Interested in Developing Body Awareness?
Having an interest in the topic of “body awareness” on a conceptual level helps developing it more efficiently.
However, as it is a skill, simply reading about it doesn’t on its own lead to acquiring it.
3 types of body awareness
The term “body awareness” is often used very loosely without a precise definition. Or, when it’s used more precisely, it’s usually either about kinaesthetic awareness (position/movement in space) or interceptive awareness, linked to emotional well-being. No common existing framework covers the entire scope of what we work with in Baseworks.
Therefore, based on available scientific data, we distinguish among the 3 types of body awareness as Interoceptive, Proprioceptive (localized somatosensory), and Spatial awarenesses.
The development of these 3 types of body awareness serves both the goal of the practice and prerequisites for better motor control, safe movement, and self-regulation.
Baseworks is a systematic approach to developing body awareness, perceptual, and foundational movement skills.
Let’s broadly define awareness as a state or ability to notice a particular sensory signal.
When we are very concentrated on something, we may become completely unaware of any sounds in the room. Or, sometimes we cannot see our keys just in front of us if there are too many objects on the table. However, unless we are deaf or blind, we know that we are able to physically see and hear.
We rely on vision and hearing in our daily lives to take in information about the external world. Since it is essential to notice the changes in our environment, a lot of visual and hearing data reaches our awareness.
The situation may be different when it comes to body awareness. We live in our body, which does not visibly change minute-to-minute. Unless a part of it is damaged, we don’t need to pay much attention to it. We may be more aware of what our body looks like to other people in a social context than of what it feels like to ourselves.
Let’s now more precicely define body awareness as a state or ability to notice a particular sensory signal coming from within the body. Depending on the source/type of the internal sensory signal, we can loosely identify three distinct types of body awareness: Interoceptive, Proprioceptive, and Spatial awareness.
INTEROCEPTIVE AWARENESS
Conscious awareness of the internal state of the organs and the cardiovascular system.
Examples of interoceptive sensations: heat, cold, warmness, itch, fullness, emptiness, lightness, tingling, burning, tightness, etc.
The ability to be aware of interoceptive signals is essential to understand one’s emotions better and to assess one’s level of stress or fatigue.
PROPRIOCEPTIVE AWARENESS
Conscious awareness of localized sensations in muscles and joints.
Our brain can calculate the positions of its body parts without our awareness of it. However, we can also access some of the raw sensory information used for these calculations consciously. Think of the sensation of activation/effort when you contract a muscle.
Proprioceptive awareness is often underdeveloped in many people. Developing this type of awareness helps better understand physical movement.
SPATIAL AWARENESS
The ability to understand the position of one’s body and other objects in space.
Coordinating movements of your body parts in space, mentally rotating objects, and reading maps requires spatial awareness.
Spatial awareness is a conscious perception of a 3D grid. The more we refine it, like a monitor resolution, the more we can move our body parts exactly the way we want.
Good spatial awareness dramatically helps to learn new movements.