Session 4, Day 2
Today we got a little deeper into the floor exercise. Trying to find a sense of relaxation when in contact with the floor is essential to being grounded when standing or flying. So we laid on our backs with our limbs out in a large X and slowly peeled the fingers of the right hand off the floor. Keeping with the sensation in our fingertips, we followed the initiation of the fingers across the body, past the left hand, and so far that our torso and pelvis spiral and fold over. Taking a moment to rest in this folded position, we allowed the gentle crease in the hip flexors and let the head rest to the floor. To unwind, we reached down and out with the toes of the right foot - the only effort being in the tips of the toes, so that the rest of the body can simply follow the flow of energy. Do not skip any steps, especially at the pelvis and torso. Allow each part of the spiraling body to be pulled by only the toes. You may feel a gentle stretch at the waist and shoulder blades. We repeat the same cycle on the left side. And then we do a similar pattern but winding up from our toes. Reach the right toes across the body and as it travels up, through the pelvis and torso, the arms drag on the floor and eventually circle over-head. It’s important to keep the connection of the fingertips to the floor, so that we’re not lifting any part of our body up from the floor. To unwind, we reach the right fingertips over our heads, on the floor and back to a high diagonal, unfurling the pelvis and eventually our thighs, knees and feet. As you unwind through the legs, allow your hips to find the turnout to facilitate the spiral in the lower body. Often, dancers stop the unfurling short at the thighs and end up doing too much work to bring the leg back to our starting X position. We must really be honest about which part of our body is initiating the movement – in this case, either the fingertips or toes – in order for your body to calibrate a sense of connectedness among body parts. We’ll keep working on this exercise some more, and see how images come into play in making this exercise feel more natural in your body.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Spring cleaning!
Session 4, Day 1
Welcome ladies! So lovely to have new faces and returning dancers in the same workshop. What a great group. The first day is always challenging because everyone is just getting their feet wet. Just know that we’re all on this ride together. So the best thing you can do right now, is to jump right in and sink your teeth into the material. I’ve realized that what so many dancers want from this workshop is more confidence in their practice. The first step to this, I believe, is being able to identify your weaknesses so that you can then overcome them (-let’s all be honest here!). That’s another reason why the beginning is always challenging. We are faced to look at the things that we tend to push away. But meeting fear head on is ultimately what makes us courageous. And remember, to a certain extent, confidence naturally comes with time. So coming to class everyday, and mere presence in class is key to your success…We started off lying on the floor. From an X position, we took either a finger or a toe to lead the rest of the body into a spiral. People tend to do too much in this exercise. Remember to allow the body to relax and melt into the floor, and then we can be clear about which part of the body is active at any given moment. Movement coordination is all about timing. So in every exercise, as dancers, we are constantly tracking our body moving in time. The more articulate and accurate you can be about this, the more awareness you bring to your practice. What often happens is that there is no space for this kind of mind-body awareness because the mind is cluttered with other worries – the ex-boyfriend, the grocery list, the report due at work, etc. So a huge task at hand whenever we’re in dance class, is to free the mind from these extraneous thoughts so that we may focus on connecting the presence of mind with the presence of body…Next time we’ll continue to hash out these concepts, because for some of you it might be a new way of thinking about your physical practice. And we’ll continue to practice traveling patterns across the floor and our center pliés exercise, of course.
Welcome ladies! So lovely to have new faces and returning dancers in the same workshop. What a great group. The first day is always challenging because everyone is just getting their feet wet. Just know that we’re all on this ride together. So the best thing you can do right now, is to jump right in and sink your teeth into the material. I’ve realized that what so many dancers want from this workshop is more confidence in their practice. The first step to this, I believe, is being able to identify your weaknesses so that you can then overcome them (-let’s all be honest here!). That’s another reason why the beginning is always challenging. We are faced to look at the things that we tend to push away. But meeting fear head on is ultimately what makes us courageous. And remember, to a certain extent, confidence naturally comes with time. So coming to class everyday, and mere presence in class is key to your success…We started off lying on the floor. From an X position, we took either a finger or a toe to lead the rest of the body into a spiral. People tend to do too much in this exercise. Remember to allow the body to relax and melt into the floor, and then we can be clear about which part of the body is active at any given moment. Movement coordination is all about timing. So in every exercise, as dancers, we are constantly tracking our body moving in time. The more articulate and accurate you can be about this, the more awareness you bring to your practice. What often happens is that there is no space for this kind of mind-body awareness because the mind is cluttered with other worries – the ex-boyfriend, the grocery list, the report due at work, etc. So a huge task at hand whenever we’re in dance class, is to free the mind from these extraneous thoughts so that we may focus on connecting the presence of mind with the presence of body…Next time we’ll continue to hash out these concepts, because for some of you it might be a new way of thinking about your physical practice. And we’ll continue to practice traveling patterns across the floor and our center pliés exercise, of course.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
The challenge
Session 3, Day 8
Wow! 8 weeks went by so quickly! Congratulations, you all have come so far. You can surely see how much your confidence has improved. I hope you can feel that in your bodies as well. At the end of class we did a lot of rounds just running the combination. It was a big test in stamina. For me building stamina is so much about relaxing the mind. Our bodies are amazingly capable of a lot, and can build strength and change form very quickly. I think the challenge is always the mental blocks that tell us that it’s not possible. So when our bodies feel challenged, that’s the time to kick into gear the tools of the mind to get you through. Now, we don’t want to over-exert ourselves to the point where we are hurting our bodies. So it takes careful listening to know when the sensations of fatigue are from panic or actual, physical pain. Again, I must say, you have all grown so much stronger in these 8 weeks. Your bodies are a lot more open. And it’s always after opening, do our bodies then have the opportunity to change.
