Rolling Stone (Patreon)

• If you’re new to LMA, start with our table of contents

In this improv game, you are pretending to be a rolling stone. As a method actor, you are committed to your roll (role—pun intended). A partner will act as your guide, gently nudging you in the direction of your roll: forward, backward, and side to side. If you want to get spicy, they can even push you diagonally. You can also do it by yourself.

This is about finding ease in moving with energy rather than fighting against it—rolling with the flow.

You can be a small stone, shortening your distance from the ground (keeping close to the ground)—making your rolls softer and easier.

You can also challenge yourself by being a big stone, exploring rolling from standing height.

Since external momentum is minimal (or nonexistent), you control how much or how little you move—rolling big or small, or just rocking back and forth.

Once rolling becomes comfortable, it can even feel good and be therapeutic. It's already utilized by physical therapists and body workers. Rocking and rolling are part of our movement blueprint. As babies, we rocked and rolled before we learned to walk or crawl.

Reminders:

• Don't let your head touch the floor

• Take your time

• Exhale to reduce internal pressure

• Use your arms like springs to control and slow your roll

• The video is just a demonstration—you don't have to do it like I did

• Scale for comfort

Theory

When your body pushes into the ground, ground reaction force pushes back. This is the same force that makes jumping possible. A potentially harmful way to land on the ground is suddenly, with force driving directly into the ground. Your body's momentum must suddenly come to a stop. That puts tremendous ground reaction force on your body. Ouch.

Rolling redirects that force. It transforms a crash into a smoother and softer landing. By extending contact time and spreading the impact over more of your body and more of the floor, peak forces decrease. You're not dead stopping—you're recycling energy (LMA's wu wei) into a new direction and movement.

Energy doesn't vanish and cannot be destroyed; however, you can change energy. By taking concentrated energy and spreading it over time and space, you can make it more manageable and useful. Not only can I transform a crash into a roll, but I can use it to bring me back to my feet and into my walk.

Your arms act as your crumple zone to extend contact time—this means they crumple, not lock out (generally). There are times when you wouldn't use your arms as a crumple zone, but that's a different topic. Legs, on the other hand, act as a poor crumple zone. Arms can absorb energy through flexibility and joint articulation in ways the legs can't. This is why in many movement practices, it's the legs that sustain catastrophic injury rather than the arms.

During movement, people generally remember to inhale but don't always remember to exhale. For our purposes, remembering to breathe means remembering to exhale. A sharp exhale during impact recycles that external energy back outward, reducing internal pressure shock.

– Sam