. For example, when a child is trying to roll over or walk, parents naturally reach out to help. STOP. Once the child learns the skill on their own, they gain support from inside the rest of their lives. If we take over and support the movement, the child loses a very significant opportunity. This fumbling about teaches the child how to achieve their own first success.
Imagine a toddler crawling up some steps to get a toy. The fumbling movement in the crawl and the climb gives toddlers the experience of finding balance and how to organize themselves to achieve their first goals. The sense of motion and awkward balance is sent through the legs into the spine to set up the alignment of the whole body. If uninterrupted, this natural movement process gives the child a way to find their own way to success. When children smile from success, it comes from the feeling of security and confidence in their movements.
If you step back and watch, try to understand the need for the child’s movement, wonder how the body and brain are trying to figure out how to work together. We are in the greatest gift of life, the human body. Its roots are in the brain stem, extending into the body of their world. Rolling on the floor, balancing from lying to sitting, climbing up on a lap, or crawling under a table are all ways the body finds how to learn. As teachers, counselors, and even doctors build awareness of the bridge between the body and brain, the movement becomes a symphony singing a song for that individual. In other words, the intention, the action, and the behavior provide opportunities to grow and learn through life. Awareness of what has been given when given life reveals a magic in every birthright.
(√) I never noticed anything strange about children’s movements. What should I look for?
Movement patterns. See if there is any kind of awkwardness in your child’s movement. We are looking for movement patterns that may be challenging how the child wants to operate. Are their eyes tracking with each other? Do they use only one leg when they crawl? If your child can walk, do they seem balanced when walking up or down steps? Movements beyond exercise have patterns. We usually think of movement as exercise. However, how we move communicates to the brain in how we think. We move according to the behavior of every emotion and thought. We move to find and organize balance and coordination. The results? Physical movement patterns give the brain biological tendencies for mental development.
One example was Henry, a little boy who couldn’t listen. Instead, Henry would crawl under a table or disturb another classmate. He was walking up the stairs one day, and I noticed he was not steady on his feet. His movement had a similar awkwardness as a child with Cerebral Palsy. Henry would grasp for the railing with every step for balance. Instead of playing on top of the mat, Henry wanted to crawl and roll underneath the mat, disrupting the whole class. His instinctual movement under the mat showed it was necessary to give him a sense of tactile contact against his legs. Movement behavior is a clue of how to help a child’s brain. Henry would run into the classroom and lie down under the mat. One week I grabbed his feet to see if there was a sense of organization in his body. There wasn’t. He would put his feet in my arm’s reach each week following. The biomechanics of his movement patterns were disengaged from his feet into his torso. For the next six weeks, I stimulated actions to help his body feel his movement. Once the nervous system senses the movement, it reeducates the pattern. (Science)That pattern is tied to his cognitive behavior. When the movement became graceful from his feet through his spine, he started to talk in class for the first time in nine weeks. Not only did he talk, but he also followed directions.
A natural reaction of an adult is to tell the child to get out from under the mat and sit still.” However, there is a critical perspective to consider about Henry’s movement. Instead of viewing misbehavior as an act of manipulation or trying to push buttons on another, the WTM method helps the child feel the organic intelligence of the movement pattern. When the system senses the nature of the movement pattern, everything improves. When the body-brain relationship develops a sensory type of awareness, so does the behavior, the brain function, and the child’s relationships with others. Here’s information about the Feldenkrais work or the Science behind the body-brain. Look up the Feldenkrais Guild to find a Feldenkrais® Practitioner near you.
The takeaway from this example is for parents and teachers to step back long enough to observe and wonder about the movement and ask themselves what the action is showing them about what the child needs. The awkward movement can lead the professional to help the child find a solution. Wonder as a parent how to uncover what the movements are trying to do to help the child.
If the child has difficulty sitting for long periods or has awkward movements, there is something the body is showing that contributes to hyperactivity. Researchers in cognitive sciences, Stewart Mostofsky and Dav Clark, note a relationship between movement patterns and cognitive dysfunction. Here is a link to a talk held at Harvard Talk done by Catherine Mitchell for more information.
To understand how the body affects listening, visual, social, or emotional behavior see more on the PARENT page.