Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

Archive

Volume 3 Number 2, August  2002

_______________________________________________________________

Breath, Perception, and Action:  The Body and Critical Thinking

 

 By

Barbara Sellers-Young

In his pivotal book on the neurological functioning of the brain, Antonio Damasio, head of the Department of Neurology at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, defines mind, or the thinking self, as the interplay between the brain and the body.  Describing in great detail the relationship between brain states, reason, and emotion, he provides a theoretical view point that regards people as complex organisms with interdependent systems that connect brain and body to create what he refers to as the “body-minded, brain" (223-244).  His research, as well as that of educational psychologist, Howard Gardner and philosopher, Mark Johnson and others demonstrate the limitations of the previously held notion that thinking is unrelated to bodily states.^[i] As he phrases it: "The body contributes more than life support and modulatory effects to the brain.  It contributes a content that is part and parcel of the workings of the normal mind " (226).  Beyond well-documented laboratory tests, his conclusions are based on the realization that the brain is the result of thousands of years of evolution in which one of the brain’s primary tasks was the survival of the body.

What I am suggesting is that the mind arises from activity in neural circuits, to be sure many of those circuits were shaped in evolution by functional requisites of the organism, and that a normal mind will happen only if those circuits contain basic representations of the organism, and if they continue monitoring the states of the organism in action.  In brief, neural circuits represent the organism continuously, as it is perturbed by stimuli from the physical and sociocultural environments, and as it acts on those environments.  If the basic topic of those representations were not an organism anchored in the body, we might have some form of mind, but I doubt it would be the mind we do have. (226)

Thus, mind and thought or consciousness are, according to Damasio, an extension body-minded brain’s feed back mechanisms and are therefore related to the potential for critical thinking.

While we, as organisms, share similar information from the environment that becomes part of these feedback loops, the manner in which we process this sensory information in highly individualized acts leads to the creation of what Damasio refers to as ‘somatic markers’. These markers are essentially memories evolved from individual interactions between environment and their perceptual systems.  In fact, Damasio references the work of psychologist, Howard Gardner, who identifies five different types of intelligence--linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic and personal. While the previously mentioned types of intelligence use information from the entire sensory system, they are each styles of perception that combine sensory input in distinct ways.  Although people may inherently privilege one or more of these forms of intelligence, they, to some degree, incorporate each of them.

Gardner’s description of bodily-kinesthetic intelligence allies with Damasio’s concept of mind as influenced by perception.  Gardner’s description of this system is as follows:

In fact, voluntary movements require perpetual comparison of intended actions with the effects actually achieved: there is a continuous feedback of signals from the performance of movements, and this feedback is compared with the visual or linguistic image that is directing the activity.  By the same token, the individual’s perception of the world is itself affected by the status of his motor activities: information concerning the position and status of the body itself regulates the way in which the subsequent perception of the world takes place.  In fact, in the absence of such feedback from motor activity, perception cannot develop in a normal way. (211)

Gardner illustrates the operation of this feedback system in the skills of individuals who specialize in physical or bodily-kinesthetic intelligence.  With a focus that is inward on their own bodies and at the same time physically expressed outward,  dancers, athletes, inventors, and actors organize the perceptual awareness of their body to perform the goals of their occupation. Dancers and athletes use their bodies as objects to construct an aesthetic ideal or to achieve a specific physical goal.  Inventors manipulate and organize objects in the creation of new devises.  Actors observe the physical and vocal acts of others in order to replicate them on their own body.  People whose primary intellectual mode is not bodily-kinesthetic use aspects of the body as object, source of invention, and place of observation to greater or lesser degrees.  Regardless, the work of Damasio and Gardner implicate a united body/mind as a site of knowledge or our ability to sense, feel, and take action.

This recent research by Damasio and Gardner complements the ideas of somatic theorists such as Thomas Hanna as well as the practice of a variety of somatic approaches to the self, from the early work of Elsa Grindler to that of Feldenkrais, Alexander, Cohen, and Bartenieff.  Although each of these practitioners proposes individual methods to explore the relationship between the neuro and muscular system–brain and body, they share a process approach to the self that includes techniques of internal awareness and external observation.  This combined awareness places individuals in a state of conscious interaction with their environment.  Therefore, the insights and approaches offered, individually and cumulatively, by theorists and practitioners, provide a potential framework for creating classroom explorations that combine brain/body integration with greater levels of self-activation or cognitive awareness.

