Gratitude in motion vs. End-Gaining
Our bodies are a gift to behold, and our movement practice is a physical expression of gratitude for this gift.
Pay attention and you will see how the vast majority people are deprived of both movement and gratitude in their daily lives. By reframing movement and exercise as acts of thanks-giving for our physical structures, we stand to gain so much more than the mere treating of our movement practice as a means to a physical end.
In Alexander technique, there is a term called end-gaining. End-gaining means “the tendency we have to keep our mind and actions focused on an end result whilst losing sight of, and frequently at the expense of, the means-whereby the result is achieved.”
What contradictory advice this can sound like. On one hand, it is important to start with the end in mind, be able to clearly visualize your goal, and keep a laser focus on it. On the other, when stuck only in an end-gaining approach we risk missing the journey from which we can learn so much. We lose the beholding ourselves and our innate gifts in the mire of comparison, judgement, and fitting in.
In a movement practice we risk end-gaining if we take our bodies for granted. In the words of Nietzsche, “All virtues are physiological conditions”. Consider that gratitude is a virtue both cultivated by and requisite for the development of a movement practice and for a fulfilled, happy life.
In this chapter we’ll be comparing two intentions- the giving and receiving gifts, and the exchange of market commodities, and how these two intentions can be embodied in a movement practice (the latter being a very dangerous mindset to move from). Imagine a spectrum on which one side we have a gift culture, and on the other a capitalist market. A healthy movement practice must err to the gift end of the spectrum, and to understand why, let’s begin to explore what gift giving and gratitude really are.
Our most innate gift
The book The Gift, by Lewis Hyde is one of the best books I have read on the subject of gratitude and gift giving without explicitly telling us, the reader, that you must be more grateful. Never-the-less, you finish the book inspired to give more.
Hyde accomplishes this by providing a rich history of gift giving, dating back to the traditional gift culture of ancient tribes, through to the modern day advent of interest on loans and capitalism. Just in this retelling of gift history we are reminded of the importance of giving without expectation to receive in return, and the importance of gift culture. His book is written primarily for artists (poets being his intended audience) and goes deep into theme of struggle artists often face in finding a middle ground that will allow them to live off their art in a capitalist society while staying true to their artistic vision.
Hyde’s book was written for poets and artists, but as I was reading all I could think of was, “oh my God he’s talking about movement”.
A gift from “the void”
Hyde writes that for the artist, the source of their creativity feels like a gift they receive. This “gift of creativity” is a sudden inspirational glimpse that seems to come out of no-where without them asking for it, from a mysterious void somewhere within them. The artist cannot say where it comes from, but that after receiving this gift and their creative labour is through, the artist experiences a deep sense of gratitude to the unknown source of their creative impetus.
Between the time the artist receives this gift and their labour’s completion, the artist is fueled by a feeling of indebtedness for this innate gift, and the only way to relieve this tension, this indebtedness to the initial moment of mysterious inspiration, is to labour until that feeling can be let go, until they feel they have become equal to the original gift-The inspiration, the teaching, the moment of illumination that came without their asking.
Hyde further explains that in it’s purest, traditional sense, a true gift cannot be held onto, but must be used by the receiver. Thus, to become “equal to the gift”, the gift must be used, or else it is wasted. This is different than reciprocity in gift giving in which we give directly back to the gifter (which can often feel like an obligation, especially around Christmas and other material gifting holidays, which negates the true meaning of giving a gift).
A true gift cannot be hoarded or held onto, nor can it be given with the expectation of receiving anything in exchange from the giver, otherwise it no longer can be called a gift, but a commodity. The true act of gratitude we can show for the gift, therefore, is by using it, passing it along, or becoming equal to its spirit. To rise to the level of the original gift and meet our own potential in it, then let it go. The act of labour by which the artist uses up their creative gift and lets it go into the world is the transformation of the feeling of indebtedness to gratitude.
Gratitude results from the creative process, and so, art cannot exist if not for gratitude. I believe the same is true for our bodies, and Hyde’s book serves as a lovely metaphor- Our bodies are a gift with which we must labour in gratitude. Do you see your own body as a gift? How many of us rise to the level of our bodies? Awaken to its full potential? Imagine the gratitude you could cultivate simply by moving your body. And imagine living with the constant tension of indebtedness if you do not try to become equal to your most innate gift.
As a side note it saddens me to see society viewing creative and movement programs as unimportant, and cut from public school curricula. If art and movement are unimportant, then so is gratitude, and therein lies many problems with our society.
The Mentor’s intellectual gift
To further illustrate this idea of “rising to the level of the gift” and the labour of gratitude that I feel is necessary in a movement practice, let’s apply this to an example from the intellectual realm, a space in which I feel more of us are used to thinking in than the kinesthetic sensing space (that I personally find so much more natural to communicate in. Words are hard.)
