Laban's Movement Framework

What is the Movement Framework?

Rudolf Laban’s movement framework is the basis for the planning of all movement experiences in Cedar School physical education.

An elementary physical education program based on Laban’s movement framework has a primary focus on helping students achieve movement skill competency through balanced participation in three main content areas: games, gymnastics and dance with the fourth area, physical fitness, blended into the first three. The affective and cognitive domains are not neglected. Teachers plan experiences that allow students to develop respect for themselves and others; active involvement and self-responsibility; and caring and concern for others within an environment that is emotionally and physically safe. Physical educators also help develop an awareness of the challenge, feeling and joy of movement as a performer and as an observer. Further, teachers help students learn to value the contribution of physical activity toward health and well being. In the cognitive domain of learning a quality movement framework approach requires the learner to understand: the language of movement; the body and how it moves; and the concepts, principles, strategies, tactics, and patterns within games, gymnastics, dance and fitness.

Learning experiences – developed from the movement framework

The movement framework engine makes a program go. From the movement framework the physical educator develops learning experiences designed to move the student closer to achieving NASPE standards. It is based on a comprehensive framework of human movement made up of four aspects - body, space, effort and relationships.

Rudolf Laban (1879-1958), a Hungarian, was a lifelong, visionary student of movement. He discovered and explained four aspects of movement and developed themes of work, from simple to complex, that enable students to focus on one or more of these four aspects at any time.

The movement framework’s four aspects help learners see the totality of human movement. They can be used consistently and effectively in the content areas: games, gymnastics and dance. These four aspects of movement serve as organizing threads that are woven through the program areas allowing the physical educator to revisit key movement skills over the elementary years. This revisiting of all four movement skills/concepts helps learners build and organize their movement skills and understanding. This also helps teachers avoid instructional gaps.

In the body aspect, which focuses on what the body is doing, students become skillful in locomotor, non-locomotor, and manipulative skills. In the space aspect, whose focus is on where the body is moving, the learner develops skill in the use of personal and general space and competency in moving in varied directions, on different pathways, through varied levels, planes and extensions. The effort aspect, has a focus on how the body is moving. Here, the learner develops the ability to use time (e.g. fast/slow), weight (e.g. strong/light), flow (e.g. free/bound), and space (e.g. straight/flexible) to improve the quality of movement or the “flavor” of movement. Finally, relationships, has a focus on with whom or with what the body is relating as it moves. This aspect helps students develop awareness and skill in how body parts relate to one another when moving and how the mover relates to individuals, groups, apparatus, objects, and other factors such as a rhythm, music, boundaries, and rules.

The curriculum content that comes from the movement framework helps students develop competency in locomotor skills (skipping, running, hopping, galloping, sliding, leaping, jumping and landing); non locomotor skills (curling, twisting, stretching, bending, swaying, spinning, swinging, sinking, rising, opening, closing, and gesturing); and manipulative skills (striking, collecting, carrying, catching, throwing, kicking, dribbling and volleying). These skills are what the body does. Competency in games, gymnastics, and dance requires students to apply and improve body skills while responding to spatial demands, varying effort and maintaining appropriate relationships to others and things.

Organization of learning experiences

Ralph Tyler, a visionary curriculum scholar, reminded educators that in order for learning experiences to produce a cumulative effect, they must be organized so as to reinforce one another. Organization of learning experiences has a great influence on efficiency of instruction and the extent to which changes are brought about in students. Learning experiences must complement and reinforce each other over time. This creates a more integrated and unified program. If your learning experiences are unrelated to previous and/or future experiences, learning will be short lived. Physical education programs that are based on Laban’s movement framework have a better chance of helping children reach their movement potential because the four aspects of movement complement and reinforce one another. As children work through the movement framework year after year, they learn and revisit skills and concepts in a developmentally appropriate manner, taking part in smooth progressions from the fundamental skill stage to the application stage.

As an example, in the activities approach children may be taught the “body skill” of catching and then be challenged to apply it in a game. Using the movement framework approach, not only would children learn the basic body skill and essential components of catching, but they would also have developmentally appropriate experiences, over a series of units, throughout the elementary school years in catching a variety of objects. Learning experiences within a spatial theme focus would include: catching while stationary; while moving in different directions, and pathways; and catching at different levels. Effort learning experiences would focus on absorbing the force of slow, medium and fast moving objects and catching while moving at slow, medium and fast speeds. Catching tasks focused on relationship aspects would include the relationship of the fingers, hands, and arms to the rest of the body; catching objects from distances that are near to far from a thrower; and catching while moving against a defender or defenders. The cumulative affect of the employment of body, space, effort and relationship focused learning experiences is the strength of the movement framework and is what prepares learners to apply skills effectively and efficiently within a larger game.

It is important to remember that space, effort and relationships are both skills and concepts that are always taught within the context of a particular program area (i.e., within a games, gymnastics, or dance environment) never in isolation, and always with selected movements from the body aspect. For example, there would never be a lesson just on changing directions, without a sense of why or where the different directions are to be used. The ability to travel in different directions would either enhance game skill or expand and improve traveling skills in dance or gymnastics sequences.

The content selected for each unit is a small piece of one or more aspects of Laban’s movement framework called a theme upon which a unit is planned. These themes (or chunks of movement) of content are spread out and revisited over many units and progress from simple to complex within a balanced presentation of games, dance and gymnastics throughout the elementary years. The comprehensive and integrative nature of the framework allows a particular skill or concept to be introduced, for example, in a dance unit first, then re-visited in a games or gymnastics unit, or introduced in games and re-visited in dance, and so on, thus reflecting the fact that the units are meant to build on each other and that the framework is applied universally.

