Walking into Movement Diversity (Patreon)

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We previously introduced the Liberation Martial Arts (LMA) approach to walking. In this module, we are walking into movement diversity. In a modern settler-colonial capitalist hellscape, our movements are oppressed, alienated, and monotonous. Movement diversity, on the other hand, explores our freedom of movement and reintroduces diverse movements back into our lives. Movement freedom is about actively engaging with your world, your body, and your senses.

Diversity and infinity

In LMA, our exploration or play area is called the "pitch." Designating a physical space helps us navigate and explore safely. In wayfinding (and land-based) terms, the pitch is our territory. It's a way to contain infinity.

What is infinity divided by half? Still infinity. Likewise, infinity within the pitch is still infinity. However, small infinity provides a structure for exploration and creativity, fostering learning. Big infinity is too vast for patterns to emerge, stifling learning. Everything is nothing. Whereas everything within a pitch is materially something.

Wayfinding is your ability to solve the problem of finding your way. Repeating one solution is not the same as the ability to find solutions. Movement diversity is the scaffolding for wayfinding. Wayfinding is a skill, not a memorized solution.

Walking in practice

After introducing LMA walking, I introduce movement diversity bit by bit based on time constraints and what they've already tried. A practitioner's walk can also be self-determined or co-designed.

You can never walk the same way twice, even if you tried. The movement diversity I show in this walk is not exhaustive since what you can do is infinite. These examples are meant for inspiration. The walk evolves with the practitioner and is personal to each individual. You can't walk in someone else's shoes.

Priming plants the seed. Walking waters it.

Walking is exploration

Backward walk

Within the pitch, I can safely walk backward. An important set of principles and ideas in LMA is being a flexible tree sapling. A tree's roots don't go deep into the ground but instead spread wide, creating an area of support (support base). Movement is not the opposite of rootedness. Instead, moving our feet apart establishes the area of support. Rootedness is adaptive, requiring movement. It is not fixed but dynamic.

The roots connect to the trunk, and the trunk connects to the branches and crown. Likewise, the branches and crown connect to the trunk, and the trunk connects to the roots. When the roots move, the trunk twists, the branches sway, and the crown turns. This is the kinetic link from the ground to the crown. Even backward, I connect with the ground and kinetic link. I'm not just a structure but a coordinative structure. I'm a structure that moves, but movement also coordinates me into a structure.

During my walk, I'm learning to develop and store inertia. In LMA, movement is about conserving energy. The more energy we conserve, the more we can move. Like a tree, the more energy we conserve, the more we endure.

My perspective is always first-person; I can't look at myself as an observer. Like any movement, part of walking backward is observing the world from my first-person perspective rather than imagining how I look to the world. Rather than perfectly replicating my movement, notice how the world looks as you move.

Most of the time, the world is still or moving toward us because we are either looking at something or moving toward something. When we walk backward, the world pulls away.

As I walk backward in a circle, the world moves away and turns, but not in the way I'm used to. There's something very symbolic about this—that we spend very little time watching things pull away. It embodies loss in our movements.

Similarly, our depth perception lacks experience in perceiving while moving away. Where do we look? How do we steady our gaze? We've become too specialized in monotonous movements and repeats. No last episodes, only reboots.

This is why we walk into diversity. Diversity is not only about diverse identities; it's also about diverse bodies, movements, and experiences. We are not just tissue and memory but a phenomenon.

Side walk

Walking sideways, I still kinetically link the ground to my body and distal limbs. My arms still sway, my trunk twists, and my head turns. I'm moving as a unit, where all my minor movements are interconnected to a greater body of work—a coordinated moving structure.

One foot is always on the ground, and the other foot hovers slightly off the ground, dragging imaginary roots and moving my base of support. It's better to maintain my connection with the ground rather than lose it and try to reestablish connection.

The pitch is a territory. Keep ground as you move. Walking is climbing on two feet. Move from grip to grip and hold to hold. Don't completely detach and lose ground.

Making different arm shapes

An object in motion stays in motion. Go with inertia and maintain inertia. Conserve energy. Keeping a boulder rolling is much easier than getting it to start rolling.

Compare city miles to open road miles. Stopping and going and changes in pace all consume energy and other resources. This is not only a difference in energy but also stress. Keep the boulder rolling. Wayfinding is not a fixed point in time but a continuous process filled with fun and joy.

A tree can shape its limbs based on the conditions, opportunities, and cues from the environment. Explore all the ways you can shape your arms. Rather than thinking about techniques, view movement as the creation of dynamic shapes with the body.

Analogies work best here because it's about understanding concepts rather than memorizing rules. Think of your arms and legs as keys that you can shape to fit any lock. Since you're moving as a unit, think of the entire unit as the cake and your arms and legs as icing.

