Kinesthetic Intelligence

The definition of the bodily-kinesthetic intelligence is the ability to control one's bodily motions and the capacity to handle objects skillfully. It relates to awareness through and use of the body. People with strong kinesthetic intelligence process information through the body and usually enjoy drama, physical games, and hands-on learning. Harold Gardner of Harvard University said that this intelligence also includes a sense of timing, a clear sense of the goal of a physical action, along with the ability to train responses so they become like reflexes. Along with these, you often find a high degree of fine-motor control and a gift for using whole body motions.

These abilities may not seem very impressive, at first glance. Bodily intelligence is not widely appreciated in our culture. Calling it an "intelligence" is almost startling, though less so after Harold Gardner called upon Marcel Marceau (a famous French mime), assorted athletes, actors, inventors, and dancers to make his case for a bodily intelligence.

Gardner refers to a dancer's ability to capture directly the actions, feelings, or abilities of other people, without help from words or pictures. Dancers and actors draw on this ability; but so do architects, who speak of "feeling in their bodies" the mass and proportion of a building. It is this ability that is at work when I take personalized batting instruction from a former professional baseball player and I walk out feeling like I can hit Nolan Ryan when he was in his prime.

But how does bodily intelligence affect ones writing abilities? Gardner states that people who function with bodily intelligence write equally to those individuals who use linguistic and logical intelligences. Just think of how many kinesthetic expressions apply to the experience of reading. We speak, for example, of being "touched," "taken," "gripped," "led," "held." We "grapple" with difficult subjects, and have "gut wrenching" experiences. Our stomachs turn. Our hearts leap. Our breathing quickens. We may tremble, sigh, and be "moved." These responses have their basis in a kinesthetic experience. There is evidence that all emotional responses are rooted in kinesthetic awareness. We know our emotions through the intelligence of the body; any writer who wants to affect the way readers feel must find a way to touch the kinesthetic intelligence with words.

Kinesthetic writing may be action oriented. Kinesthetic intelligence might be what makes a piece of writing feel down to earth, real, physical, sexual, funny, and necessary. If kinesthetic intelligence is strong in a piece of writing, something beyond thinking and verbal skills is likely to grab you in the stomach.. It may affect you, and move you. If you stopped to think one might say, the writing has a life of its own. Pamela Brown