Learning Coordination with Thread Movement

One of Thread’s main purposes is learning to coordinate your body's movement. Coordination is an important skill people often overlook their potential to learn because of past experiences. It is often difficult because people are embarrassed to be out of coordination. They give themselves the label of “uncoordinated.” Yes, some people pick up coordination naturally, but almost everyone has the capability to develop the skill. Maybe people felt uncoordinated in a dance class, or were told this message in childhood: “you either "have it or you don't". This cliché is horribly destructive to the growth of a coordination learner. This statement doesn’t account for the learning curve in patterning and coordinating movement.

Perhaps you are a one of the many people who will step out on the dance floor offering the apology, "I am so uncoordinated," before you even take a step. Meanwhile, some of these same people will go back to work and type a perfect 80 words per minute (a coordination they learned and excel in!). My advice to is to try a few dance classes and put aside your discomfort. You have nothing to be embarrassed about. You are there to learn. If it doesn’t take then~ so what??!?!  If it is challenging at first, it doesn't mean you can't eventually coordinate the movements with elegance. It just means you learn differently. Your mind probably does not learn coordination simply by watching movements. You may understand movement on a different level. You may need to physically practice it. Give yourself time to learn.

I’ve been in the place of feeling uncoordinated so many times. I have had my awkward moments in dozens of dance classes. Hip hop, African, Tap. The vast majority of dance classes I have attended, I have faltered. Usually because there is too much information thrown at me at one time too fast and I don’t learn that way. When that happens, everything gets clogged up and it becomes hard for me to follow. However, usually I learn one or two moves I really like and this sustains my attention, and keeps me coming back.

Consider an area you excel in that you might not have previously realized could be coordination. Remember how you learned that skill—was it by watching someone, by practicing and getting it wrong until you got it right, through sheer repetition, or was it by learning the big picture (the “where am I supposed to go next” directives) that helped you master the given skill? Coordination could apply to typing, playing video games, playing an instrument, processing large quantities of data. If you learned those skills, you can most likely learn overall physical coordination.

Remember there is a difference between someone who can write well and someone who can type well. Coordination is the skill, dancing is the art. Why might you like to try to learn coordination as an adult—for the satisfaction of mastering a skill, because you are worried about your balance, or because you are an athlete who wants to improve your game?

I developed Thread as a way people could focus on the learning of coordination (to master the fluidity of the way the parts of the body can move together.) Thread's coordination runs on three axes to allow for different kinds of learners and to help expand people’s physical expression. If you have a hard time with coordination, you can enter learning Thread by choosing to focus on one axis at a time.

1. The first axis is the midline logic. In this axis, the limbs are either crossing the midline, parallel to the midline, or going away from the midline. That’s it. You are always aware of your midline and you move your limbs in one of the three mentioned directions. This logic is rather concrete and concrete thinkers will gravitate toward these concepts.

2. The second axis of coordination is feeling (or sensation.) Thread's postures create "rotational locks" in the body—natural stopping places in the body that occur when the joints rotate against each other. These locks create a solid sensation in the body and, this feeling of "locking" guides you in coordinating your movement. Understanding the body's sensation is crucial in learning coordination.

The integrative movements in Thread help you to understand the body’s internal feelings and cues. Through repetition the practitioner can judge from the internal guide how to further refine each posture’s coordination. This happens through comparing internal feelings to past internal feelings, imagery (locking/solidary), and overall proprioception (knowing where you are in space). This axis might most appeal to an intuitive mover.

3. The third axis of coordination is visual. A movement will obviously look a certain way. Some people are visual learners who can learn a movement by simply watching. Look-based coordination learners are often dancers. This axis of coordination learning serves to the minds that prefer visual and can easily learn physical movement.