Movement with meaning
I've been thinking of writing this post for some time and, as often happens, the threads of thought, ideas and narrative knitted themselves into something more coherent and active during my run just now through some local parks.
Movement is very important to me; I love to run and supplement this with yoga, pilates and strength work when I can. The form my movement has taken has shifted and evolved during the course of my life; reflecting, facilitating and changing the nature of my experiences at each given time. Exploring the meaning of movement, how it both influences and is influenced by my sense of self is something that I believe illustrates well the idea that actions and activities can have quite different impacts depending on their relational context and meaning. Writing this is as much to give myself space to explore as to offer an invitation to you, the reader, to explore your own relationship with movement.
I was always an active child; the daughter of a PE teacher, I did swimming lessons, dance lessons, gymnastics and when not that could be found riding my bike or roller-skating with my grandma (yes, she was that cool). At this pre-teen age, movement was about belonging for me - it was such an intrinsic part of my identity and our family narrative. It was also about doing well; impressing with swimming badges, garnering praise for a skill mastered, hearing a 'well done'.
At school, I was on the school team for every sport possible; netball, football (I was terrible at it!), table tennis, badminton, cross country, athletics, even basketball (as a 5' 4'' adult, you can imagine I wasn't naturally gifted!). I enjoyed competing and my tendency to say yes to everything meant I racked up the hours during dinnertime and afterschool. Movement rooted itself even more as part of my identity. As a high performing, well-behaved, teacher-appeasing student who ran the risk of being bullied, sport also allowed me to exist at the sidelines of popular groups without receiving much negativity; it offered a route into a superficial kind of belonging. Sport was a uniform I could wear to fit in; conditional acceptance.
As I came into my teens, as many others will no doubt identify with, movement flexed into some other forms. Alongside the community and celebration of team sports, came the secret bedroom star jumps. Going in to college, sport fell away and exercise took hold. Movement became punishing, diminishing, shrinking. Eventually, at university, movement fell away into stark stillness, saturated with overwhelming sadness. Lack of movement meant hiding, isolating, disconnecting, surviving. Both extremes were done alone; movement and stillness were no longer things to share.
Regaining a connection with movement; forging a routine again started slowly. Often regimented, mainly self-critical, but with fleeting moments of connection. Focusing on goals again, finding fun, starting to run, movement moved me along to meet myself again. Joining a running club I found the sense of community; challenging, exploring, sharing, laughing. This rekindled joy but also sparked a striving streak again; there were many tears shed at not being good enough, at being slow, at being heavy. But they were balanced by other meanings, and there was an awareness to their presence.
I was so glad to find dance again too. Not the regimented routines of my childhood but the free and easy forms of contemporary classes with friends; play, silliness. Movement was fun; I could try and get it wrong, I could create, I could fail and fall, I could laugh with myself.
Running now can take so many forms for me; practically in terms of distance, people, terrain, novelty, routine, challenge, competition. But also relationally; sometimes a run is about exploring and appreciating and acknowledging nature. Sometimes it's about pushing and challenging and competing. Sometimes it's about being strong and defiant, sometimes about being vulnerable and brave. Sometimes about connecting with myself, often with others. I find peace in running; the rhythm of steps, the meditation of breath, and I also can find menace; the tendency to self-criticism and cutting-off is always waiting on the subs bench, ready to come into play. But there is still an easy freedom available, if that's the path I chose.
Finding other forms of movement - stretching, strengthening - has facilitated flexibility (relationally, not physically; don't think I'll ever not have runners hamstrings!). Moving slowly and being still remain novel and unsure. When I first started yoga, I yearned (jokingly yet genuinely!) for a Strava medal for being still the longest, it was such an excruciating challenge. There is a fear there, connected with the past lack of movement and what that meant then, but also a willingness to try, to be. Movement that isn't about getting a badge or running myself into the ground or disappearing; movement that's about being in myself.
And so, I know that this journey hasn't reached a resolution. All the moves and all their meanings will always be possible in every step, every leap, every stretch. When I move, not always but often, I find myself checking-in with what it means to me in that moment - am I doing this to challenge, to cut-off, to explore, to punish, to connect, to restore? Is that what I need? Is that what I want? Few of these are inherently bad for me; cutting off has its merits when 30 miles into a 50 mile ultramarathon; doing the opposite of what your body is asking for is the only way to finish, often. But now I have found new moves, new ways of moving, new relationships with movement. I can flex into and out of them, if I bring an awareness; I can move with meaning.
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