Weekly musings, 4/29/18: driving and moving

Weekly musings, 4/29/18: expertise
As I was sitting on a bus up the airport last week, at one of the stops a man got on who was acquainted with the bus driver. He sat up front, next to him (it was one of those small shuttle buses), and they chatted about driving. They both talked about driving the same way I talk about  movement- with a sense of genuine interest that made it obvious they were more than competent at the skill of maneuvering large vehicles at high speeds.

I use a car on a daily basis, in a pretty minimal way. My commute is about 9 minutes, sometimes 20 if traffic is heavy coming home. I am definitely not an expert driver. If someone asked me to drive a bus of any size, I would struggle with how much space was required to navigate the vehicle safely from one point to another. This doesn’t mean I couldn’t learn how to be more proficient at driving, but I would need a bit of training and a lot of practice to learn how to be better.

Movement skills are kind of like this. Everyone has a body that they use to some degree, every day. Some people use their bodies a lot. In fact, they regularly study movement skills with a teacher and practice regularly in an effort to improve their ability to navigate how their bodies move in space. These individuals are akin to professional drivers- they have a level of competency the average person hasn’t developed. However, this doesn’t mean the average person can’t learn how to be more proficient at using his body. It will take study, time, and maybe even a little bit of training with a teacher to become better acquainted with specific skills and the internal sense of feeling that allows movement to be strong and capable.