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Power Through Repose by Annie Payson Call
page 86 of 141 (60%)
rest on the floor so that gradually your whole weight rests on that
leg, and the other is free to swing up and pivot with the opposite
arm. All this must be done slowly and without strain of any kind.
The motions which follow in sets are for the better daily working of
the body, as well as to establish its freedom. The first set is
called the "Big Rhythms," because it takes mainly the rhythmic
movement of the larger muscles of the body, and is meant, through
movements taken on one foot, to give a true balance in the poise of
the body as well as to make habitual the natural co-ordination in
the action of all the larger muscles. It is like practising a series
of big musical chords to accustom our ears to their harmonies. The
second set, named the "Little Rhythms,"--because that is a
convenient way of designating it,--is a series meant to include the
movement of all the smaller muscles as well as the large ones, and
is carried out even to the fingers. The third set is for spring and
rapid motion, especially in joints of arms and legs.

Of course having once found the body's natural freedom, the variety
of motions is as great as the variety of musical sounds and
combinations possible to an instrument which will respond to every
tone in the musical scale. It is in opening the way for this natural
motion that the exquisite possibilities in motion purely artistic
dawn upon us with ever-increasing light. And as in music it is the
sonata, the waltz, or the nocturne we must feel, not the mechanical
process of our own performance,--so in moving, it is the beautiful,
natural harmonies of the muscles, from the big rhythms to all the
smaller ones, that we must feel and make others feel, and not the
mere mechanical grace of our bodies; and we can move a sonata from
the first to the last, changing the time and holding the theme so
that the soul will be touched through the eye, as it is through the
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