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I recently had the pleasure of teaching two preschool classes an introduction to Liberation Martial Arts (LMA). The first class included preschoolers from 2.5 to 3 years old, and the second class consisted of 4- and 5-year-olds.
Sometimes, the best way to learn our pedagogy is to see it in practice, and in practice, our pedagogy truly comes alive. LMA isn't just for martial arts enthusiasts; it's for anyone interested in becoming a better mover and those seeking a liberatory pedagogy for movement. This was a different context from our class at UCI, so you get to see how our approach shapes itself based on the context. Even between the tots and the older kids, our session evolved.
A concept kids can grasp and engage with better than adults is that we are neither fixed points in time nor static objects. We are living beings, constantly adapting and transforming. You can never be the same person twice. Not only are we different shapes and sizes, but our shapes and sizes change—not only gradually but also at will. Not only do we change, but our changes change.
A small person can make themselves big; a big person can make themselves small. We can be a square, a tall block, a triangle, or a heart. We should never judge each other negatively based on our shapes and sizes because we are all a multitude of shapes and sizes. We are multitudes collectively and individually. Spectrums within spectrums.
What is movement? Shape making. That's it.
What is LMA's concept of Wayfinding? Creating a shape that corresponds with a movement space.
Is there only one shape that can correspond with a movement space? No. That's the beauty of our Wayfinding system. Rather than gatekeeping, it's inviting and accessible because it allows for a maximum number of right answers. It's a system that works for all people, unlike other pedagogies, even those used by other radicals, that only work for some.
A space affords the possibility for shapes. You, as a mover, are an infinite number of shapes. Instructors, coaches, and teachers have to get out of the way and let movers be their fluid selves, rather than fixing them in space and time. Little ones are such natural movers. We (adults) have to allow them to be who they are as they move.
See a movement space and move accordingly. Instructors don't need to add middleman steps, busywork, and memorization between space and movement because all that does is put a boot on the mover's neck. How can they move freely and be themselves with the instructor's boot on their neck? Does it matter that the boot is friendly and inclusive?
Rather than free movement, it becomes self-conscious, imprisoned movement. Not only is the instructor the corrections officer of the mover's movement (perhaps a nice one), but the mover has now been conditioned to maintain an internal corrections officer to monitor and judge their movements. The mover is weighed down by orders, monitoring, recall, overcomplication, pleasing the corrections officer, and more. Not figuratively, not hyperbolically, but literally, most teachers, coaches, and instructors are corrections officers. All they do is correct (corrections), and it's top-down (officer).
That's the colonial boot. Movement pedagogies replicate all the worst aspects of society into activities meant to be fun. Overcomplication is oppressive, as are rigidity and standardization.
Take striking, for example. When you see an open shot, you take it. When you see a shot coming, you block it. For grappling, when you see open space, you occupy it. If there is no open space, you shape it. No middleman or bureaucracy is needed.
Then, what needs the most work? Seeing, or more broadly, perception. When can we see our best? When can we move our best? When can we learn? When we are at ease. What's the bulk of improving movement? Easing tension and improving perception. What's the most challenging, especially for those raised in an oppressive society? Easing tension and improving perception. What's easy? Hearing yourself talk and teaching mechanics—just as punitive parenting and helicopter parenting are easier for the parents but worse for the kids.
Most movement practices, especially martial arts, ignore easing tension and improving perception. Someone with zero martial arts training who is at ease and perceiving can dodge something coming toward them better than a tense martial artist. An untrained person who is entirely at ease and aware can catch a falling person better than a tense martial artist. The tense martial artist will probably poke the falling person in the eyes inadvertently as they lunge toward them.
Once we're in person, theory and words go out the window—whether preschoolers or adults. We have to get moving. So, right away, I had the kids engaging in movement.
One of them came up, and I got out of the way and let them lead a movement experience. Kids yelled out shapes or demonstrated different shapes, and I shared that information with the rest of the class. I was a guide and transmitter as the children self-directed their movements. Even if I'm organizing and designing the movement, I must listen and perceive because the kids are my co-designers and co-organizers. They know themselves and each other better than I do. I just met them. They have faith in me insofar as I'm an adult, and I'm allowing them to have fun, but I have to have faith in them that they know what they want and need and to spontaneously guide the class. I amplified and organized their intuitive energy. Most of what I did, the kids demonstrated first. I just refined, highlighted, and bounced it back to them.