So next session starts next week. I hope a lot of you take the workshop again. It would be great if we keep pushing the pace and challenging ourselves. And repetition is always good. They say that the most advanced student is the one who can take a beginner class and still feel challenged.
Wow! 8 weeks went by so quickly! Congratulations, you all have come so far. You can surely see how much your confidence has improved. I hope you can feel that in your bodies as well. At the end of class we did a lot of rounds just running the combination. It was a big test in stamina. For me building stamina is so much about relaxing the mind. Our bodies are amazingly capable of a lot, and can build strength and change form very quickly. I think the challenge is always the mental blocks that tell us that it’s not possible. So when our bodies feel challenged, that’s the time to kick into gear the tools of the mind to get you through. Now, we don’t want to over-exert ourselves to the point where we are hurting our bodies. So it takes careful listening to know when the sensations of fatigue are from panic or actual, physical pain. Again, I must say, you have all grown so much stronger in these 8 weeks. Your bodies are a lot more open. And it’s always after opening, do our bodies then have the opportunity to change.
So next session starts next week. I hope a lot of you take the workshop again. It would be great if we keep pushing the pace and challenging ourselves. And repetition is always good. They say that the most advanced student is the one who can take a beginner class and still feel challenged.
What are your hands saying?
Session 3, Day 7
This session we introduced some floorwork into our repertoire. First we must start with the idea that the floor is our friend, and let go of any fears we may have about meeting the floor with a loud thud. Imagine the floor as something soft and pliable, able to give and receive weight. When we are lying on the floor, let your body melt and feel every bit of surface area of your body come in contact with the floor. Become especially aware of your hands and fingers and how they help the rest of your body to move through the floor. Really utilize the sense of touch through the hands. Your hands are able to receive and give a lot of information. When we moved to standing we practiced this connection through the hands with a partner. We placed a hand on our partners back and took a walk across the room with them. This exercise really opens up the senses to connecting through the hands. We also added a new inversion exercise across the floor. We took the energy from the hands in a large circle above the head and sent it to the floor in a slight inversion: hands on the floor with legs swinging, hanging form the hips. I was really happy with how brave everyone was with the floorwork. You’ve come a long way.
This session we introduced some floorwork into our repertoire. First we must start with the idea that the floor is our friend, and let go of any fears we may have about meeting the floor with a loud thud. Imagine the floor as something soft and pliable, able to give and receive weight. When we are lying on the floor, let your body melt and feel every bit of surface area of your body come in contact with the floor. Become especially aware of your hands and fingers and how they help the rest of your body to move through the floor. Really utilize the sense of touch through the hands. Your hands are able to receive and give a lot of information. When we moved to standing we practiced this connection through the hands with a partner. We placed a hand on our partners back and took a walk across the room with them. This exercise really opens up the senses to connecting through the hands. We also added a new inversion exercise across the floor. We took the energy from the hands in a large circle above the head and sent it to the floor in a slight inversion: hands on the floor with legs swinging, hanging form the hips. I was really happy with how brave everyone was with the floorwork. You’ve come a long way.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Break on through to the other side...
