Degrees of Freedom (Patreon)

• If You’re New to LMA, Start With Our Table of Contents

Movement Range

A technique is not any one movement but a range of movements. So long as it is within that technique's movement range, it is still that technique. You move outside of that movement range, and it becomes another technique.

A practitioner has the freedom to explore the movement range of each technique and the transitions between them. Exploring a technique's movement range is the practitioner's range of freedom.

Degrees of Freedom

During training, practitioners often ask:

• "Is it okay if I do it this way?"

• "Is it okay for me to move like this as opposed to this?"

• "Can I do this?"

The answer to these questions wholly depends on the conditions, constraints, and ruleset of the current game or movement task.

The degrees of freedom are the number of things you can vary without breaking any constraints. You're free to move however you want within the constraints, so long as your actions are not endangering yourself or your partner.

Well-designed limitations guide practitioners in their development. By allowing for freedom within these limitations, practitioners maximize the infinity within a movement space. As constraints decrease, practitioners will know every nook and cranny of possibility and intuitively find their Way through the chaos.

Not only will they better understand their conditions, they will better understand their capabilities (and themselves). Rather than being a fixed point in time, a set pattern, or even adapted, LMA practitioners are adaptive.

– Sam