The Gift of Deviation: On Error, Neutrality, and the Laws of Personality

"Good. Now we can begin."

Jacques Lecoq's voice would cut through the studio silence whenever a student stumbled, fumbled, or let their mask slip. Not mockery—recognition. The moment when performance cracked and something luminous spilled through.

The Sacred Art of Falling

In Lecoq's world, error wasn't failure—it was revelation. The Moving Body taught generations of performers that mistakes were doorways, not dead ends:

"The clown reveals the ridiculous side of our personality. Error is the moment when we become uniquely ourselves."

This wasn't sentiment. It was a method. A way of reading the body's unguarded language, learning its laws not through imposed discipline, but by witnessing the instant when all pretense dissolves.

For Lecoq, the stumble was more honest than the perfect step. The dropped mask is more revealing than any careful performance. In that split second of uncontrol, something essential emerged—the person beneath the persona.

The Warrior's Paradox

I learned precision in a world where mistakes meant blood. Martial arts training since childhood—every movement calculated, every reflex honed for survival. Later came commando training: machine guns, blade work, navigating chaos where hesitation kills.

In that embodied reality, error wasn't revelation. It was death.

Yet somehow, parallel to this warrior path, I became something softer—a teacher. Guiding children through creative exploration, inviting actors to tumble into surprise, to fail beautifully. I was offering others the very permission I had never been given: the right to be imperfect.

The irony wasn't lost on me. The precision that kept me alive was also the cage that kept me from living.

Bodies That Teach

Clinical work deepened everything. Each patient became a master class in the intelligence of deviation.

The stroke survivor, rebuilding neural pathways one trembling gesture at a time. The Parkinson's patient, finding stillness between the shakes. A child with spina bifida, discovering their body's unique poetry of movement. Another with torticollis, slowly unwinding patterns held since birth.

Their bodies taught me what no textbook could: that there is no template for healing, no standard protocol for the human experience. Each nervous system writes its own story. Each movement pattern holds its own wisdom.

The question was never "How do we fix this?" but "What is this body trying to teach us?" What somatic intelligence lives within what others might label as limitation?

The Birth of AOM

This convergence—warrior precision, teaching permission, clinical revelation—gave birth to AOM (Anatomy of Movement). Not a method to fix bodies, but a practice of witnessing their authentic expression.

AOM asks: What happens when we stop trying to be correct and start listening to what wants to emerge? What intelligence lives in the stumble, the hesitation, the unexpected gesture?

This became my path back to the parts of myself I'd abandoned:

Little Ben, who learned early that mistakes were dangerous. The young soldier, who survived through flawless execution. The teacher, who found healing in offering others what he couldn't give himself. And now, the artist is learning to hold it all—warrior and wanderer, precision and play, survival and surrender.

AOM is where these contradictions dance together. Where deviation becomes sacred. Where the mask that falls reveals not failure, but the face we have been searching for all along.

Actionable Seed

Tonight, when you're alone, try this: Stand in front of a mirror and move in ways that feel "wrong." Let your body find its awkward rhythms, its ungraceful gestures, its honest stumbles.

Notice what emerges when you stop performing competence. What does your body want to express when freed from the pressure to be correct?

This is not about achieving anything. It's about witnessing. The deviation is the data. The mistake is the map.