The sensory‑motor system is the foundation of each of these approaches.  Thomas Hanna states it succinctly, "We cannot sense without acting and we cannot act without sensing" (1995:345).  Movement educator, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, divides this system into a process of "Sensory input--Perceptual interpretation--Motor planning--Motor response--Sensory feedback--Perceptual interpretation" (1995:196).  Acting theorist, Constantin Stanislavski, refers to this process as a physical action in which the internal landscape or emotional environment of the actor/character is related to an external action:

In every physical action, unless it is purely mechanical, there is concealed some inner action, some feelings.  This is how the two levels of life in a part are created, the inner and the outer.  They are intertwined.  A common purpose brings them together and reinforces the unbreakable bond.  (1961: 228)

Damasio describes it similarly, “an object that is being represented, an organism responding to the object of representation, and a state of the self in the process of changing because of the organism’s response to the object–are held simultaneously in working memory and attended, side-by-side or in rapid interpolation” (242). An individual (organism) constantly monitors their internal processes in order to adjust to changing circumstances.

Each theorist and practitioner provides us with an element that can be used to construct bodily-kinesthetic explorations for students.  Damasio and Gardner provide the theoretical base.  Hanna provides a simple model of sensing and action.  Cohen gives us the elements of the model's process--input, interpretation, planning, response, feedback, and (re) interpretation.  Stanislavski and Damasio remind us that we are in a constant state of adapting to changing circumstances.  The difficulty resides in finding a method of becoming aware of this ongoing process.  For the most part, this is outside western practice, and we need to look to practices where the question is not how does one integrate brain and body, instead, the question becomes how does one achieve greater levels of self-activation and related critical awareness.^[ii]

Educational systems that take this approach to self can be found in the classical Japanese arts.  The goal of Japanese arts is not only to teach a specific skill such as flower arranging, tea ceremony or dance, but to help the student learn deeper levels of awareness through an imitative teaching process that requires the student to carefully observe and copy the physical actions of their teacher.  Much of this imitation requires the student to find, discover, and blend with the rhythm and phrasing of the teacher’s gestures.  As Japanese philosopher, Yasuo Yuasa suggests, students discover consciously that they have evolved unconsciously new breath rhythms that are related to those of the teacher.  Therefore, one method of developing concentration is to teach students how to focus on the act of breathing; a body state that is fundamental to life and that through the process of oxygen transfer permeates every cell of the body.^[iii]

Breath is for the most part an unconscious act, controlled by our autonomic nervous system.  It is, furthermore, an integral element in performance classes in academic and conservatory programs in which unconscious physical acts are made conscious to further students’ conscious understanding of their physical interaction with the environment.  The explorations used in these classes are evolved from a combination of German educator Elsa Gindler's work, physical disciplines from China and Japan, biofeedback research, and the Susanna Bloch's emotion studies.^[iv]  Breath is used in performance classes to relax and stretch muscles, extend concentration, ground and center the body, generate energy, expand awareness, and, ultimately, enable the performer to contact and release emotions.  With each of these goals, the teacher is actively helping the student engage in a process of exploration in which breath is a primary element of discovery. 

Although not always articulated, the individual, in the act of breathing, is in the process of integrating perceived experience of the brain and body or a unification of thought and perception in an act of consciousness.  A related breath technique used in the some ta’i chi forms is titled feel, fuse, and follow.^[v]  For in each moment of breathing, an individual participates in three distinct kinesthetic states.  On an inhalation, one feels the breath enter the body. The level of participation at this stage can be of the breath entering via the respiratory passages‑‑nose and throat‑‑or through the soles of the feet and the cells of the skin.  There is a moment at the end of an inhalation when the breath through the oxygenation process fuses with the inner dynamics of the self.  Finally, the breath flows out.  When combined with the individual’s ability for sustained concentration, the focus on breath places the student, reflectively, within Hanna and Cohen's three part process of perception.  Students attend to feeling the breath as it enters, fusing with the breath and their own nervous system along the spinal cord, and, to complete the cycle, they consciously follow the breath as it leaves their body.  When repeated with an attitude of exploration and discovery, their awareness integrates breath as part of their sensory‑motor system.  Feeling the breath corresponds to sensory input.  Fusing with the breath initiates experiencing or interpreting information to plan a response.  Following the breath is a form of motor response that prepares students for the next cycle.  At the end of the exhalation, individuals prepare to respond to the actions of others that are a result of their expressed desires.  In becoming consciously aware of the cycle of feeling, fusing and following, an individual becomes aware of the subtle relationship between perception and action. 

