I find the idea of sense of balance interesting with the concept that you could be walking on a wall or a high ledge and all it takes is a loss of balance for a few milliseconds and you can slip and cause some serious damage. So, I propose the question why do we take these risks. For convenience, comfort or just thrill. This is one of the themes I wish to explore.
After deciding upon this theme I’ve gone out to find various ways we tempt fate by testing our balance and to explore the reasons why we do it as well as trying it out myself.
Convenience:
People often use skateboards to move around as a method of transport. This is an interesting concept of a risk and reward of how much do you value your time since intrinsically this is a very risky mode of transportation. but as with all skills you can practice and make it more polished.
So I first of all wanted to try it out myself (as someone who has never tried to ride a skateboard.) These are some videos of me trying to ride a skateboard.
This was my first time riding a skateboard
This is me riding it five minutes later after I had got used to it a little
Once I did the this, I found some joy in the weightlessness of the activity compared to a comparative skill of riding a bike, there is a thrill in the idea that (as a novice at least) putting force the wrong way will fling the entire board out from under me. Leaving my flailing body to hit the ground. This is due the low and narrow centre of gravity of this activity.
Comfort:
Swinging back on your chair, people say its more comfortable. I wanted to look into this because teachers always say ‘they have known a kid that smashed their kid open after rocking back on a chair in class’ and despite this people (I do at least) still do this. I wanted to find out the logic behind it and test the theory.
After looking up about rocking/ leaning back in your chair I found that it’s all down to posture, some studies have shown that long periods of time sat at 90 degrees can lead to chronic back pains, it’s better to sit at 135 degrees as this is the best for your back. Usually this would result in one of two things moving your hips forward making you slouch to make that angle or rocking back in your chair to achieve the same angle without slouching your back to create a more natural arch.
I was curious so I tried to replicate this with the chairs in the studio just to see the truth behind this as well as seeing how well this whole 135 degrees with my average rocking back.
Overall, I think this idea is interesting at very least to give some factual integrity to the reasoning of why we take this stupid risk, since it’s the way our body is in most comfort.
Endorphins from balance:
When doing activities related to balancing it stimulates the Vestibular System which sends out endorphins to the body making you feel better, this is because it stimulate the part of the brain that sends out stimuli to the rest of the body.
This is why old people use rocking chairs because the constant rocking is very useful for their mental health and calms any aching pains they have.