Working in Movement

Much of movement education works with the effects of the startle response, mostly those associated with a sustained response. Taking Moshe to the Movies deals with it a bit. New Understanding of the Machinery of Flinching talks about a new study that investigated the effects of various drugs on the response, termed flinching in the article. The startle response or flinch occurs in two phases, an initial surprise response and then a more dramatic tightening. It is sustaining this later part of the response that results in so much chronic tension and sometimes damage. The guys doing the study found that they could damp the effects of the second part, but not the first. The flinch response is just buried too deeply in the instinctive machinery of the nervous system to be effected. Probably a good thing.