I think of my arms and legs as tree limbs or vines that move around obstacles toward a destination. Wayfinding is my ability to view the conditions and shape my body safely around them.

Sumo walk

Walking forward with my feet pointed out gives me a wide base. Structurally, I'm a square. My chest is facing forward, my back is facing behind me, and my feet are pointing to each side. I'm stable, but my movements are restricted. I have to take small steps. Now consider how Thai-boxers move, also with small steps. Now, look at their feet. (It was sumo all along!)

The East has many practices based on pushing and off-balancing, which is evident even in its striking arts.

Duck walk

Like the sumo walk, the duck walk involves pointing my feet outward. However, I can stand taller and take bigger steps, causing my trunk to sway along with my arms. Returning to the example of Thai-boxers, rather than footwork, now think about how they step into kicks and punches.

So long as you're within the ballpark of these movements, you're doing nicely. Even if you're not within the ballpark, so long as your movement is diverse and an escape from monotonous movement, you're still doing great. What matters most is how your movement looks to you in the world. Pay attention to your first-person mover's perspective.

It's less about what the movement looks like and more about where you're looking. Keep your gaze steady, which often means looking out of the corners of your eyes as your body and head move. Holding a target in sight means orienting your eyes to a target as the rest of your body moves.

Look at your screen while moving your head up and down and side to side. Keeping the screen in focus means using all the spaces of your eyes.

Noticing how you're looking at a target and how the target looks to you gives you information on how you're moving. Without seeing a video of yourself, you can infer how you're moving by how the world looks to you as you move. Likewise, the movement of your eyes can also guide your movement. For example, looking out of the corner of your eye can precipitate a turning kick. Looking directly at a target from the center of your eyes while delivering the same kick might mean blowing out your knee.

Seeing where I'm going as I duck walk means constantly switching my lead eye and looking out of the corners of my eyes. Keeping the world in focus means looking out of the corners of your eyes as you turn or rotate.

Knee shapes

Inertia and swaying give me the freedom to move my arms or legs. Now, I'm lifting my legs, but my movement isn't all that different from when I was only swinging and shaping my arms.

Since my legs are longer than my arms, they make more distinct shapes. I can make various shapes in different directions while keeping my knees bent. I can swing my arms and sway my body to push my knee forward.

Unless you're extending both limbs, extending a limb means picking a side—hence why you're looking out of the corners of your eyes or sideways at a target.

Asymmetrical movements mean one side of your body, which includes your eyes.

Exploring long leg shapes

The task informs the shape (however, it's not the only source of information). I can push something in front of me with the ball of my foot. If that's the task, how should I coordinate my body to accomplish that task? Try it as you walk. Get in the ballpark and dwell in it.

As I turn and extend, I think about clearing a path through tall grass with my shin and the top of my foot. I keep my eyes glued to where I'm aiming, regardless of what my body is doing.

When I make two different leg shapes back to back, I draw comparisons, and by comparing them, I can understand how they are similar and different. Knowing the differences is understanding how they are distinct. From the push knee to the front push kick, I feel the similarities and the differences in my body. They're similar, but the striking surface and the extension are different.

From the front push kick to the turning kick, I can feel they both extend, but the intentions are different because the striking surface is different. Since I'm switching from the ball of the foot to the shin as my striking surface, I have to turn my body and come at a target from the side rather than straight forward.

From the turning kick to the side push kick, I can sense how they both can't be delivered from the same body position. The end of my turning kick turns me sideways. Only when I'm sideways can I access the side push kick. Since the striking surface is the bottom of my foot, rather than coming from the side, it's straight forward again, but this time, my body is turned sideways from the target.

From the end of my side push kick, I can access my back push kick because the condition to accessing it is having my back turned to the target. It's still straight forward and the striking surface is still the bottom of my foot, but this time my back is turned to the target.

By chaining movements and switching legs, I better understand the conditions and goals of each movement.

Since each kick has me turning my body more and more, I am looking more and more out of the side of my eye until it's past the point of my neck's range of motion. Keeping my target in focus means turning my head all the way around ahead of my body to get my target back in sight.

Since I am turning so deeply throughout the series of leg shapes, I am losing friction and surface contact. If you put your hand against a wall for balance, making these leg shapes is far less challenging. What makes it difficult is the balance.

When a movement is dynamic, we're trained to assume what makes it hard to replicate is the mechanics when it's almost always the balance.

Your balance determines much of your ability to shape your legs. If you lose balance the moment you lift your foot, you won't have time to shape your legs, making all your leg shapes similar. If you can hang in the air for a long time, you can make all sorts of shapes.

