The Joy of Movement and the Shoe String Circus

by Clint Walters, Santa Cruz Waldorf School Movement Education Teacher

Children need to move-they need to sense themselves and others in their environment. They are developing their bones, muscles, and organs for their lives of physical activity. Movement education in the Waldorf curriculum provides children with physical activities appropriate to their stage of development. My role as the Movement Educator is to give every child a chance to experience the joy of movement. The child's movements in the lower grades are meant to be more unconscious, imbued with imaginative play. Teaching movement through games successfully engages children in grades one through four and provides the appropriate vehicles for developing balance, coordination, and directed movement. For example, tag games such as The Ocean is Stormy, Squirrels in the Trees and Skywolf are games which allow children to enter into imaginative worlds and enable them to experience proper and healthy movement. Without bringing attention to their physical movements, these children are given the opportunity to move freely and explore how their own bodies move in space.

Students leave the realm of imaginative play around the fifth grade. At this time students have the need to challenge themselves physically, emotionally, and intellectually. The upper grades' student needs a more formalized and structured movement program, learning about the physical body, its muscles and bones and how they work. Focusing on particular skills required for specific games and activities such as basketball, volleyball, track and field, football, baseball and ultimate frisbee is more important to these students. Thus, a more inclusive physical education is best suited to meeting their needs.

Over the years, many people have contributed to help build and maintain a physical education program at Santa Cruz Waldorf School. Four years ago, Ms. Cleveland's eighth grade class donated an equipment shed to provide a home for the simple equipment we owned which had previously been stored in individual classrooms. Until recently, maintaining and improving the playing fields has been yet another challenge. A number of improvements have been made to the play areas at our school in the last few years: the play structure, swings, sand area, grassy area. These improvements are now being regularly maintained to provide areas for movement education.

Four years ago, our Administrative Assistant Laurie Dodge saw the need for an organized team sport for the upper grades. She initiated our first basketball league with boys and girls teams. These teams have competed in the independent school league for the past four years with excellent results. It has been a tremendous opportunity for the upper grade students to work together in a spirit of cooperation and camaraderie.

The training program for Waldorf physical education which teaches the dynamics of human movement and development is called Spatial Dynamics and has five components. They are to develop: 1) the quality of each participant's own movement; 2) the ability to perceive the affect of movement on oneself and others; 3) an understanding of the role of movement in the spatial development of the child; 4) the ability to teach and apply Spatial Dynamics principles in any activity; and 5) the capacity to recognize, understand and work remedially and therapeutically with problems that stem from incomplete or interrupted physical-spatial coordination. Course activities include: Bothmer gymnastics, sports, indoor and outdoor games, track and field, exercises for the classroom, tumbling and acrobatics, stave exercises, and juggling. Coursework also covers: posture exercises, movement observation and analysis, teaching methods, therapeutic techniques, and remedial applications. After completing the five-year training in Spatial Studies last summer, I decided to offer a new Movement Program to our school.

As the Movement Educator, I've observed that certain students tend to dominate specific activities while other students who are not as skillful or as aggressive feel reluctant to engage in particular games. "Wouldn't it be great for the children at our school to have an opportunity to increase their balance and coordination in a non-competitive and fun setting?", I mused. As part of my training, I had learned several circus activities such as juggling balls, rings, and pins, and the two disciplines of gymnastics and acrobatics. Watching the fantastic circus performance by the Summerfield Waldorf School in Santa Rosa completely convinced me a similar circus program would succeed at our school, given donations of time and resources to make it possible.

David Poznanter, a talented and dexterous juggler, agreed to be my assistant. Then a miracle happened, paving the way for a strong and vibrant circus program. An anonymous donor provided resources for obtaining the equipment needed to launch the circus. Then another marvel followed: my father, Wesley Walters, decided to give a sizable donation to the Movement Program. With such incredible support, David and I were ready to begin a new and exciting adventure into the circus arts.

The circus program brings to the children a new way of moving that is different from previous games and physical education classes. It is not limited to just games or physical education; it incorporates many facets of movement and doesn't favor one athlete over another as in other traditional sports. The only competition in a circus is overcoming one's own limitations! Children begin to see that by practicing a certain activity they improve and then their self-confidence increases. There is no concept of losing as in other sports, only of achieving a level of skill and striving to get better with practice. No one is trying to block your shot, tackle you, put you out, or demean you for poor effort. All I have witnessed so far is praise and encouragement for one another and I think our children benefit greatly from this!

This school year David and I offer an after-school circus program to grades four through eight every Thursday 1:15 to 2:15 p.m. The children are taught to juggle scarves, beanbags, balls, rings, and pins. We spin plates, flower sticks and diabolos, ride unicycles, jump on a trampolete, tumble on mats, perform acrobatics and gymnastics, walk on globes and the tightrope, clown, and enact comedy skits. The children, David, and I plan to perform a small circus for the community at this year's May Fair so that we may share with all of you the many talents we learned this year. This thirty to forty minute show will include not only circus skills, but also comedy acts and music. We encourage all to come!