Movement and Communication

“When Integrated Movement has occurred, a deeply held thought or feeling, even a statement of one’s world view, has been expressed.  Something valuable has happened in human communication, which bypasses the concerns, details, distractions of daily life in favor of a broader deeper meaning.  A door has been opened to communication”  -Ellen Goldman-

Ellen Goldman was one of my teachers at The Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies in 2000.  This quote is from her book As Others See Us:  Body Movement and the Art of Successful Communication.  This week I have had the pleasure of revisiting this book and along with it theory from Laban Movement Analysis that speaks to the communication that is inherent in our movement.  This communication is often unconscious and can be productive to our relationships or revealing of true feelings that we might not be expressing verbally.

Imagine the following dialog,

“How are you?” 

“I’m alright.”

“How’s work going?”

“It’s pretty good.  How are you?”

“I’m doing okay.”   

First of all, think about how many conversations have you had like this.  You might even have had one earlier today over breakfast.  Then read the dialog again, and decide what the written words are actually telling us.  Now imagine a person who is really excited for a vacation that is about to start.  How might that person say, “I’m alright,” differently than the person who is approaching a deadline for unfinished work?  What would you notice in their bodies? What kind of shapes might their bodies make?  Would one person seem taller than the other?   These are all interpretations that we make unconsciously and instantaneously.  We are a verbal species so we use words, but often the words we use are superfluous to the communication that is happening from within our body.

Imagine a gift being given to two different people.  Both people say, “thanks.” But one person hugs the gift to her chest and makes eye contact to say thanks, and the next person says thanks while holding the gift away from her body and retracts her head pulling her chin back towards her spine.  In this scenario who is really saying thanks…And what happens if the second person really wants to say thanks but needs glasses to see the gift more clearly.  I smell a miscommunication brewing, do you?  Being aware of our gestures, postures and any movement in between will aid in effective communication. 


Why might I be revisiting this information that I studied so long ago?  Well on May 4^th, 2012, I will be sharing some of these theories with the fabulous women that attend the retreat One Powerful Day for Women hosted and facilitated by Jeff Rock of Swift River Coaching.

This retreat promises to be fabulous and I encourage anybody who is interested to email jeff@swiftrivercoaching.com for more information.