Shoulder-to-the-Ground Game (Patreon)

Incidental to self-determined movements

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

Introduction

"Shoulder to the ground" is another evolution game—like "mutually evolving gaze"—that begins with a clear invitation and expands. If you've engaged with the curriculum, the Growth section, the ground-up series, and the improv games, you've already encountered every movement in this game. What's new is the shift from unconscious and incidental to conscious control—autopilot to autonomous.

This is a recurring scaffold in LMA: movements first naturally emerge, then become deliberate and self-determined. What once happened by chance, you now choose on purpose. This not only makes you a better mover but a safer one—not only for you, but also for your partners. How safe would anyone feel if everything were left to chance?

The game

The game starts simply: touch your shoulder to the ground without letting your head or neck make contact.

Less complexity: start from kneeling

From kneeling, use the seesaw principle to create slack. Lift the opposite leg to allow your shoulder to descend. You'll build momentum as you go, eventually wanting to tip forward. Instead of halting the motion, roll with the flow. Roll over your shoulder to your back and return to kneeling. Repeat.

This is where the LMA principle of swing naturally arises. Just like swinging on a swing set, you extend to initiate momentum and tuck to finish. In the video, you'll see practitioners do exactly that—extending into the roll, tucking to complete it, then rolling through to kneeling.

My cues

After a while, I invited the practitioners to roll if it felt like the journey forward would cost less energy than the trip back. The ever-changing mechanics and timing, they figure out the timing on their own—through sensation, not instruction.

Analyzing their movements

They subtly push off the ground to ensure a smooth arc, much like coasting up a hill with just enough gas to crest it. Then the legs tuck, and they coast down. The arms serve as crumple zones and rudders to stabilize and steer. They did that on their own without instruction.

More complexity: from standing

Once comfortable, the game is revisited from standing and walking. Practitioners begin walking a bit, stopping, and then bringing their shoulder to the ground without involving the head or neck. They often return to kneeling at first, but starting from standing adds momentum. It's easier to roll through than to stop the momentum. They self-determine when they complete the roll based on their developing intuitions.

Safety note

Developing an intuition for when to stay standing or fall to the ground is critical for safety and injury prevention. Sometimes it is more harmful to stay on your feet, and falling would prevent shear force.

Recycling momentum and autonomy

Walking was complexity they added, I only invited them to try it from standing. They recycled the added momentum from walking and standing to roll back to their feet all on their own.

Why it worked

Rolling to standing costs less energy than stopping mid-roll and standing separately. That's LMA's wu wei in motion—energy recycled, not resisted. The more they played, the more gravity did the work. It started becoming effortless. You're not watching a polished product. You're watching embodied and self-directed learning—skills emerging from the conditions.

They used to fall and roll incidentally during improv. Now they can do it at will. Determining your own movements is autonomy and self-determination. That's what we are fostering. Self-determination is a skill, not a given. The more these practitioners dwell in self-determined movements, the more their capacity for autonomy expands. The greater your self-determination in movement, the more empowered you feel—and the more you actualize that empowerment.

Backward roll: shoulder touch from behind

Now it's about touching your shoulder to the ground backward.

Less complexity: start from seated

Rock back and forth, touching the back of the shoulder to the ground. Look toward the rolling shoulder to shift your head out of the way. In forward rolls, the head clears by looking away. This wasn't cued because it tends to happen intuitively. But we don't have the same intuitions going backward because we rarely do it.

Alignment

A principle we covered before that'll come up often in Growth is alignment. The opposite of alignment is shear force (or breaking force). Alignment keeps joints and bones aligned and intact, and shear force severs. The head can swivel from the trunk, which creates more movement possibilities and greater risk for shear force. When the head follows the trunk, the neck stays aligned and safe. In the video, notice how the practitioners roll cleanly over the shoulder, not the neck. Their head and chest face the same direction throughout. The head and neck don't touch the ground at all.

Expectations for organizers

This game might evolve in one session or over several. Every LMA pod and practitioner will have their own context. Every LMA module can last minutes or weeks. It can be done once or repeated. They're not drills to be memorized but dynamic scaffolds. That's why we call it training "organizing"—borrowed from political organizing—because you are organizing the activities.

Evolving the movement

Once practitioners can rock comfortably, I invite them to touch their knee or foot to the ground. They may need to push off the ground with their arms. I previously mentioned that the legs aren't ideal crumple zones, so the free arm will have to join in as an added buffer.

The moment to attempt a full backward roll is self-determined. Watch the video, and you'll see the surprise in a practitioner's eyes after purposefully completing it for the first time. Since backward is more difficult, I gave them cues to ease the Way: "You don't have to complete the roll every time. Decide each time."

Once the knee or foot touches the ground, the rest of the roll is almost complete. All that's left is to shift weight down onto the legs and lift the head—seesaw again.

More complexity: from standing

Now they're standing, sitting, rocking, and rolling back onto the shoulder. Once that's familiar, they transition to touching the foot or knee to the ground. Once that's comfortable, they complete the roll.

LMA's Way

The practitioners in the video are intuitively recycling the energy from the roll to get back to their feet. Energy is not wasted. Despite doing these rolls deliberately for the first time, their actions carry prior experience—of LMA principles and theories that apply to all our movements. It's their first rodeo, but at the same time, in LMA, it's never your first rodeo. How you do one thing is how you do all things. How you LMA is how you move. All our activities are LMA principles in different clothing.

Final notes

This game isn't just about rolling. It's about reinforcing that autonomy is practiced, not presumed. It's a game of finding your Way down—and discovering that you already had it in you.

– Sam