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| Long Jump, 1887, Eadweard Muybridge |
As I walked down the street, the stranger nodded at me
almost at the same time as I nodded back. There was a moment of instant
recognition, the way riders usually acknowledge each other when they come
across another motorbike on the road; a shared experience.
I am no great fighter, but I have trained in boxing and a
few other martial arts, and I can usually recognise a fighter, less by the
distinctive marks their face sometimes carry, but rather by the way they move,
and look at other people and gauge and assess them… This particular guy was
clearly a boxer.
Similarly, a dancer will move in a particular, almost
inexpressible way that makes them easy to spot: a certain poise and grace. Long
distance runners, sprinters, gymnasts, climbers… all have distinctive movement
patterns honed through countless hours of drilling the same motions. A tacit
knowledge that is carried within the body, and constantly accessed even in the
ordinary movements of daily life.
