How Body Language and Movement Can Impact Your Practice, Presence and Negotiations
By Kaori Kenmotsu, MFA, JD
"I felt my heart racing"..."I maneuvered around the issue"... "I wanted to jump out of my chair, I was so mad"... "It hit me like a ton of bricks"... "I needed room to breathe"...
Humans feel conflict viscerally. Our bodies absorb and are shaped by conflict.
I use the term conflict negotiation to encompass how all parties—those directly involved, casualties, or those mediating conflicts—must negotiate their relationship to conflict and its effects. I use the term embodiment to
refer to the important role the body plays.
As a dancer, performer, theater artist and legal educator, I have dedicated my studies to investigating the human body. Combining my former career as a community organizer, my experience as a yoga practitioner and more than 25 years of investigating somatic
modalities of movement, I am curious how our bodies are impacted by conflict and how we can creatively resolve it. This, as well as how bodies, in relationship to others, teach us ways to move through conflict, is the focus of my teaching.
I have trained in many different movement practices including various dance techniques (modern, jazz, ballet); Laban Movement Analysis, contact improvisation, circus arts, yoga, Feldenkrais, Global Somatics, Pilates and physical theater. Because of these
experiences, I have come believe that the body does not lie.
While these may not seem directly related to the legal field and the work of attorneys, movement-based practices like Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) can help you notice the connection between your patterns of thinking and the nonverbal body cues you are
projecting. This work can help us determine ways to navigate conflict authentically.
LMA is a “theoretical framework for observing qualitative and quantitative changes in movement, ranging from conversational hand gestures to complex actions.”1 LMA was developed by Rudolph Laban (1879-1958), a European dancer, choreographer,
philosopher, theorist and writer. Laban was extremely interested in how humans moved in everyday life—through work, interactions with others, religious rituals, play, etc. He observed that every movement has a functional and expressive side.
For example, crossing one’s arms in front of one’s chest is the functional expression of a movement. But the way it’s done can tell you a lot about a person’s inner life.
One major theme in LMA is that body language has a functional and expressive side, and together the two sides give movement meaning. You can analyze the function and expression of body language to determine its meaning. This framework is broken down into
relationships between the body and effort, shape, and space.
The interactions between effort, shape and space help us tease apart and analyze the potential meaning and implications of body language. Effort addresses the feelings qualities of movement and speech. Effort itself can be broken down into factors like
time, weight, space and flow. Questions you may ask yourself to get at the “effort” of a movement would be:
- How freely is a person moving?
- Do their words flow freely, or are they speaking less than usual?
Effort embodies our attitudes toward the effort factors: time, weight, space and flow which operates on a continuum “bookended” between two opposing effort elements. When feelings/sensations are truly embodied in the body, they have a specific
weight, texture, rhythm, and flow.
Effort factors include:
- Effort and Flow—Answers the “how” of a behavior. When flow is bound, body language can be described as a constrained manner. For example, one may “bind” flow when one is choosing words carefully. Bound
flow is usually present when you wish to gain or remain in control. On the opposite side of the spectrum is free flow. The flow of one’s body language is free when they engage in an activity with such abandon that it’s difficult to
stop.
- Effort and Weight—Answers the “what” of an action. In essence, one intends to do something, which causes you to use your weight effectively to achieve your goal. For example, you will usually move into strong conversational
weight if you intend to win an argument, but you would use lighter weight in your movements and body language to demonstrate tenderness to a conversation partner.
- Effort and Time—Answers the “when” of a behavior. Time factor describes your attention toward a given time and affects tempo and duration.
- Effort and Space—Addresses the attitudes and feelings of the individuals in the space. Space is less about location and more about the attitudes and messages imbued in the physical space and the spatial distance between conversational
partners.
Shape links the body with the outside environment. The shapes our bodies are making reflect and project our inner conditions to the outside world. The changing shape of the body may be in relationship to the self or to the environment. Space explains
ways that you explore the environment, both in your personal space and the way you move through space.
Here are a few examples of how someone can deepen their nonverbal communication skills by paying attention to these elements and observing body language:
- Watch someone get up from the negotiation table. Observe whether they get up from the chair to move across the room in strong weight and direct space, which may indicate a need to maintain control, or if they use indirect light weight and have a less
direct relationship with space, which may show indecision.
- If you’re having a heated discussion with someone who invades your personal space in strong weight, spoke-like gestures, and free flow energy, you may benefit from observing how your body is reacting to this energy and making intentional changes
to control the outcome of the conversation. You may choose to move into strong weight, pull your body into a pin-like shape and spoke gestures to match their energy, or, if you want to calm the situation, you may choose to widen your energy, arc
your movements and move into bound flow to cool the tone of the discussion.
The examples and explorations of body language and the relationships between bodies are endless. This is where creativity, curiosity, and a sense of play is helpful.
Kaori Kenmotsu, MFA, JD, is an Assistant Professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in the Dispute Resolution Institute. She was formerly a Senior Lecturer at Hamline University where she was the Artistic Director for the Hamline Dance Ensemble, Co-Director
of the Conflict Studies program and faculty-affiliate for the Leadership program. Her Theater/Dance credits include company member of Li-Chiao Ping Dance, Black Label Movement, TimeTrack Productions, Mu Performing Arts, Pangea World Theater, Offleash
Area Productions, 10,000 Dances, and Gomez Dance. Her current work focuses on the intersectionality of art, community and law with a focus on embodied forms of conflict negotiation.
Notes
1. Adrian, Barbara. “An Introduction to Laban Movement Analysis for Actors: A Historical, Theoretical, and Practical Perspective.” Movement for Actors, edited by Potter, Nicole, Allworth Press, 2002, 73.