Balance in motion

Dear Reader,

Little Manuel is lying in his cot, wildly flailing his arms and legs about. His sister looks at him and asks: “Why is Manu thrashing about in the air like that?” Her mother answers her: “Well, you see, he first of all has to learn how to properly move his little arms and legs.” – “Did I also have to learn that?”, enquires his sister. “Yes, of course. And now you're already using a skipping rope!” His sister looks once again into the cot: “But I'm so much slower!” Movement is not motor skills or reflex, it is sheer will. As the child grows, this will is increasingly internalised, guided and ever more strongly permeated with consciousness.

What applies to the body also holds true for the soul and spirit. Only flexible feeling lets us act “harmoniously”. Only agile thinking really leads to new insight. Without intentional movement there would be no springboard from deliberate intention to action. Without it we would be devoid of will. We need a goal for our movement and a way to reach this goal. Today we are suffering from a dearth of movement on all levels. We like to let ourselves be transported, stimulated and inspired. We let our bodies, our feelings, indeed even our thoughts be moved by others or other things, without having to physically, mentally or spiritually move ourselves. When did we last make a movement not stimulated by external influences?

We consume movement through all channels. Millions watch football, without playing football themselves. Millions of children let their avatars on the screen fight, without measuring their strength against their contemporaries. Millions of young people let their idols in TV series fall in love for them, without going out and experiencing the adventure for themselves.

Even as adults we wait for others to set us in motion before we move ourselves. In this respect, little Manu could be waiting a long time.

Sport, dance and eurythmy set the human being physically in motion. But their emphasis varies in line with physical, soul and etheric aspects. What they have in common is that they can harmonise the human being in his or her full humanity. Sport would be dull without the relation to culture, dance would simply be an expression of astrality without technical ability, eurythmy would “lift off” without the connection to body and  soul. Body and spirit should encompass movement and bring it into a responsive balance with the soul. This is what a person aspires to for their entire life.

Mathias Maurer