Content areas: games, gymnastics, dance, and fitness

The learning experiences that result from the movement framework are found in three content areas: games, gymnastics, and dance. These areas, that always include body, space, effort, and relationship aspects, are the roads of learning in elementary physical education. Physical fitness concepts and health enhancing physical activity always permeate travel along each of these roads. The effect of quality travel an equal distance along these roads many times over the elementary years will produce effective, and efficient games players, gymnasts and dancers who are well on their way toward achieving and maintaining a health enhancing level of physical fitness. Let’s go for a short sightseeing trip along each road.

Games Street

Employing a movement framework approach to teaching invasion, batting/fielding, target and net/wall educational games accommodates learners of all developmental levels. In games units, we choose and teach body, space, effort and relationship themes to create units and lessons creating game play competency. Again, in contrast to an activity approach whose primary focus is on body skills (throwing, catching, kicking, striking and so forth) required to play and NOT space, effort and relationship skills and concepts. Movement framework lessons provide learners with learning experiences that promote locomotor skills such as running, sliding (side gallop), leaping, and jumping necessary for games. Non locomotor movements such as the rotation and twisting necessary for striking with a bat or racket, or the bending and force absorption necessary to quickly change direction in an invasion game such as soccer or a net/wall game like tennis are also important experiences.

Manipulative skills are essential to game play proficiency. These skills are grouped into three categories: sending an object away (striking, kicking, throwing); gaining possession of an object/receiving (catch, trapping, collecting); and traveling with an object (carrying or propelling – dribbling).

Moving students along a novice to expert continuum in games requires blending space, effort and relationships skills and concepts with body skills. Spatial learning experiences in games include: travel in different directions, pathways, and levels with and without implements and or objects. Combining space with effort can allow students to make spatial adjustments in order to create and deny space in an invasion game for example. Learners also need to be able to vary: the amount of force they use from strong to light; the amount of speed they use from fast to slow; the amount of space they use from small to large; and apply movements with the appropriate amount of force, speed and space for a particular situation. Examples of relationship aspects skill in games include: being in appropriate positions to receive passes; guarding and adjusting position when defending an opponent; or backing up a defending teammate appropriately.

Activity approaches emphasize playing games. A movement framework approach stresses how to play games. Providing learners with the skills necessary for game play competence requires careful unit and lesson planning. Here, teachers should design contexts that range from simple to complex for beginning to expert games players. Opportunities should also be provided for students to apply and reflect upon the relationship aspects of games (e.g. strategies and tactics) through a teaching for understanding approach.

Gymnastics Lane

A movement framework approach to educational gymnastics meets each child at his/her ability level, interests and unique manner in which each moves and learns. This approach helps gymnasts understand and “feel” movement. It asks students to use divergent thinking to answer movement problems so that each can be challenged appropriately. While an Olympic style of gymnastics asks children to perform specialized skills in a uniform manner.

Educational gymnastics helps students learn how to manage their bodies efficiently and safely. Gymnastics body skills include: travel, weight transfer, rolling, jumping, rocking, step-like actions, sliding, flight, climbing, balance, off-balance, counter-tension, counterbalance, spinning, circling, hanging, twisting, stretching, curling and swinging. Sample spatial learning experiences include performing the same movement in different directions or pathways. Effort experiences in gymnastics can include exploring how the body can produce and regulate speed, and how body parts can receive and apply force and support weight. Finally, relationship experience examples include giving attention to the relationship of a body part to another or body parts to the floor or apparatus. Students can revisit and relearn body skills while varying: direction, levels and pathways; effort; or their relationships to a partner. This allows students to polish and refine skills without the physical educator hearing, “We’ve already done this.” Educational gymnastics units encourage students to continually adjust, improve and combine body, space, effort and relationship skills and concepts into a sequence that can be performed for an enthusiastic audience.

Dance Avenue

Educational dance helps children use the comprehensive nature of the movement framework as a medium for expression and communication. Dance is an essential part of the learner’s movement repertoire. In a movement framework approach dance helps students learn how to dance rather than asking students to simply recall a series of dance steps.

Sample body tasks for elementary dancers include: moving flexibly through space using different ways of traveling (e.g., gallop, leap, or skip); or sinking and rising with the whole body in personal space. Effort tasks might include exploring weight, time or flow of movement themes for expressive purposes. Weight could emphasize sudden movement which provides a feeling of spontaneity or urgency. Time related movement can be sudden or sustained. Flow could focus on free or bound movement. Space content includes using general and personal space, directions, pathways, levels and extensions to express a feeling. Relationships experiences in dance deal with the relationship of body parts to each other, the dancers position to others (e.g., leading/following, matching/mirroring, toward/away); and responding accurately to a variety of rhythms and sounds.

Movement framework dance units also include square, folk and social dances. These dance forms can be differentiated for learners by modifying their steps and patterns with the four aspects of the movement framework making them more developmentally appropriate.

The physical fitness highway

In a movement framework approach we can think of the content areas - games, gymnastics and dance as three lanes that set children in motion on the physical fitness highway. Health and skill related fitness concepts and health enhancing physical activity are blended into all games, gymnastics and dance lessons. For example, the aerobic activity present in most games invites the concepts of cardio-respiratory endurance to be taught. Gymnastics provides opportunities for building muscular strength and endurance through climbing, hanging or taking the body’s weight on hands. Dance brings muscle fitness, flexibility and cardio-respiratory endurance together in one performance. Well planned fitness experiences help learners: begin to achieve and maintain a health enhancing level of physical fitness; and understand the definition and concepts of physical fitness, the benefits of regular exercise, and the purpose of fitness assessments. Through thoughtful application of the movement framework we can provide meaningful, enjoyable skill building activity and go a long way toward creating a lifelong mover.