ABSTRACT
Placement of the limbs, in particular the arms, into a specific direction has been incidentally introduced in a couple of studies; here it is explored fully. The term ‘taking a direction’ is not familiar to everyone, yet the action is part of the vocabulary of most movement studies. In the normal standing situation direction and level are easily understood for the limbs; their natural location is down and one can observe their movements. But the torso, head and chest are the performer, so to speak, and level in particular requires a bit of thought, The normal standing situation is for head, chest and torso to be up (place high), and any tilting action is felt as being a ‘lowering’. Thus even when the torso is still slanting upward (judged from the hips, the joints at which it hinges) students believe the torso is already in low level. One must stress that horizontal level is parallel with the floor, the torso being like a table, and only when one is lower than that is the tilting direction in low level.
