Climbing the Tree (Patreon)

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

We frequently use the metaphor of a tree sapling to embody flexibility and stability (active stability). Here, one partner becomes the tree sapling, the other, the climber.

The activity

The climber begins seated or in a crawl position—this choice belongs to the climber. The tree partner starts by gently leaning onto the climber's shoulders. The task of the tree is to maintain or regain balance. When the tree can no longer lean on the climber, they work toward standing upright. The climber's objective is to progressively climb the tree until they are standing.

Tips:

• Rather than isolated stability, the climber and the tree are creating mutual stability.

• Prioritize efficiency over muscular force.

• Engage with slowness; pause frequently to sense and assess stability.

• Try different solutions—change something rather than do the same thing at various speeds.

• If you're the climber, feel the difference between merely touching your partner and independently rising versus actively utilizing their support to lift yourself.

• Remember, the tree is not a statue. They are actively stabilizing. Their response to your movements can assist your ascent.

• Clinging and climbing require friction—that means surface-to-surface contact.

Climber guideposts:

• Find the half-kneel or full-kneel position (both knees down) as pit stops to assess and find your Way.

• If you think of your partner's limbs like tree limbs and their trunk like a tree trunk, look for branch collars to cling to—bony parts of the body that bulge out. Think of them like knots on a rope that make it easier to climb. They're essentially steps. For example, wrists, elbows, crook of knees, hips, etc.

Analyzing the video

Some of the solutions in the video may not be immediately intuitive. The activity is designed to foster haptic sense—understanding stability and ease through bodily sensations rather than visual observation. Over time, your perceptual skills will deepen, enabling you to intuitively sense paths of least resistance and effective stability. Once you have enough experience, you can develop a sense of what stability and instability look like—because you've been there.

Make it make sense

Understanding why some solutions don't make intuitive sense is the key to making this activity easier for the climber. The tree is actively stabilizing—what does that mean in practical terms? They're constantly adjusting their posture and tension, either resisting gravity or repositioning their center of mass to support or elevate you. If you gently pull downward on their arm, their stabilizing response can assist you upward. You can't entirely rely on them to carry your weight, but their resistance creates a supportive force. When gently pushing against their leg, they respond by stiffening and lifting it, rooting into their other leg, providing a stable platform or "step" for you to advance upward. We've explored this concept previously with the "armrest," crawl, or half kneel. Certain positions can be temporary guideposts or pit stops, offering stability for your next movement. Finding these linchpins simplifies complex tasks.

Slightly unbalancing your partner to trigger their stabilization can smoothly carry you upwards, or repositioning yourself can reveal better holds for ascent.

LMA theory isn't supposed to be cryptic aphorisms that perpetuate confusion, magical thinking, or Orientalist mysticism. Words, especially American English words, naturally fall short of capturing the full spectrum of movement sensations; however, clarity remains our aim. Even metaphors in LMA are meant to clarify physical sensations rather than prescribe exact movements.

Physical practice is the chance to play with theory and make it make sense—aligning theory with understanding. Keep going until it makes sense. This isn't a racist martial arts movie where mystery is the point, and it's only supposed to make sense to enlightened beings—not fools like us. Mystery just means a lack of access to information.

Confusion and inaccessibility should never be the point of a liberatory practice—the point should be clarity and accessibility. Otherwise, who is it for? Otherwise, what is consent?

Zooming out

Furthermore, telling people what to do and how to move, how is that consensual? How does that get people to understand the underlying theory, philosophy, or point? What are people intellectually or physically agreeing to, and did they ever get an opportunity to consent? If you couple that with confusing statements from the instructor, how will anyone know what they are doing or why? It's a form of hijacking where you're a body being manipulated to do what the instructor wants—just checked-out bodies going through the motions. This is so normal; it's treated casually. Yet this context is necessary to understand the larger systemic problem of abuses that happen within gyms.

If you're unclear about what you're doing, why you're doing it, or why you're there, don't be there.

– Sam