Measuring Importance in Movement

One way to measure the importance of a node in a network/system is “betweenness centrality”.

Betweenness determines importance based on how well a particular "node" serves as a bridge between other nodes - that is, which node provides the shortest path possible between all nodes, with the fewest steps possible.

The node with most “betweenness” provides the FEWEST steps possible, between ALL the nodes.

In the attached graph, it is the BLUE nodes that are the most central, because on average, these nodes represent bridges along the shortest paths for ALL elements, on average. The red nodes represent the opposite.

As an analogy, imagine a city street. It has betweenness if it's most accessible from all other city streets. If a city street is easy to get to from only one place, then it's low in this betweenness centrality (and red, on our graph, and hence pushed towards the periphery). If you count the number of "edges" (connections) from the nodes with various colors, you can see that color generally corresponds with number of connections (but not in a 1:1 fashion).

So take at a one arm handstand: so much time invested, and yet… how many connections does it serve, in the big picture? At best, it yields low to moderate in “betweenness centrality”.

(Of course, betweenness centrality is only one way to measure importance -there is no “general”/absolute way)

Movement as an Open Concept

When I first began to realize that movement, in the sense of the big open concept as Ido describes it, was a direction we could aim for, I began wondering: why don’t we aim then for the yet bigger concept? What would that be – Nietzsche’s uberman, or living like some renaissance being, maybe a spiritual awakening? Am I limiting my potential for growth by “picking” a limited box, compared to the big open concept of “life”? 

Flawed reasoning in multiple ways. Here are a few thoughts on why I’ve moved past these concerns. 

We can only expand from where we are. If I’m stuck inside box A which is contained in B contained in C, I cannot escape directly to C. So assuming there IS a bigger container than movement, I would still need to pass through movement as container. I can’t even begin to conceptualize what that box might be – I might throw ideas around, but like the virgin imagining sex, I lack references to conceptualize anything accurate.

But maybe there was never a need for such boxes, you say? Why not just escape the containers and breathe the open air of life? Because life as such, when it reflects existence outside of containers, is a disorganized/disorganizing concept – it cannot guide development and growth. Practices provide a gravitational center, an organizing force that allows us to tread a path.

Hence the path to “become” movement – it’s maybe just one rung up the ladder of complexity, but the beautiful thing is that it has contained within itself the means to climb down or laterally and scope the territory and see other rungs, to deconstruct and reconstruct and deterritorialize and reterritorialize. It instills the essence and installs the tools for navigating complexity, and being a praxis, it prevents you from getting “lost in the sauce”. There’s nothing lost by dedicating a life to this concept and practice. 

Zettelkasten Torso Differentiation

Zettelkasten is a note-taking method which involves connecting relatively small notes into a web. This method adheres to principles which are very similar to the approach to torso movement that Ido has taken us through.

Zettelkasten is a collection of notes of the smallest possible size (that still communicate a useful unit of information) and their links to other notes to produce webs of ideas. This produces notes which are simultaneously self-contained but capable of belonging to more complex topics and ideas. This is far more versatile compared to siloed information in which an idea can be reached at through very limited pathways.

Torso Segmentation

Ido has taken us through a process of gradually refining the torso into smaller and smaller discrete segments. Each segment can simultaneously articulate on its own as well as optimally contribute to entire kinetic chains for force transmission. In essence, the structure of the torso is dissolved and then the whole is rebuilt as a web of connections.

Benefits of Segmentation

For both movement and note-taking, there are benefits to this approach of reducing the system to the smallest discrete units of information or articulation and then creating a new upgraded system through webs of connections… 

1. A smaller but connected note can participate in multiple lines of reasoning. A segment of torso can contribute to multiple trajectories of force transmission.

2. Both the smaller note and the segment of torso can be tailored individually to fine tune the larger systems to which they belong. Discrete units can be organized, concatenated or spliced to better serve a bigger picture. 

The Zettelkasten Torso

Marcel Mauss observed that the way we walk depends on the cultures we are raised in (3). The way we move our spines depends on the way we walk (and the demands gait imposes on the skeleton). This results in a specific infrastructure, but that infrastructure can be deconstructed and reconstructed to produce a more versatile torso… the zettelkasten torso.

Fun fact: one of the major advocates and tinkerers in the zettelkasten space has frequently quoted Ido (1)

In Search of Fundamentals Of Movement

What would “fundamentals” of movement be? First things first, how do we even decide if something is fundamental?

Chronological Fallacy

There is often a “chronological fallacy” deciding that what is fundamental is what came prior. For example, the motor control challenges of infancy are fundamental for development at a particular stage in life. Some people, taking those challenges for absolute fundamentals, continue to work on those in adulthood, believing that those are fundamental to movement, broadly.

An analogy to clarify the fallacy: imagine you want to grasp the fundamentals of “navigating boats”. There is a period of time in which what is fundamental is knowledge and skills surrounding building of boat, prior to the existence of the boat. But once the boat is built, the scaffold removed… that skillset is no longer so fundamental. Now, navigation becomes the real fundamental thing. The area of “building of boats” is fundamental only through that one single connection, that moment that it leads us to navigation.

Once we have passed a certain stage, what was fundamental for development is no longer fundamental.

That doesn’t really tell us how to decide what is fundamental, but it does tells us how NOT to decide – by arguing to what arises first.

Do the same thing, but differently

To identify what IS fundamental, it is maybe helpful to look at another situation: a bipedal human coming across a vertical rock wall.

If you practiced bipedal locomotion with your mind only ever thinking in a specific manner (looking to improve bipedalism, at the cost of anything else, without looking to find broader more universal principles because you have decided you are a bipedal locomotion specialist), you would be lost when confronting the vertical rock face.

But if you practiced that exact same bipedal locomotion, only with an eye for general principles, when it came time to work with the rock you would find yourself somewhat better prepared.

So it was in practicing bipedal locomotion in a generalist manner that you came upon something that was relatively more fundamental, than if you practiced in a specialists manner. That thing might have been contralateral weight shifts, or the discovery of the general principle of balance (center of mass over base of support), or in how to optimize tendons for absorbing and releasing energy in locomotion…

Therein lies a hint of the criterion for fundamental-ness.

On musical modes, harmonic intervals, and transitional elements in movement

At the beginning stage of Ido’s locomotion system, we are always returning back to a pre-determined transitional point, creating a clear sense of home -  a “key” or “mode” that characterizes what can be executed, much like the tonal center of a musical scale / song.

In music, the pitches of notes can be differentiated one from the next, in what is called a horizontal interval. But there is also difference between the pitch of a note and this essential tonal center.

That is to say, it’s not just a question of the relationship of an element to the next one in a sequence, but also the relationship between an element to this transitional point.

By constantly leaving and coming back to this transitional point, carving countless trajectories to and from, we acquire the kinesthetic equivalent of an internalized sense for that tonal center - it becomes a place you can easily leave and come back to, like any musician who becomes proficient with a musical scale.