Stability vs Mobility, and Balance to Boot.

Since the dominant exposure to ballet in the USA is a December trip to the Nutcracker, it is an excellent time of year to study "old school" (roughly 400 years old!) dance in PE.  Ballet is an excellent opportunity to think on the move and to: fine tune our bodily awareness and spatial awareness, apply rhythm to movement, study alignment, improve posture, strengthen muscles, contrast fast and slow movement, and to better understand balance, stability, and mobility.

Let's contrast stability with balance.  For our PE purposes, and contrary to popular speech,"balance" is not achieved by standing easily on one foot, unless it can be as easily done on the other foot.  "Balance" is the achievement of equilibrium on both (or more) sides.  A baseball pitcher, for instance, develops one arm to throw strikes but will very likely be unable to even throw to the catcher with the other hand.  The pitcher's development is therefore unbalanced.  It is more productive to consider the achievement of easily standing on one foot as "stabilizing on one foot".  The human body has over 700 skeletal muscles, many of which are used as (and informally called) stabilizers.  It is not really common to refer to any of the skeletal muscles as "balancers".  To strive for balance, we will consistently do all of our dancing to the left and to the right; we will rotate clockwise and counter-clockwise; we will stabilize, leap, and turn on one foot, and then the other.  Think of the balance you used in chemistry labs- balance is the achievement of equilibrium on both (or more) sides.

We speak of a sense of balance (we have many more than just 5 senses), formally called equilibrioception, a sense from our vestibular system.  But stability comes from proprioception- our sense of our bodies' relative position in space (the sense State Police test on erratic drivers)- and a strong, balanced, smart development of bones and muscles.  Stability is also the flip side and enabler of mobility.    

If the baseball pitcher does not stabilize the feet, ankle, and core, the throwing arm has no anchor, no power, and the movement will not satisfy its intention.  If the dancer does not stabilize one leg, she will collapse to the floor when she tries to lift her other leg, pirouette, leap, or even walk.  Some parts of the body are designed for mobility, some are designed for stability.  In ballet and in PE, we will try to maximize both.

Keep Moving,

Matthew Smith

Finding stride, falling, bouncing back.

In October, we concluded our study of (but not use of) quadrupedal movement.  We will continue to use these ranges of motion to unlock greater upper body and core strength, especially when we approach acrobatics and tumbling.  However, in the nearer term we will be spending more time on our Seattle Marathon training, basketball, and also falling and returning to our feet.

Classes are accumulating kilometers.  I tally the distance each student runs in PE, and chart the totals for each class (individual distances are not displayed).  At the end of November, students who are tallying "home" kilometers (soccer practices, hikes, bike rides, even swim lessons!) will add "home" kilometers and "PE" kilometers.  Students participating in the Seattle Kid's Marathon will each individually accumulate 40km (or more) before running the final 2km on Nov 26th.  We are supplementing pace running with shuttle runs, sprints that frequently stop and restart.

Shuttle runs emphasize changes of direction and shifting of weight.  This allows me to in turn emphasize weight distribution in the foot, but also allows us opportunities to experience gravity and inertia, which it turn give us opportunities to practice falling safely.  Falling is common to us all.  I remember reading somewhere that most of us fall hundreds of times simply learning to walk.  So why should falling give us hesitation, anxiety, or fear?  Somewhere in our development, we learn to associate falling with failure or mistake.  I suspect this is unproductive, unwarranted, and unsafe.  Indeed, falling itself is fun (weee!) and informative (where's is my weight, equilibrium, stability, center, etc), it is just the abrupt impact interrupting the fall that is problematic.  But if we understand our design and momentum, falling can be just another means of moving forward.  Falling will not be associated with failing, but will be a confident, comfortable, safe part of our movement vocabulary.  When we trust ourselves to fall, we can challenge ourselves to fly, or at least to bounce back and keep going. 

Students are getting a rather literal lesson in bouncing back.  This week students started learning about dribbling and controlling a basketball.  Just as running gives us an excuse to examine the foot and ankle, dribbling gives us a reason to study the hand and wrist.  K-1st students will start to examine a variety of ways to manipulate a variety of balls and 2nd-4th students are already starting to pass and will drill shooting skills next week before learning about the game itself (basketball) after the skills are introduced and drilled.  Emphasis will remain on body mechanics, coordination, and skill development; competition will be almost an afterthought.