Where does balance come from? Connecting to the ground and exploring. This is why we walk. All skills come from experience. Developing balance means dwelling in balance.

We don't believe in styles or techniques because everything is determined by goals and conditions. Shapes are shaped by our affordances (our unique opportunities).

Exploring ways to cover my body

I can point my leg out like in the duck walk and use both my arms to cover my side body. My arms are creating a shape that not only obstructs blows to my side body but also deflects them away. The shape is like an outward-facing hook. It redirects blows up and away from my body. The non-destructive covering surface is the back of my forearm and my palm. For my legs, it's my shin. The sides of my forearms or legs are destructive to my body.

Not all body surfaces are made for impact. For LMA, we categorize surfaces as destructive and non-destructive to the self. Based on the game, we also designate legal and illegal target areas and legal and illegal striking surfaces. For example, elbows are almost always illegal striking surfaces. When it comes to striking, using the head as a striking surface is illegal. However, when grappling, the head can be used as another limb.

From the three-sided cover, I remove my shin, leaving only my arms and the outer hook. Without my leg, my side bending becomes more apparent. Since everything is about balance, bending toward impact is about kinetically linking with the blow, distributing the energy back into the ground rather than having the energy knock me off my feet. At the moment of contact, the object of impact and I become a mutual structure. I'm shaping myself to complete that temporary and fleeting structure.

I can get into shape quicker when I remove the other arm and cover my side with a single arm. Speed can dictate a movement, and the movement can dictate the speed.

Exploring leg configurations

By taking a staggered leg configuration, not only do I have better balance, but now I've contained infinity into a smaller box, simplifying infinity even further. From my vantage point, when I look down at my feet, they should be in the ballpark of an L-shape. When I stagger the other way, they're in the ballpark of a J-shape.

As I transition from movement to movement, shape to shape, I don't think about how many reps I've done. I don't deliberately count score because conscious mental effort means stopping. Movement is a continuous game where you don't stop to think, you go by feel. If you're going to analyze, do so after. You make this normal during your walk and then carry it with you to sparring games.

Continuous movement means continuous breathing. Breathing gives us a sense of time, pace, and effort. It's our most reliable marker. Otherwise, we'd have little information on time scale and exertion. By attuning to our breath, we can sense and control our work rate.

Exploring staggered walking with turns and arm shapes

Staying rooted and maintaining my base of support as I walk are continuous conditions. On top of that, I'm turning my body and exploring different arm shapes. I can walk, turn, and cover. I can walk and turn. I can walk, turn, and extend.

I'm exploring what I'm capable of. I'm exploring what my space affords. My space affords and constrains my movements and shapes. How much space does each movement take? Not only can I change my shape, but I can also change my size. How much space can I take up? How quickly? How much little space can I take up? How much space can I give away? How quickly? How quickly can I reclaim it? I can change direction, stances, and speed, and combine them in infinite ways. This is why I can never walk the same way twice.

Turning the other way

I can turn the other way without changing my stance. Rather than turning my torso toward my rear foot, I can turn it toward my lead. I can walk, turn, and cover. I can walk and turn. I can walk, turn, and extend.

When my trunk turns, my shoulders and feet turn in concert. Since safe movement is about balance, moving in concert means coordinating your structure to line up in the same direction. This alignment and synergy are not things you can see; they're an embodied cognition you must feel.

Switching stance

Avoiding injuries also means balance. Doing things on one side means doing them on the other. Rather than wearing out one side of your body, distribute the workload evenly so nothing wears out.

Direction change

Balance means doing everything from both stances, both sides, both directions, forward and backward, laterally, and everything in between. Exploring diverse movements is about becoming a better mover, and being a better mover means becoming an adaptable mover.

Elder walk

Changing shape also means changing height and getting closer to the ground. The safest way to do this is to put your hands behind your back and bend over. Some call this the "cat back," and it's what speed skaters do. However, I've grown up always seeing Asian elders do this.

Avoid locking out your limbs in all your movements. Locked limbs prevent limb coiling, which can lead to major injury.

Strut

Elders have swagger, and the elder walk easily transitions to the strut.

Conditions inform your movements; therefore, changing height and being lower to the ground alters your movements. It's the middle ground between crawling and upright walking.

Backward walk with arm extension

If you can do it forward, see how it feels going backward. Map out all your movements. Be an adaptable mover.

Backward staggered walk

There is no rule regarding when backward movements are introduced. It's more of a feeling than a rule.

Backward elder walk to strut

Elder walking is an introduction to wrestling, where we're still walking without crawling.

Staggered side walk

Since standing staggered is asymmetrical, going to the left is different from going to the right. There's infinity within each stance.

Lastly

Go find or create a pitch, and explore your movement space.

– Sam