ABSTRACT
Maintaining equilibrium is not an activity that normally occupies our attention. In early childhood, people learned to balance on two feet and in everyday life they function in balance. Only under special circumstances do they find themselves concerned with balance. This chapter investigates the scope of equilibrium from active balance to complete, uncontrolled falling. Balance is not a new idea, it is met and practiced from the early stages of movement training. Balance that is maintained fleetingly or for more extended periods in dance has an expressive impact. Maintaining balance may be either in stillness or in movement, as in multiple turns or in slow changes of level, as in a controlled full leg bend, a deep knee bend, also in a sustained transference of weight which includes level change. When carrying a heavy object, such as a suitcase, the C of G of the body automatically shifts to the opposite side to maintain balance.