Keep Moving, Stay Healthy,
Matthew Smith

The words we use and shoes if you choose

OWS PE is off to a great start.  The students have been enthusiastic and receptive in class, and it is a delight to see and hear so much fun and pleasure in motion.

The K-4 students have spent the first 3 weeks of PE and Movement building and embodying vocabulary.  For instance, most students initially defined walking as "slow" and running as "fast", so we tried walking quickly and running slowly.  Further exploration led us to discover that indeed the speed is not the important contrast since a fast walker could beat a slow runner to the finish.  So there must be a better way to define and differentiate the two.  We found it in the transfer of weight.  At the moment of transfer, walkers are grounded through both feet (2 feet on the ground) and runners are not grounded at all (both feet off the ground).  Games like Red Light/Green Light and Tag gave us opportunities to practice and experience.  We have similarly explored jump, hop, leap, skip, and gallop.  Students are also beginning to explore quadrupedal movement and are practicing bear crawl, crab walk, monkey jumps, froggers, and vaults, skills that have been practiced in games and on obstacle courses.

Our supplemental study has been the human foot and ankle.  We learned that there are many bones and muscles that are effectively immobilized by our fairly rigid footwear.  That immobility does not allow those bones, joints, muscles, ligaments, and tendons to develop the strength and flexibilty for which they are designed.  Furthermore, running shoes encourage students (and adults) to run with a stride too long for their legs (striking the ground at the wrong angle conducts the impact and stress unpleasantly up the bones and muscles), a habit that can eventually damage the feet, ankles, knees, hips, back, etc, and limit opportunities for and interest in an active lifestyle.  Indeed, running-related injuries have sky-rocketed since the invention of the running shoe in the 1970's.  The students have therefore been given a "shoes if you choose" option in most PE classes so far.  I will require PE shoes for most sport lessons (soccer, volleyball, basketball, etc); we will be barefoot for many movement lessons (dance, creative movement, tumbling, yoga, martial arts).

Now that we have a solid foundation and a ready vocabulary, we will learn to safely fall from and return to that foundation.  We will next study groundwork, gravity, and floor play, and supplement those lessons with studies of the human spine.

Regards,
Matthew Smith

K-4 PE at OWS with Matthew Smith

I am thrilled to be the new K-4 movement and PE teacher at Open Window School. Concurrent with my 1st year at Open Window School I am teaching my 6th year of K-8 PE at Arbor Montessori Schools on the Sammamish Plateau, where I have developed and refined my approach to physical education.  I also taught K-6 PE at Tall Cedars Academy in Duvall before they closed last year.  I am extremely excited to have the support of the OWS staff and the use of the OWS facilities and equipment for physical engagement, education, expression, and experiences with such a versatile student population.  I am optimistic, and I eagerly anticipate each of the "new" bodies coming into my classroom.


I will introduce myself more thoroughly below so that the future of this blog may focus on PE students, lessons, and activities.

I have been involved in fitness education and body training for more than 14 years.  I started in aquatics as a teenager and by the time I graduated college I had coached swim teams, taught swim lessons, water aerobics, lifeguarding, diving, and even a little water ballet to nearly 2000 students, ages spanning over 70 years between youngest and oldest.  My aquatics career paid for my dance education.

My dance career has taken me throughout the US and as far as Tokyo, Japan, but was focused primarily in NYC.  Much of that career was spent teaching, choreographing, and performing outside of NYC at universities, schools, theaters, and studios.  I retired from dance when I left NYC in 2005, but recently "came out of retirement" to perform a duet I titled TORN at On the Boards in Seattle, June 2011. 

I will frequently be bicycling 70km round trips between my home and OWS.  Cycling is my favored means of light transport since it allows me to eat everything I want.  In August 2008, I even ate ~8000 Calories daily for 20 days to pedal 5000km from Seattle to Brooklyn, NY with just one friend riding with me.  I have taught and coached cycling for 3 years.

Additionally, I enjoy time gardening, farming, eating, cooking, baking, running, climbing, jumping, falling, climbing back up, playing with my Doberman named Hades, and this summer I discovered an interest in white water kayaking.

Sincerely,

Matthew Smith