Quotes From Andre Bernard Out of Ideokinesis: A Creative Approach to Human Movement & Body Alignment

What follows is some quotes from the recently published book: Ideokinesis: A Creative Approach to Human Movement & Body Alignment, by Andre Bernard, Wolfgang Stainmuller and Ursula Stricker. In this book Wolfgang and Ursula have put together a piece Andre wrote explaining the work he did, an interview that Richard Rosen and Nancy Lyons had done with Andre, and then they took recordings that had been made of some of Andre’s workshops and transcribed them to create this book. It is a great read, accessible and very informative, and quite enjoyable. Andre’s teachings feel like they come alive again for me as a result of this book and in the time I spent with Andre Bernard I found him to be a very wonderful teacher. I feel I learned quite a lot from him, as much as I have learned from anyone I can think of.

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“Remember, I gave you some of the voluntary aspects of movement? The goals of movement are: the start, the end, the direction, the effort, the speed, and the range. The involuntary aspect that I have spoken so much about is the muscle pattern, the complex of muscles that will achieve the desired goals of the movement. This is involuntary; it is a function of the nervous system.

About those goals of movement being voluntary: it is not just that you are permitted to be voluntary, but that you must be. This is because the nervous system, in organizing the muscle pattern, is responding to your intention towards those goals. It is responding to the clarity and the intensity of your intention toward those goals as you start to move.” (p. 182)

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“Well, we have come to the end of our workshop. I’d like to say a few words as we close.

I think that most of us are here because we ant to improve our movement patterns or our body patterns in general. That is certainly a legitimate goal, but I am looking at this work on a larger canvas. I see it as a metaphor for life itself, for the life process. What I mean by that is, whether we realize it or not, we are constantly re-creating ourselves. Moment by moment, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, month by month, and so on. This is usually somewhat, a process of which we are unaware, but it is happening through the same devices we have been using with consciousness to make changes in the body. That is the process of thinking, intending, desire, attitude, insight—all of these tools we have been using to affect our neuromuscular system—as a goal; using them with awareness. In life these tools are being used, as I said, usually unconsciously. So what I feel is that we can guide this process. I do not think we can control it, nor is it desirable to have a rigid control on it, but I think we can guide it by being aware of what we think, what we intend, what we desire, and what we do.” (p. 195)

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“Ideokinesis can be translated roughly as ‘the image or thought as facilitator of the movement.’ Ideokinesis began to be used as a label for the work after the publication in 1974 of Sweigard’s book, Human Movement Potential, in which she used the word.

In order to understand why imagery is used as a means of changing muscle patterns, one must understand what a movement is. Movement may be defined as a neuromusculoskeletal event. This means that in order for movement to take place, all three of the systems alluded to in this definition—nervous, muscular, and skeletal—must be involved. Each system has its own specific role to play; the nervous system is the messenger, that is, it transmits impulses or messages to the muscles to contract or release; the muscle system is the workhorse or the motor system; the skeletal system is the support system that is moved by the work of the muscles.

The critical point to be aware of in order to understand how the image can change the muscle pattern is this: The nervous system is more than just a simple messenger. It also organizes the muscle pattern, and it does this on a sub-cortical level, that is, the level below consciousness. Let us be clear about what the muscle pattern is. It is the complex of muscles that perform a desired movement: organizing the muscle pattern is a highly complex and sophisticated task.

It is fortunate that the nervous system does this for us below the level of consciousness. Not only do we not have to organize the muscle pattern consciously, but we should not attempt to do so, because this will interfere with the process. Our conscious role in movement is to focus on the movement, because the nervous system, in organizing the muscle pattern, is responding to the clarity of one’s concept of what the movement is. If the movement is not done well, it means the muscle pattern is poor, and the muscle pattern is poor because the “wrong” message (a faulty concept of the movement) has been sent to the muscles. This wrong message is the result of either a lack of clarity about what the movement is or a previously established poor muscle pattern associated with the movement. The objective is to change the message—that is, to rethink the movement in order to change the poor muscle pattern. This rethinking the movement is formed into an image and used as a means to change the muscle pattern.” (p. 5-6)

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"In terms of movement, what you want to do is to learn what the movement is, not how to do the movement: to learn what the movement is, very specifically and very precisely. If you have that very clear intention, when you decide to do it, the nervous system will often choose the most efficient muscle pattern. The problem is that many of us have already established inefficient patterns, which need a little more work to make the change. That's where the image comes in. It's a way to tap into the system. It's still somewhat indirect, but it is used to modify the message that is going to the muscles in order to make a change in the pattern.” (p. 14-15).

