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September 26, 2005
Fluid Motion
I thought Stanislavski did a good job in his piece of illustrating how one can effectively overdo it when trying to embody plasticity of motion. If simply told to "walk more fluidly", people will naturally walk in an unnatural way. I agree that the key element in achieving more pasticity in motion is maintaining the correct mindset. To this end, metaphors such as that of mercury seem to ber very helpful.
It is the spirit of this piece that in my assignment I documented a baseball pitcher's movements. When a pitcher throws the ball, enormous amounts of energy are transfered throughout his motion. The speed achieved by a baseball (up to 90mph and above) is largely due to energy that comes from the legs. The "leg kick" of a pitcher is often credited with the power behind their pitches (or lack thereof). What is interesting about the motion of a baseball pitcher is that the results of this motion are examinable in relatively precise ways. There are clinics all over the country that do just this every day (with the help of some high technology). The smoother a pitcher's motion, the more efficiently energy is transferred throughout the body. The benefits of this are two-fold. Firstly, a pitcher can achieve a higher velocity on their fastball. Additionally, this approach reduces the stress on the pitcher's body and can help stave off injury.
Posted by Andrew Maskin at September 26, 2005 04:09 PM