ABSTRACT
The availability of a full range of efforts in a person 's movement repertoire indicates that the person is able to effectively cope with environmental challenges. Rudolf Laban (1947) identified six effort elements with which we contend with the forces of space, weight, and time: direct, indirect, strength, lightness, acceleration and deceleration. People use effort elements in many everyday movements, but efforts are most clearly seen in exertions connected with physical work, sports, and performance arts : swinging a hammer, slashing wheat, wringing out clothes , gliding over ice, or dancing airily through space. Laban pointed out that cognitive tasks also draw upon the use of efforts. This is particularly evident in his description of inner attitudes. For example, Laban taught us to think of the effort of strength as including the mental attitude of determination and the effort of directness to encompass direct attention (Laban, 1960). He suggested that efforts are composed of
three parts: (1) the mechanical aspects of the movement, (2) the movement sensations that accompany it, and (3) the mental attitude which instigated it (or follows from it) (Laban, 1960).