For this example, use whichever intellectual or creative field you currently find yourself occupying or care about: Interior design, software design, physics, whatever your thing is.
You may have, at some point, received a teaching from a mentor in your field to which no fee was attached. If you are a humble individual, then you probably felt that you did not do anything to deserve such kindness and feel indebted to your mentor, even though they expected nothing in return. Rather, they seem to delight in sharing their wisdom with you (this is what makes it a gift). Still, you are very likely to feel at least a little discomfort, a low level, ever-present tension in this receiving without reciprocal giving (unless you’re a complete sociopath). To quell this tension, this sense of indebtedness, you feel compelled to use it: You find that the tension becomes less of a negative discomfort, and more an attractive pull to do your best work, to rise to meet the level of your mentor’s gift. You use their teachings (their gift to you) to your fullest. Perhaps the gift is working in you at a level just beneath your conscious awareness, but you find yourself aiming to fulfill and embody your mentor’s teachings, and striving to reach your potential through them.
Eventually, after months, years, or decades (one can never know how long the labour will take) you feel you have reached the level of the original gift and you are drawn to share it with others, which serves as a way of paying the gift forward to honour your mentor. This using of the gift is the only true way to express gratitude for your mentor, for gifts are not meant to be received then hoarded and left untouched. In fulfilling this process you come to realize that your mentor was fulfilling his own gift cycle when he passed along his wisdom to you initially. He didn’t need anything from you but for you to use his teachings and pass them along when the time came.
This gift-cycle attitude is an attribute that I see in nearly all healthy movement practices: They behold the body as if it were a gift we have been given without expectation of paying anything back for it, yet unless we use this gift, we will live in our bodies with a sense of indebtedness and discomfort that comes only with the treating of it as a commodity. In our bodies, this tension from indebtedness takes form as the feeling that something is missing in our lives, easily mistaken as something that we need to buy. But we already have what we need within ourselves, its just that we have not risen to meet it and fully explored our potential. This exploration is something that cannot be bought.
A market commodity, on the other hand, is something we can buy, own, and keep. A gift is something we have received and must use, and in the use of it we increase it’s worth. Our worth to ourselves and to the world can only increase through the use of our gift.
Movement practice as a labour of gratitude
Let’s now turn this gift metaphor towards the concept of movement practice.
A movement practice is a transformative labour of gratitude for the body which we express by fully embodying it, striving to explore it and meet its potential.
Hyde speaks of gratitude,
“as a labour undertaken by the soul to effect the transformation after a gift has been received.”
In this case, the gift is our body, received at our time of birth.
He continues,
“between the time a gift comes to us and the time we pass it along, we suffer gratitude. It is only when the gift has worked in us, only when we have come up to its level, as it were, that we can give it away again. Passing the gift along is the act of gratitude that finishes the labour.”
In our case of movement practice, the gift “working in us” is the fine tuning of homeostasis our bodies do without our conscious intent as we tune in to our bodies and move them in healthy ways. In allowing ourselves not to be manipulated by what society tells us is best for our bodies, but honouring them in a way that is fulfilling, enjoyable, and healthy for us, our gift- our bodies, work for us with efficiency and ease. This is a labour that is never finished.
Passing the gift along in its simplest form, is to share this way of being with others by living with gratitude, being a living testimonial to our innate gift. This allows our very presence to be a gift of sorts: Everyone we interact with can bear witness to a living example of how to engage with their own “soul’s labour” of gratitude for the gift that is their physical body. We can also pass along the gift by choosing to explicitly share and teach the spirit of what we have learned about the labour of gratitude for our bodies. And here is where we suffer the same struggle as the poet or artist: How to pass along the gift, make a decent living, and stay true to our values? (You’ll have to read Hyde’s book).
Can’t buy me practice
In our society (and I speak primarily of North America, where I’ve lived all my life) I’ve observed that we treat movement and exercise more as commodities than practices of gratitude and rising to one’s potential through exploration. These two modes of interacting with our bodies- gift versus commodity, are incompatible for a healthy movement practice.
Our most innate gift- The simple fact that we have a body, is too often taken for granted. Exercise is sold and marketed to us, telling us we need more of it, yet we are starved for the kind movement that permeates our moment to moment lives. We fail to use our gift and so nothing can be passed along. And because of this we lose the transformative power that the practice of gratitude for our bodies has for us in helping us lead happy, healthy, meaningful lives, for ourselves and future generations.
Having looked closely at movement practice as a transformative labour of gratitude for the body, in the next chapter we will look at the many ways this is lost. How exercise is marketed and sold to us as a commodity, leading to unhealthy relationships with our bodies, and reaps its negative effects across other areas of our lives.
