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POSE METHOD® BOOK CHAPTERS Quickly becoming a reference book for health professionals and physical education specialists, Pose Method of Running book covers a lot of interesting topics, raises questions and provides answers where there were previously none.
Practice and thought might
gradually forge many an art.
Virgil |
MASTERING RUNNING TECHNIQUE
from "Pose Method of Running", Section IV, Chapter 20
By Nicholas Romanov, Ph.D.
April 20, 2004
For many of us, it is difficult to equate learning to run with more esoteric pursuits such as becoming a classical pianist or a ballet dancer. Running somehow seems like a more fundamental human activity while piano or dance appear to be more complex and artistic. Indeed, it is common to think of “running” as something “we do” while dance and piano are something “we learn.”
The fact that we can run without specific instruction may be our biggest stumbling block toward learning to run properly. After all, we’ve all grown up progressing from crawling to walking to running, and we indisputably move faster when we run than when we walk. In that sense, it seems our running is successful. By contrast, anyone can pound on the keys, but it quite obvious to everyone that such pounding does not equate to making music. The same can be said for dance, where the difference between a skilled dancer and an ordinary klutz is painfully obvious.
So this seemingly natural and universal ability of humans to run has to a great extent obscured the fact that there is a talent or skill to run properly. In fact, like any other movement, the act of running is a skill that can be refined, trained and improved. Running technique is not unique to each individual human and it is more than just a series of properly performed movements. Just as is the case with classical piano or dance, running is the expression of all the physical, physiological, psychological, emotional, mental and spiritual qualities of an individual.
The Greeks, those masters of thought, gave us the word “technique”, from the root word “techne”, which means “art” or “mastery”. Thus, when we are talking about the technique of some physical movement, we speak specifically of the art of performing this movement. And movements performed by humans do not exist independently. As human activity, they carry with them everything that being human implies, including all the mental, physical and spiritual make-up of the given human performing the activity.
As we live and learn, we master countless physical movements, which we routinely perform without a second thought. However the ease with which we perform those movements can be greatly affected by outside forces. Take the simple act of signing your name. Most of us have imbued our signature with a certain personal artistic flair and can sign automatically time after time. However, when we face a particularly important signature, such as a long-term mortgage or marriage certificate, our emotions can cause us to tense up and write very erratically.
Similarly, a classic pianist can perform flawlessly in rehearsal, but freeze up in front of an audience; a basketball player can sink 100 free throws in a row, but miss the one that could win the championship; and an ice skater can nail the quad in practice but blow it in the Olympics. In all these cases, and countless more, it is clear that mastery of movements, of technique, is more than just performing physical tasks by rote.
Movement technique, no matter the endeavor, is really a gate through which we channel all the characteristics that make us human. We communicate not just our physical abilities, but also our mental, psychological and spiritual components through every move we make. The pianist may make the physical keystrokes to create noise on the piano, but it is his or her mastery of piano technique on all levels that allows the expression of both the composer’s and the pianist’s understanding of the music.
While running is not as obviously creative as music, it too is an outlet for human expression and requires well-honed technique beyond the physical realm. Just as with dance, there is a rhythm and a beauty to running that transcends mere pavement pounding and elevates the act of running well to artistry.
As such, when we speak of mastering running technique, our objective is not just the mechanical repetition of free falling, changing support and staying within the running frame, but more importantly mastering all the components associated with performance. Yes, we have to first master the fundamentals of Pose Running and develop biomechanical capabilities of strength, speed and flexibility, but just as importantly we have to enhance our mental grasp of the formation of the movements, improve our space/time muscular sensitivity and build a psychological and spiritual profile that will equip us to run at the highest possible level.
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