Mobility = Shifting Stability

By Maureen McHugh

 One of the keys to improving anything is to understand the principles that guide it. Most of the people who come to see me, whether for group or individual lessons, are looking for ways to improve their movement. Through working with them, and with myself, I have discovered a principle that I find useful in improving movement of all types.

I like to introduce this principle by recalling Albert Einstein’s famous formula, E = MC². As you may recall, “E” stands for energy. “M” is for mass, and “C” is for the speed of light. According to this formula, when you take a physical object and make it go very fast—the speed of light squared—you get pure energy. Thus, matter and energy are interchangeable.

My formula is “Mobility is equal to Shifting Stability.” In scientific shorthand this becomes M = SS. Maybe the formula and I will become famous, too!

The essence of my insight is that whenever you want to improve mobility, you will benefit by focusing on the necessary, equivalent shifts in stability.

 

The Basic Idea

When you stand in a simple way, like the boy at right, and become aware of where your weight it is, it is commonly on both feet and centered between them. When it comes time to walk, he, and you, must first shift weight to one foot.

In shifting weight to, say, the right foot, you free the left, so it can swing forward. Then you shift your mass so your weight arrives on the left, and now the right can swing forward. As this continues, one says, “You are moving.” Or, just as accurately one could say, “You are shifting stability.”

As long as walking works well, or well enough, this is all too obvious to mention. But when you want to improve your walking, or any other movement, it becomes worthwhile to refine your awareness of how this works.

 

Application to Rehabilitation.

I first became aware of this theme when I was working with a client one afternoon. Laura was lying on her left side, in what I call “nap position.” Her legs were bent, one on top of the other, and drawn up comfortably toward her chest. Her head was supported on a small pillow. I asked her to move so that the top knee, the right, slid forward over the left. She tried and couldn’t do it. She made a lot of muscular contractions, but nothing was happening. She looked very uncomfortable and frustrated.

I felt confused. How could this be so difficult? Then came the insight—that she didn’t know, in her body, about the relationship between mobility and shifting stability.

So, I asked her to sense where, as she lay still, was the feeling of pressure on her underneath hip, underneath ribs, underneath shoulder and underneath side of her face. Then I asked her, systematically and incrementally, to shift the weight in each location, a little bit forward and a little bit backward. Very gradually, and without her noticing at first, the top knee began to slide, in sync with the weight shifts, forward and back. As the concept of weight shift being the inverse of movement took hold, the sliding of the knee became a smooth, integrated, effortless action. Her face shifted from a grimace to widening smile.

 

The Role of Permission

In moving on to more complex actions, such as regaining confidence in walking after an injury, I often share with my clients a metaphor of a mother and her teenage son.

Sometimes when a mother asks her young son, “Where are you going?,” the boy answers, “Out.” Then Mom says, “Well, who are you going with?” and hears, “Friends.”

So Mom says, “And when will you be back?” “Later.” Then Mom says, “Not good enough! Until I get better information, you’re not going anywhere.”

Like the mother and her son, movement is something the body allows. When you have had an injury, the body considers you untrustworthy and tenses up to limit mobility. It fears that bad things are about to happen again. As you prove your trustworthiness, the brain begins to let the muscles relax, and so you enjoy again a wider range of motion.

A good way to regain the body’s confidence is to work in various positions, systematically and incrementally, paying attention, sensing that you are stable “here” and stable “here” and stable “here.”

   

Application to High Performance

In any sort of high class performance, it is important that all the joints of the body be free. This does not mean floppy. In executing a ski jump, for instance, and other risky athletic movements, firmness is required.

Free means instead that the joints are able to take any position, on demand, and quickly. Then the jumper can respond to all the unexpected variety of challenges that his sport presents.

In preparing for high performance, what is valuable is to clarify the contribution of each body part to any specific move. Then each part becomes a participant in the shifting stability that defines good movement.