Sir Wayne McGregor, a choreographer renowned for his trailblazing innovations in performance. His ongoing enquiries into movement and the body have radically defined dance in the modern era. Over the past three decades, he has discovered that our intelligence lies not only in our brains, but in our bodies too.

McGregor dislocated his knee in his early twenties, as he was immobilised and forced to relearn how to balance and co-ordinate. He discovered swiftly how his body could adapt and reconfigure itself when attention was redirected. Injury, becomes an accidental laboratory for understanding what McGregort calls “ physical intelligence”: the body’s capacity to sense, decide and learn independently of conscious thought.

Why and How one should really cultivate this physical intelligence is explained in this book in three sections, Movement is Awareness (attends to the ways in which humans inhabit our bodies. “ By quietly posing questions to myself about my body and observing aspects of the sensory feedback, new forms of awareness emerge, as we reconnect and revive our sensorial pathways into awareness, we activate entirely new states of physical understanding” McGregor writes.

Drawing on his research with elite performers, athletes, cognitive neuroscientists, anthropologists and technologists, he reveals how we can all become more physically fluent. Using simple steps, from practising mindful walking to harnessing our bodies’ chemical reaction to stress, he teaches us how to become better communicators and more creative thinkers, so we can ultimately live fuller lives.

In Part Two: “Movement is Communication” turns the gaze outwards. Touch, gesture, posture and presence become languages that precede and often override speech. He writes “ We scour for clues about relative power and value … we hear messages send by a body’s stance and motions”. Anyone who has navigated this encounter, the attraction or  the slow unravelling intimacy will recognise the truth of it.

In the third section  “Movement is Creativity”, McGregor insists is not the preserve of artists but a trainable , bodily capacity available to all, abnle bodied. McGregor  explains how intrinsic creativity is to our lives, He writes and calls it  “Physical fluency”, which is akin to linguistic fluency.  “In physical fluency we feel alive and free, we soar beyond limits. We dissolve into presence, body into motion, pure flowing energy. Awareness, sensation, consciousness and intuition propel us towards the skies. Who wouldn’t want to achieve such a state.

McGregor writes “Let’s make fear our friend”. As fear can occupy the body fully, for example in moments of overwhelming panic. “For an emotion that persistently saves lives and nudges us towards our highest heights, fear has a terrible reputation” He writes. McGregor suggests that movement, like life, is in the detail, focus your attention.

We Are Movement Unlocking Your Physical Intelligence by Wayne McGregor, Bloomsbury £20, 336 pages.