We all have that intuitive potential in us, and it breaks my heart when I see a movement or sports class extinguish that flame, not just in children but also in adults. Teachers, coaches, and instructors value their rigid colonial pedagogy more than the learners. They lack love for the learners while harboring lots of hate for them not living up to their standards and expectations.
It's all backward. The approach and techniques come before the learner when the approach is meant to serve the learner, and the movements are meant to be personalized rather than standardized.
Sounds can have shapes and sizes, as can feelings, both internal and external. This only needs to be made explicit because of our rigid and limited definitions as oppressed adults, but kids get it. They get it right away.
I asked the children to "show" me sounds and feelings because they have yet to set limits for shapes. They have yet to gatekeep their own understanding. They're natural movers. Shapes can be perceived in multiple ways, so "seeing" and "showing" make sense to them.
Throughout the sessions, little ones would walk up to me and stare up at me. I would ask if they had a question or wanted to say something. As an adult, my bias was to ask for words. They were processing a feeling but didn't have words for it. Some feelings are like that—if you're an adult, remember that.
I gave them space and waited, and then they hugged me. It's not just lacking the right words; even having the right words doesn't mean it can be expressed in words or that you know how to express it through words.
Sometimes, you say the right words, but they don't feel right. It's like that. Yet the kids knew how to express it through movement. When they physically expressed themselves and gave their feelings form, it hit me harder than any words. Even to say it was one of my favorite or best days or to say it was precious doesn't sound right. We rely on instruction and words because it is assumed that the colonial language is a perfect system that lacks nothing, but in reality, it's a system of Western assumptions about the world.
Lacking words doesn't mean you lack thoughts or processes. It means words are lacking, especially colonial ones, or when your native tongue has been taken from you.
Transcript
Let's be small. Everybody is different shapes and sizes, and that's okay. And even our smalls are different and our shapes are different.
Let's be big. Big.
Now, let's practice big breathing. What does big breathing sound like?
And what about small, quiet breathing?
Now, let's be narrow. Be very narrow. Show me narrow.
Show me wide. Show me wide.
Show me narrow.
Wide.
And show me small when you're on your hands and feet.
And then show me big again.
Now, let's pretend to be trees. Let's lift up one of our roots. Lift up one of our roots. Lift up the other root. Lift up the root. Lift up the root.
How do you make a triangle with your hands?
And then, how do you make a rectangle with your hands?
And then show me an X with your body.
And then everybody try heart.
Show me dodging side to side. Show me dodging side to side. Dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge.
Yeah! All right, good.
Good job, everybody!
Let's clap.
Everybody did a great job.
Go! Show! Show! Show! Show! Show!
Alright, good job!
Big!
Small!
Big!
Now, let's be wide! Show me wide! What does wide look like?
Good!
Now show me narrow! Everybody show me narrow! What does narrow look like?
Wide! Like this! Wide!
And then narrow.
Now, we could also do that with our breathing. Let's try to do big breathing. Big breathing. I want to hear it. And then big ahhh!
Let's do it one more time. Show me a big ahhh!
And now show me quiet. Quiet breathing, soft breathing, small breathing.
Show me a star. Make a star with your body.
Good. Yeah!
Now, show me an X. Show me an X.
Now, show me how to make a triangle with your arms. Triangle.
There's no right or wrong. All of it is correct.
How do you make a heart? Heart.
How do we make a square? And then show me a square again on the ground. A square block on the ground.
And then show me a standing block.
And then show me a square again.
And then stand. Standing block.
Jump. Yeah!
And then quiet and narrow and then walking. Quiet. Quiet now. Quiet walking. Quiet walking.
Good!
Now show me clapping.
Yeah!
And then let's end with everybody showing me how to do a heart on their heads with both hands. Both hands!
Yeah! Good job! Everybody clap!
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