To demonstrate the use of feel, fuse and follow as it is related to breath and critical thinking, I have provided two explorations. The first uses the breath as a means to expand students' ability to concentrate and follow the logic inherent in a particular task. It is an ideal exercise to incorporate as part of laboratory classes, such as creative writing, dance composition or other classes that use improvisational methods as it helps teach students to develop continued concentration on a task as well as providing a relaxed and open somatic state for imaginative exploration.^[vi]  The second can be used in courses that include discussions of viewpoints related to topics of contemporary life.

Breath Explorations

      Teaching students to integrate and use the process of breath begins with a focus on the act of breathing.  I have provided here an extended series of explorations.  They can be used independently or in relationship to each other as needed to help students learn concentration skills.  Depending upon the available space, the students can begin lying or sitting.  Initially, they are asked to close their eyes and focus on their breath.  With their eyes closed, they are coached to become conscious of their breath as it flows in and out of them.  This conscious awareness of breath is increased by asking them to feel their breath as it enters their body, fuse with it at the top of the inhalation and follow the breath with their internal consciousness as it flows out.  Once students become aware of this aspect of breathing, they can be asked to become aware of where they feel the breath as it enters the body, where they feel the sensation of fusing with the breath, and where they feel the breath leaving the body.  The students can then be directed to extend any aspect of this tripartite experience through verbal coaching that expands their awareness of sensory experience.  Where is the breath felt?  Where do they experience fusing, along the spinal cord or in other areas of the torso? What parts of the body does the breath transverse as it flows out?  What images do they associate with the inhalation or exhalation?  By literally incorporating the action inherent in the verbs--feel, fuse, and follow--the student learns to combine breath with other physical actions or active verbs.

During the early stages of working with this technique, I ask students to open their eyes and find a point of focus in the space while maintaining the same level of internal awareness.  With their eyes open, students can expand their internal awareness to other aspects of their perceptual system.  Usually, I ask them to complete some form of physical action, such as lying, sitting or standing that invites them to unite breath phrasing with a simultaneous action of the body.  This action can be in one part of the body, a combination of body parts, or the total body.  As they combine the breath phrasing with the movement, I remind them that they are still feeling the breath, fusing with the breath, and following the breath.  Once students have learned the technique in relationship to the breath, it can be applied to single sensory systems--seeing, touching, and hearing.

       I use this technique at the beginning of performance and other classes in which I want the students to maintain focus on a task for a period of time.  I find a project initiated with this technique encourages students to approach the project with greater concentration.  They embody an attitude of exploration associated with the bodily-kinesthetic state that maintains a state of relaxed focus. Thus, there is less of a tendency to become anxious concerning the correctness or incorrectness of the task’s outcome.  This naturally enhances their ability to make original and imaginative choices.  The amount of time I spend on the technique depends upon the students’ past experience with it and similar exercises.  Often, I just suggest taking a moment to focus on the task using the kinesthetic sensation of feel, fuse, and follow.

 

A Kinesthetic Method of Exploration

The technique of feel, fuse, and follow can also be used in conjunction with improvisation and associative imagery as part of a discussion of a contemporary topic. For example, let us take the broad topic of current images of men and women.  A commonly held gender stereotype suggests that men are bold and women are weak.  In this method of exploration students examine these two opposing images by engaging in a several-part nonverbal dialogue. The following is an example:

Bold and Weak an Exploration:

•        The students’ first task is to generate a list of images for each term–bold and weak.  This set becomes the conceptually created list.

•        Next, they create a series of physical postures they define as bold or weak.  This posture evolves from spending a moment focusing on their breath and related associative imagery for the term and allowing these two elements to fuse and then evolve into the posture as the student follows the logic in the imagery with a release of breath.

•       Combining the conceptual list and corresponding postures, interactive pairs carry out a nonverbal dialogue in which one person plays the bold individual and the other the weak member of the exchange.  During this dialogue, the instructor side-coaches the students to feel, fuse, and follow, not only their own movement, but also the movement of the person with whom they are working.  Additionally, I might have students reduce the speed of their movements as a method of increasing concentration.

