The art of floating

It was a perfect day in Italy - the turquoise sea was bath-tub warm and still as glass, you could see the sandy sea floor several metres below and small fish were darting about. I floated effortlessly on the surface of the still water. Everything was so easy. In the water I notice a quality of openness and flexibility in all my joints.

Oddly enough, floating is not effortless for some people even in salt water, partly it has to do with body fat percentage because fat has a lower density than muscle and bone. But surely it’s not only that? When children are learning to swim, I have often observed that a reluctance to allow the head to rest back on the water leads to sinking. When our heads are pulled back we cannot swim as efficiently as when we allow our face to be in the water. Does freeing the neck help us to float?

Stephen Shaw, author of ‘The Art of Swimming’ and founder of the Shaw Method might agree. He has developed a unique method based on the Alexander Technique that has helped thousands of people improve their ease and confidence in the water. Here is some more info if you are interested: https://www.artofswimming.com/

The experience of an AT lesson is often described as “floating”. When we release excess muscle tension there is a quality of openness and flexibility in every joint that gives rise to effortless movement.

Gravity is often cited as something we need to fight against, pulling us down. In my experience it is quite the opposite. When I do not fight gravity but rather allow the softness in my muscles and joints to release with gravity, my natural reflex mechnanisms keep me in a state of dynamic uprightness. The work of my teacher, Danny McGowan has been influential in illustrating and explaining the drop-catch mechanism of the human muscular system. You can find a free download of his book “Going Mental” here: https://constructiveawareness.com/books/ This is one of many support systems that works in and through us. I wrote a blog post about postural support using his illustrations back in 2019: https://www.alexanderonwaiheke.com/blog/2019/2/19/new-research-on-posture

In short, we don’t stack up. Our bones are rounded and spirallic in form: in our natural design, we find ourselves in a constant flux and flow of dymnamic instability.