Session 3, Day 6
So Day 6 was quite the break-through class. While going across-the-floor we talked about 100 vs 300 percent in terms of, I guess, energetic output. And while, yes, it is a worthy exercise to do the movement at 300% for the sake of feeling your edge. I encourage you to work at this 300 level all the time. That’s not to say, be careless and throw or push your body past its limitations. But everyone in the class tends toward the side of playing it safe. So right now, I think it’s best to explore the danger zone a bit more. I think we’re all responsible enough for ourselves to not get too carried away. And if I saw someone getting carried away I would definitely step in. But in my opinion, no one is there. I mentioned that I feel like we’re waiting for someone to give us permission to go all out, go 300%. When in actuality, when it comes to really performing and giving it your all, no one other than yourself can open that door. Sometimes it helps, to just accept the fact that you will look like a fool every once in a while. But the more you live through embarrassment like that, the more you realize that it’s not a big deal. And when you can laugh at yourself and pick yourself right on up, you’re actually congratulating yourself for being brave enough to just go for it all. When I was younger, I participated in this “audition” for a dance conference scholarship that took place on stage, in front of about 1,500 people, at the closing event after a week-long dance convention. I danced my heart out. So much that I totally lost my grounded-ness and ended up on all fours in the middle of the combination. I absolutely had no recollection of how it all happened. One minute I’m feelin so good and the next, my nose is inches from the floor. Needless to say, I didn’t get the scholarship. But falling on stage in front of so many people was worth all the compliments I received from my colleagues, the people who have seen me dance over the years, and who know me beyond a 2 minute audition. My point is, accomplishments don’t always come in the form of awards or scholarships. It’s really you that determines whether you’ve met your goals or not. I, as teacher, am nothing more than a friendly, sometimes harsh if need be, reminder of the reality that everything you need in order to be successful is already in you. And remember, time in the studio is for no one else but yourself. So let this place be the one place, if nowhere else, where you can experiment, fall and really test your will.
So Day 6 was quite the break-through class. While going across-the-floor we talked about 100 vs 300 percent in terms of, I guess, energetic output. And while, yes, it is a worthy exercise to do the movement at 300% for the sake of feeling your edge. I encourage you to work at this 300 level all the time. That’s not to say, be careless and throw or push your body past its limitations. But everyone in the class tends toward the side of playing it safe. So right now, I think it’s best to explore the danger zone a bit more. I think we’re all responsible enough for ourselves to not get too carried away. And if I saw someone getting carried away I would definitely step in. But in my opinion, no one is there. I mentioned that I feel like we’re waiting for someone to give us permission to go all out, go 300%. When in actuality, when it comes to really performing and giving it your all, no one other than yourself can open that door. Sometimes it helps, to just accept the fact that you will look like a fool every once in a while. But the more you live through embarrassment like that, the more you realize that it’s not a big deal. And when you can laugh at yourself and pick yourself right on up, you’re actually congratulating yourself for being brave enough to just go for it all. When I was younger, I participated in this “audition” for a dance conference scholarship that took place on stage, in front of about 1,500 people, at the closing event after a week-long dance convention. I danced my heart out. So much that I totally lost my grounded-ness and ended up on all fours in the middle of the combination. I absolutely had no recollection of how it all happened. One minute I’m feelin so good and the next, my nose is inches from the floor. Needless to say, I didn’t get the scholarship. But falling on stage in front of so many people was worth all the compliments I received from my colleagues, the people who have seen me dance over the years, and who know me beyond a 2 minute audition. My point is, accomplishments don’t always come in the form of awards or scholarships. It’s really you that determines whether you’ve met your goals or not. I, as teacher, am nothing more than a friendly, sometimes harsh if need be, reminder of the reality that everything you need in order to be successful is already in you. And remember, time in the studio is for no one else but yourself. So let this place be the one place, if nowhere else, where you can experiment, fall and really test your will.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Sumo
Session 3, Day 5
So we’re past the half-way mark in the workshop. And everyone is making leaps and bounds in their skill level. You may not think that the way you dance is drastically different, but it shows in your openness and your ability to take on new tasks with more and more courage. It really showed today in the Budo exercise where we did the connection exercise in a circle, and worked on finding each other’s center quickly. This is good practice in fully committing to the task and leaving no time for doubt – which is essential when dancing. When we dance we’re constantly calibrating and re-calibrating where our weight is. So we practice a deep awareness of our bodies in relationship to space and other people. When we did our center pliés exercise, I had you imagine yourself as a hug sumo wrestler to try to get you to take up more space and allow yourself to expand width-wise. This image helps to use the support of the space and stretch beyond your kinesphere. If our sense of ourselves is flimsy and narrow, then we in a sense limit the relationship we have with our surroundings…We also continued to drill the choreography we already know, and then we added a few more steps. I had you count out loud while running the routine, and that seemed to help connect the mind and the body a bit more. If, without speaking, your mind seems cluttered with other thoughts unrelated to the choreography, then counting in your head and tracking your body with your eyes, is a way to quiet and focus the mind. It’s amazing how much the mind and body conflict, and it’s as if, the heart of the dance practice, is more of a mental exercise in stilling the mind. It’s a really complex negotiation between the two. And in dance class, we should explore how much of our “thinking” and decision-making we can locate in our felt/physical bodies, instead of in our mind-body that we so often use in every-day interactions. More to come…
