The Carriage Metaphor

Danny Dreyer uses the metaphor of a horse-drawn carriage to explain how his conception of the ChiRunning method all fits together. This is an extended metaphor, or what Renaissance writers would call a conceit. While it seems kind of hokey, it's a great way to conceptualize the concepts in the book and how they relate to one another. Dreyer outlines the metaphor on page 60 in Chapter 4. While I am sure the author would disagree, Chatper 4 ("The Basic Components of Technique") is almost a stand-alone work that could benefit any runner. It's basically the entire content of the DVD. I'm sure that Dreyer would object to the idea of the other concepts being "extra" (in fact, this metaphor makes me certain that he would), but the key bio mechanical concepts are in Chapter 4.

Below is a breakdown of how Dreyer explains the carriage metaphor. I think this will be a cool way to reflect on the ideas in this book as I work on improving my form.

The Carriage. In Dreyer's metaphor, the carriage is your body. Simple enough. It's a physical frame that gets propelled forward. One visualization in ChiRunning is to imagine that your feet are wheels--the picture of the carriage helps with this. It's significant, I think, that forces other than your body propel you forward in this metaphor.

The Horses. The horses in Dreyer's metaphor are the form focuses in Chapter 4. The form focuses allow you to let gravity do most of the work and rely much less on leg muscle strength than on core strength and flexibility. The form focuses, which are re-printed in another blog post here, comprise the main elements of the ChiRunning technique:

1. posture
2. lean
3. legs& arms: upper body
4. legs & arms: lower body

The Driver. The driver is what Dreyer calls Chi-Skills, which he explains in Chapter 3. The Chi-Skills come directly from his exploration of t'ai chi and are applicable to far more than running. I was reminded of the movement in music pedagogy toward body mapping (specifically the Alexander technique) to prevent injury when I read the sections on Body Sensing. The Chi-Skills are interesting. They are:

1. focusing
2. Body Sensing
3. breathing
4. relaxing.

The Owner. Dryer selects the role of Owner for what he calls ChiRunning principles. More so than any other part of the book, the principles come from Eastern philosophy. It's my guess that this is the part of the book that will turn off most I-just-want-to-improve-my-running readers. The t'ai chi principles he expalins in Chapter 2 are:

1. cotton and steel
2. gradual progress
3. the pyramid
4. balance in motion
5. non-identification.

As I read Deyer's book, I reflect on how anti-guru and anti-program I tend to be in life. But at the same time, I also reflect on different theoretical frameworks and how they provide structure to activity and thought. In fact, I make a living doing organizational planning and quality improvement within such a structure. It's not the be-all and end-all, but it is a coherent model that is interesting to examine as a whole. In my estimation, the ChiRunning philosophy is worth examining as a whole unit, not just as Chapter 4 which tells you what do physically do while you're running.