•        At the end of a period of dialogue, the students write on a piece of paper or the chalk board a series of associative images that have emerged from the dialogue.  The students then reverse roles and repeat the process.  At the end of both sets of dialogue, there exits a list of images related to the two terms, in this case, bold and weak.

  Ultimately, the students have two lists, one generated cerebrally and the other through physical interaction.  In past work with bold and weak, the cerebrally generated list has included for bold: big, brave, aggressive, solid, and proud.  At first, weak has evoked images such as helpless, small, fragile, and insecure.  The list generated through nonverbal interaction for bold included:  generous, foolish, humorous, and hollow.  Weak was big, transformable, honest, and compassionate.  In the nonverbal dialogue, the students had discovered completely new ways of conceptualizing bold and weak.  They have a somatic experience of bold that includes brave as well as foolish, aggressive as well as generous.  Weak is helpless, small, compassionate, honest, fragile, insecure, big, and transformable.  The cumulative information from the exercise expanded their ability to think and discuss these commonly used words and related stereotypes of men and women.  If one applies Damasio’s concept of ‘somatic markers’ to their experience, one can say they have discovered new ‘somatic markers’ for previous conceptualizations of men as bold and women as weak. 

      There is a potential to use this exercise for an examination of any concept or construct that is perceived as existing within the tension of a binary.  I use it primarily as a means to initiate new ways of conceiving questions of gender by focusing on images of masculine/feminine, macho/demure, aggressive/passive, big/small, loud/quiet, bright/dark, and others.  Whenever I use the exercise to examine this topic, the students kinesthetically experience and identify a series of images that are based on previously held stereotypes and juxtapose this cerebrally generated image with new bodily-kinesthetic experiences and images.  The final objective, a new set of psychophysical images related to masculine and feminine identity, demystifies both categories as well as serving as the basis for new frameworks.  The exercise also serves as a point from which to launch a discussion of gender that can be further illustrated by other material. Although I have not used it for other topics, I can imagine its use for other contemporary issues.  For example, I think an exercise developed concerning the issue of animal research and cloning with binary constructs of animal/human or nature/culture could be very provocative.   Naturally, the dilemma for the teacher is to determine the underlying binaries that exist within the larger argument.  However, these also might be revealed in discussions with the students prior to doing the actual exercise.

Conclusion

The approach to education implied by the previously described explorations of breath and gender coincides with Shigenori Nagatomo's conception of the nature of body knowledge.  His definition is not limited to mean "knowledge of the body but knowledge gained through the body" (1992:63).  Using Japanese conceptions of self, Nagatomo points out the potential of somatic knowledge to shift the 'I/Other' mode that is inherent in intellectual inquiry based on limited sensory access, “Such knowledge may be contrasted with intellectual knowledge.  Intellectual knowledge is that mode of cognition which results from objectifying a given object, which propositionally takes a subject-predicate form, and which divorces the somaticity of the knower from the mind of the knower” (1992:63). Additionally, the technique unifies the breath, brain, and body in its analytical and definitional mode, thus responding to criticisms by Gardner and others of our current educational system.

There has been a radical disjunction in our recent cultural tradition between the activities of reasoning on the one hand, and the activities of the manifestly physical part of our culture, as epitomized by our bodies, on the other.  This divorce of the 'mental' and the 'physical' has not infrequently been coupled with a notion that what we do with out bodies is somehow less privileged, less special, than those problem solving routines carried out chiefly through the use of language, logic, or some other relatively abstract symbolic system.  (1983: 207)

 This integrated approach makes the entire soma or self the site of abstract thinking and the critical evaluation of ideas.

In my work with, not just actors, but other students as well, I have discovered that, by using exercises, such as the one previously described with the breath technique of feel, fuse, and follow, the students’ ability to concentrate on a specific task for extended periods of time is enhanced.  Acting theorist, Constantin Stanislavski would define this interconnection as discovering the physical action within the point of concentration. Yasuo Yuasa describes this state as a process of self-activation and critical thinking.  The value of Yuasa's focus on process is the potential for deeper levels of self and of self in reflection.  His definition suggests that repetition of a somatic experience will create in the student, not only new ideas with regard to the question, but deepening levels of ability to explore the question.