3. Fundamentación epistemológica
5.1 La desaparición de las demostraciones en la educación secundaria
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The study of the forearm and hand returns us to our evolutionary forebearers. In the transition from sea to land, fins became weight bearing appendages (as in the salamander) and gradually folded towards the midline, lifting the belly off the earth to reduce friction in locomotion.
Rotation of body parts prepared the body for efficient forward pro-pulsion, lining up head, hands, feet in the direction of motion. Thus, in many of our four-footed ancestors, the two bones of the forearm crossed over, flipping the palms down and the fingers forward. (Our familiar friends, the cat and dog, have paws that push effectively against the earth to propel the body forward. A horse, even higher up on its digits, walks on its finger tips and toes, adding propulsion and speed but losing agility and spring. The gorilla kept the backs of the hands down and walks on its knuckles.) This rotation, as we have already noted, allowed the body to lift off of the ground: the vulnerable belly surface, once safely in contact with the earth, became exposed. When we rotate our palms down for crawling, we can observe the crossing of the forearm bones, and the past distinction between back and belly surface.
Our hands evolved from paws, changing their function from weight-bearing and propulsion to articulation and manipulation. As we began
Control
For ten years I have worked in a process called Authentic Movement introduced to me by Movement Therapist, Janet Adler.
In this work, there is a witness and a mover. The mover closes her/his eyes and waits for movement impulses in the body -the process of being moved. The witness holds the consciousness and observes.
After a period of time, the witness calls the movement session to a close, and there is verbal exchange about what occurred.*
For weeks, I would lie on the studio floor and find myself reaching with my right arm, wiping it horizontally in front of my body. I recognized this movement as a gesture I had incorporated in many of my dances, combining it with turns or leaps, or bringing it to the floor. But I was surprised it was so determined to appear in my Authentic Movement sessions. (Later Janet said, there is no need to "remember"
movement from one session to the next. If a gesture wants to be recognized, it will
return again and again until it is brought to consciousness.) One day when this movement appeared, I got the image of myself as a little girl in our farmhouse in Illinois. We had a long counter top in our kitchen which collected objects, and it was always a mess in the usual family way.
Whenever my parents would argue, I would clear the counter. It was my way of controlling, quieting, bringing order to what I perceived as chaos. The movement pattern in my body was sourced in this childhood activity. And I was still using it in the same way, to bring order and calm (and the safety of the Illinois landscape) to the dynamics of performance.
Writing Table: Kristina Madsen 71
The work in Authentic Movement is valuable in many ways. In this sit-uation, it gave me choice about the use of a movement in choreography.
The hand-wiping was not a particularly interesting gesture to watch, and I probably didn't need it in all of my dances. It was compelling to both the audience and to myself primarily because of my investment in its content.
As I brought awareness to this language of the body, I began to listen for other patterns based in my personal story.
hunkering (squatting) in tree branches, our hands were free for picking berries and nuts, grooming, and air-born locomotion. The nervous system refined so that both face and hands became highly expressive tools for survival and communication. The thumb in this transition, developed an oppositional pattern with the fingers for grasping and tree-swinging. In the human baby, we can reobserve this progression in the change from the newborn's generalized hand to the strengthening of thumb opposite fingers for grasping.
The forearm is composed of two bones, the radius and the ulna. The radius, on the thumb-side of the arm, is large at the wrist and becomes smaller at the elbow where it creates a pivot joint with the humerus to allow the crossing of the forearm. The ulna, on the little finger side of the arm, serves as a small brace for lateral support at the wrist, but becomes the primary articulating bone at the elbow. It works as a hinge joint with the humerus, and can be the site of pain for individuals with "bony elbows." It is important to understand that the hinge joint has curved surfaces, like a door hinge, rather than flat surfaces, like a folded piece of paper.
Forearm, wrist and hand:
anterior view of right elbow;
posterior view of wrist and hand
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Weight or pressure from the hand is levered through the wrist to the radius, where it travels around through its skeletal connection to the ulna and up through the elbow to the humerus. Thus, the radius is the primary bone at the wrist and the ulna the primary bone at the elbow. An inter-osseous membrane weaves the two bones together with strings of tough connective tissue like the webbing of snow shoes. This structure gives the forearm lightness (imagine if it was one solid bone!) and mobility, and provides attachment sites for the many muscles of the hands.
There are eight small, irregularly shaped bones of the wrist collectively called the carpal bones. Their surfaces glide slightly over each other, allowing three-dimensional movement. As you circle your wrist, you can feel the tiny jerking movements from the articulating bones; this structure provides mobility, while maintaining stability with minimal musculature. The carpals also collectively create a curved surface which articulates with the radius. Thus, the wrist is considered to be an ellipsoid joint between the carpals and the radius, and a collection of gliding joints between the carpals. There is also movement between the carpals and the five long bones of the hands, the metacarpals. •
Posterior view of left elbow
We were sitting around our campfire near the Masai Mara game reserve in Kenya with our guide Patrick Pape. He is a man of patience and integrity who embodies the adventuring spirit. He told a story about his assistant on tented safaris. This indi-vidual prided himself on elegance and order in camp, but was prone to accidents.
He had lost a finger while loading gear onto a large truck, and was most distressed that his hand would be unsightly when serving meals. Patrick bought a pair of white gloves and stuffed one finger with cotton. Soon all of the meals were served by a staff wearing white gloves.
* For further information about Authentic Movement, see Janet Adler's article
"Who is the Witness?" Con tact Quarterly, Vol. XII, No. 1.1987.
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