Contrary to traditional biological thinking, growth is open-ended; it is a venture of risk. Growth is not a static, repeated cycle, nor has it ever been. It is always expanding towards more than what has been. Only conceptions are static Life grows, expands, evolves towards an open-ended future of its own contrivance. Some human beings may hang on to life, just managing to survive, but all somas prior to human somas have confidently expanded their numbers and their variety into the universe, almost as if the universe existed only for the purpose f supporting and lending itself to the project of life's expansion.
(Hanna, 1979, p 128)
The idea of stasis as a goal is predicated on a modern, western view of the body as a machine. This was a view proposed in the 1600's, initiated by Rene Descartes(I think, therefor I am) as a way to seperate the mind from the body. A necessary split at the time, that put emphasis on the brain and a thinking man's ability to conquer it's environment. The body was simply another thing, object to be studied and fixed. The body became a seperate entity and in many ways has become somewhat of a hinderance. And if it is truly a machine, then on it's own it cannot grow, it cannot improve, it can only fall apart and get fixed.
If, on the other hand, we choose to see the body and mind as one object, us, a soma, then we see that just as our brains can get more intelligent and better as we age, so can our bodies. The are intertwined, un-splittable, as one improves so does the other.
A more manageable split is one of function and structure.
Structure refers to the bones and tissue and genetic materials that direct our growth.
Function on the other-hand, is what we do with our structure. Function is development, decay, adaptation for the good or bad. But most importantly, the way we function is our point of control over our actions and the consequences of those actions. And as Thomas points out, efficient, graceful, easy function is what we as somas do and what drives us to excel and to achieve and to grow beyond subsequent generations and even subsequent species. Consequently, if that is truly our nature then to allow natural functioning is to deny failure. This, I believe, is the true goal of the methods Thomas Hanna developed that I practice on myself and teach to others. By releasing natural movement(function) we can truly express ourselves as human somas and discover our potential.
