Somatic Literacy

How we move, even how we think how we move, is all goverened by our internal map. The degree to which this map accuarately reflects our actual shape and how our joints move is our Somatic Literacy.

We change and develop our internal map throughout our lives; from birth to death our abiity to move is diferent from how we move, and, as we gain competency in moving, the relationship between the map and the acuality (or, potential) gets closer. However, our bodies are also changing, and so the process of refining the map is an ongoing task. Sometime we stop the process in total, or just for certain parts of our bodies, and thus the map is inaccurate.

When the map is inaccuate, we also see gaps in the body-mind relationship. The map is more than a two-dimentional guide or "map" that we construct regarding geography. The map has the distances, connections, weights, as well as sensations. It has associations of our feelings. Thus, when we move we have affective associations, some pleasant, some unpleasant.

By proposing that our movements are a result of a map, and that errors are a result of the incompleteness of the map gives us hope that we can change. By realizing that our inherent body systems are predicated on change and development, we have hope that our body/mind can become a unity.

Somatic Literacy implies not only the process of learnign and development, it also suggests that, like other forms of literacy, there are ways to describe the process of becoming literate.

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In future posts I look forward to presenting a number of ideas relating to development, rehabilitation and aging.

--Rob Black