Self-understanding Through Movement Self-mastery    You have probably found unique forms of self-understanding in, and through, your movement experiences. The cerebral skills that are essential elements of becoming more philosophical and of developing your reasoning powers are integral to the movement process in that you must make choices as you develop strategies and reason carefully even as you move artfully. The movement experience is a unique setting for philosophic growth. Only in this context do you learn as you project yourself through space, often with vigorous intensity. The first lesson you learn on the path to self-understanding is self-mastery. Moving leads to removing. The frustrations of the everyday world slip away as you play, run, sweat and laugh. You have found a medium of which you can be master. Although you may still struggle with your own limitations, you want to be there, you have hope of improving and you enjoy the challenge. Thwarted in a particular task, you draw on the sensory input of the occasion to figure out what went wrong. Perhaps you were trying to master a topspin backhand in a tennis match but couldn't seem to stop the ball from burying itself in the net. The sensory input from what you saw and felt in your own action combined with data from such secondary sources as videotapes and the observations of coaches [if you are fortunate enough to have access to them] are the basis for rectifying the problem. Having the information is not, in itself, a guarantee of mastery. Perfecting a skill, such as that backhand, entails using other skills with dexterity: the philosophical skills of analysis and synthesis. Like a doctor, you must correctly identify the symptoms and then prescribe the best cure. Some backhands are so riddled with dis-ease that the highest level of analysis is necessary to distinguish all the ailments, to differentiate between their relative severity and to determine which should be treated first. Synthesizing a remedy is equally problematic. Should you attend to footwork first or is the grip the first order of importance? What about the swing? Mastery extends beyond skill acquisition to encompass all aspects of the activity, including techniques and tactics, equipment use and maintenance, preparation and participation. Perhaps even more important is the mastery of self. In the "heat of battle" you can experience the gamut of emotions: joy and sadness, exuberance and exhilaration, frustration and anger. Learning how to deal with and express these feelings is part and parcel of learning to play the game and learning to understand yourself. To experience such self-mastery, perform the following exercises and consider the results.
Exercise 8: Select a skill that you want to learn but that you have difficulty performing. Try it, and record the problems you have with it. Now, carefully analyze the information you collected to determine the relative severity of the glitches and where the breakdown seems to start. Identify the core problem and synthesize a strategy for success. Implement it - did it work? If not, go back to the drawing board and develop a new blueprint until you hit one that is effective.
Exercise 9: Repeat the process with a partner, this time acting as "coach." Be your partner"s eyes and ears to gather data and then go through the process of analysis and synthesis with your prot‚g‚.
Exercise 10: As you play your favorite activity, be conscious of the feelings you go through. While the experience is still fresh in your mind, record the emotions you mastered. Reflect back to earlier experiences and think about the emotions you have most trouble expressing, those that you can't seem to suppress, those that you are able to channel positively and those that end up hurting your performance. What conclusions do you draw about changes in your own self-mastery through movement experiences? Self-discovery    Even as you encounter your own shortcomings and your own fears, you are learning to understand what you want to do, what you can do and what your limits are. The movement experience is an avenue to self-discovery. Selection of movement preferences is a marriage. You look for a partner who is like you, who complements you, who you find agreeable. So, choosing well depends upon your self-knowledge and your ability to identify components in a game or activity that are compatible with your nature. You don't want a partner that is aggressive, angry and even hostile [as boxing and football can be], if you yearn for the peaceful, tranquil life [maybe hiking or bowling]. Activities have characters just like people. Part of the process of self-discovery is selecting and sampling a range of movement experiences to find out just who you are. An interesting exercise involves fleshing out the personality of an activity:
Exercise 11: Pick a pastime near and dear to your heart and inductively create an individual from the qualities you perceive it to have. These "p.q.'s" include personality type [calm or exciting, cautious or risky, conservative or audacious, gentle or aggressive, loud or quiet and so on], physical mannerisms [ for example, strong, powerful, agile, flexible, quick, deliberate, sustained, explosive] and location [indoors, outdoors, gym, playing field, track, pool, lake, rivers, beaches, mountains, foreign country etc.]. With a little imagination, you should be able to construct a plausible person out of such criteria, even to the point of giving him/her a name.
Exercise 12: Now deduce from knowledge of your desires and needs, which sport or pastime would ideally suit you [for the purposes of this exercise, ignore the logistics of availability, cost, etc. - just focus on the perfect mate!]
    As much as self-understanding may derive from activity selection, it is in the participatory stages that you learn most about yourself. Involvement in physical activity brings you face to face with yourself. The medium of movement is uniquely capable of confronting you with your own human frailty. Your hopes and fears are realized. You are on display in a public arena where your mode of expression is overtly physical. Private experience of your limitations becomes a public expression of humbling proportions. In most spheres of life, you can hide your failings and failures. In the realm of the body, there is no place to hide. Every part of your physical being is right there for participants and observers to see. Play becomes display. In a very public arena, you learn what you can and cannot do. Try as you might, some moves are beyond your capacity. There are limits to your performance. Your physiological makeup prescribes your actions. Your psychological profile inscribes your reactions. Movement is a medium that will test and prove your limits. It is also a pathway to your potential. It can help you to understand what you cannot do, but it also holds the promise of what you can do. It is a gauge against which you can measure improvement. It is a constant in an uncertain world of change. As you age, it provides a way of expressing youthful impulses, of pushing back time. It is a rock that you can hang onto as time rushes by. It is a pool into which you can dive to discover the treasures of your existence hidden deep below the surface. It is the mountain top that lures you upwards to discover your potential. Physical activity is much more than a physiological workout. It is an opportunity for you to experience yourself in new and different ways, to understand yourself more fully and to strive for the ultimate state of self- awareness in which you achieve unity in yourself and harmony with your surroundings.