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“I said that muscles do not act singly in normal functioning. The mistake that even experienced anatomists make is that they will analyze a movement and they will find that a certain muscle is involved in that movement, and then they list that muscle’s function as creating that movement. That’s all right, because it’s partially true. But if you’re not careful, you can get the idea that that muscle is the only muscle that performs that function, whereas if I take a step, 118 muscles are involved—that’s a ‘guesstimate.’ Some yogis have learned to isolate single muscles, but that’s not normal functioning.” (p. 18)

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“They (Lulu Sweigard and Mabel Todd) learned early on that movement performance and skeletal alignment are completely interdependent, and that improvement in the mechanical efficiency of either one automatically leads to improvement in the other. (p. 17)

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“One group of images releases muscles, and the other group brings more tone. It’s very simple. Those images that seek to create more distance between the skeletal parts generally are the ones that are going to be releasing muscles, because it is those muscles that tend to pull the bones closer together. Those images that seek to bring two bones closer together would be ones that encourage increased muscle tone.” (p. 21)

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“Todd said something that was so wonderful in her book The Thinking Body. You can read it again and again and always get something you didn’t get before. She said that good movement takes place the same way that it rains, snows, sleets, and the wind blows—because conditions are right. I think that is such a profound way of saying what it is, and of getting us out of these mechanistic concepts, talking about the synapses, etc. You need this kind of understanding, because one’s understanding is part of the imagery.” (p. 23-24)

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The key word here is balance. That is what allows free, flowing movement, movement with ease. And that is one of the main things that I saw in Erick Hawkins that I had no idea how to achieve when I was first his student. That was one of the hallmarks of Erick’s work, the ease of the movement, and yet the movement had strength—strong, definitive movement, but with ease.” (p. 34)

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“This work attempts to bring mind and body together. It is one of the original mind-body integration techniques in the West. Todd goes back to about the time of the First World War, maybe 1914. Her work relates to Eastern thought, the Eastern way of doing things, in that it attempts to have a person move, in the current saying, ‘smarter, not harder.’ It creates an awareness that you don’t have if you’re not totally in the movement, not only with your body, but with your mind. You’re immersed in the movement, in your whole being.

My emphasis is to integrate this work into one’s daily life, so that the principles are used in whatever one does, whether it be walking down the street, climbing stairs, or brushing your teeth. Good movement should not be reserved for special occasions such as dance.” (p. 35-36).

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I want to show you briefly what the function of the image is, this methodology we use. So I am going to give you a definition of movement. Movement could be defined as a neuromusculoskeletal event. The reason I give you this definition is that it brings together something you need to be aware of: that in order for voluntary movement to take place, these three systems of the body—the nervous system, the muscle system, and the skeletal system—all have to be involved. Otherwise you cannot have voluntary movement. Each of these systems has its own special role to play in this phenomenon we call movement. The nervous system is generally called the messenger; it gives the message to the muscles to work. The muscle system is what does the work; it is the workhouse, called in physiology ‘the motor system.’ The skeletal system is your support system; it is what is moved.

In order to understand the function of the image, the role of the image, we have to go back to the nervous system and add something. The nervous system is not just a simple messenger; it is also the organizer of the muscle pattern that is going to accomplish a desired movement. Furthermore, it organizes the muscle pattern on the sub-cortical level, the level below consciousness. In other words, you are totally unconscious of what the nervous system is doing and you should be. If you try to interfere with that complex process of organizing the muscle pattern with your conscious mind, you will blow the process. The muscle pattern is the complex of muscles that will accomplish the desired movement. Muscles do not in normal functioning act singly. We talk about them acting singly, but they do not act that way. They act as a group, and groups often interact with other groups.

By the way, it is not essential that you understand what I am saying to utilize the work. The reason I am giving you this is that I want you to know where the work comes from, because when we start to work with the methodology here, we are going to be doing very simple, childlike things. If you do not know that they come from a very well developed scientific process, then you will think we are just playing games and you will not understand what we are doing.

So now, to continue: the nervous system in organizing the muscle pattern is responding to your idea of the movement. So what you need to focus on to improve movement is to focus on the movement. More accurately put, you need to focus on the goals of the movement, which are broken down into six components: start, end, direction, effort, speed, and range. These are voluntary components of the movement. That is what you do with your conscious mind. Not only are you permitted to be voluntary about that, but you must be because the nervous system in organizing the muscle pattern is responding to the clarity and intensity of your intention regarding these goals of movement. (p. 44-46)

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Rather than take this quote to its conclusion, which, in the workshop where he made this quote, Andre took his time to set up and show how a good image would help a person understand the movement better; I will simply make the statement. The image, if it is a good one, will help the person understand the desired movement better, and then the movement pattern will begin to change on its own because of that clearer intention and understanding. It is amazing how simple and how powerful this is. And this book is a wealth of great and inspiring information.

Peace, upsidedowncarl