So we’re past the half-way mark in the workshop. And everyone is making leaps and bounds in their skill level. You may not think that the way you dance is drastically different, but it shows in your openness and your ability to take on new tasks with more and more courage. It really showed today in the Budo exercise where we did the connection exercise in a circle, and worked on finding each other’s center quickly. This is good practice in fully committing to the task and leaving no time for doubt – which is essential when dancing. When we dance we’re constantly calibrating and re-calibrating where our weight is. So we practice a deep awareness of our bodies in relationship to space and other people. When we did our center pliés exercise, I had you imagine yourself as a hug sumo wrestler to try to get you to take up more space and allow yourself to expand width-wise. This image helps to use the support of the space and stretch beyond your kinesphere. If our sense of ourselves is flimsy and narrow, then we in a sense limit the relationship we have with our surroundings…We also continued to drill the choreography we already know, and then we added a few more steps. I had you count out loud while running the routine, and that seemed to help connect the mind and the body a bit more. If, without speaking, your mind seems cluttered with other thoughts unrelated to the choreography, then counting in your head and tracking your body with your eyes, is a way to quiet and focus the mind. It’s amazing how much the mind and body conflict, and it’s as if, the heart of the dance practice, is more of a mental exercise in stilling the mind. It’s a really complex negotiation between the two. And in dance class, we should explore how much of our “thinking” and decision-making we can locate in our felt/physical bodies, instead of in our mind-body that we so often use in every-day interactions. More to come…
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Your time to shine
Session 3, Day 4
The usual to begin: warm-up from the floor to standing. When we are lying in our X on the floor and spiraling from the initiation of either our feet or our fingers, remember to let the rest of the body melt and just follow the initiation. Allow yourself to just rest into the movement. We, of course, did our pliés, and this time I would step out to give you a chance to figure out the routine yourself. Everyone was really timid at first, but once you let go of some of the pressure, you realized that your body wasn’t so lost and was able to really shine. All the information is already there. It’s sometimes more about clearing the mind to allow the body memory to emerge. We went on to do the connection exercise and tried it from our partner’s back. It’s amazing how much you can feel without seeing. Sometimes the feeling is so much more powerful because you don’t have the distraction of sight. We get a lot of information from our eyes, and sometimes that information can take your focus away from what you’re working on in your body (while your dancing). So learning to shut off that critical voice and the fixated gaze can really open up your movement. We started working on our combination. It begins with a large spiraling of the right arm and upper torso. The footwork is a variation on triple steps (similar to our across the floor exercises). Now that we’re beginning to take on a lot more movement each day, it is critical for everyone to stay open and positive. Practice, practice, practice too! Once a week is not enough. So if retaining the material from class to class is a challenge, then you have to practice it at home and on your own time. Remind yourself again of the goals you set out to achieve at the beginning of the workshop. And ask yourself what steps you’ve taken in the last few weeks to accomplish those goals.
The usual to begin: warm-up from the floor to standing. When we are lying in our X on the floor and spiraling from the initiation of either our feet or our fingers, remember to let the rest of the body melt and just follow the initiation. Allow yourself to just rest into the movement. We, of course, did our pliés, and this time I would step out to give you a chance to figure out the routine yourself. Everyone was really timid at first, but once you let go of some of the pressure, you realized that your body wasn’t so lost and was able to really shine. All the information is already there. It’s sometimes more about clearing the mind to allow the body memory to emerge. We went on to do the connection exercise and tried it from our partner’s back. It’s amazing how much you can feel without seeing. Sometimes the feeling is so much more powerful because you don’t have the distraction of sight. We get a lot of information from our eyes, and sometimes that information can take your focus away from what you’re working on in your body (while your dancing). So learning to shut off that critical voice and the fixated gaze can really open up your movement. We started working on our combination. It begins with a large spiraling of the right arm and upper torso. The footwork is a variation on triple steps (similar to our across the floor exercises). Now that we’re beginning to take on a lot more movement each day, it is critical for everyone to stay open and positive. Practice, practice, practice too! Once a week is not enough. So if retaining the material from class to class is a challenge, then you have to practice it at home and on your own time. Remind yourself again of the goals you set out to achieve at the beginning of the workshop. And ask yourself what steps you’ve taken in the last few weeks to accomplish those goals.
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