This picture of mid-movement shows the class pressing through their hands and feet. finding connections through the floor to aid the movement discovered in today’s class.
We started the class with warming up through bodywork. We provided areas of pressure and heat through massage to get feeling into the body. This made my body feel ready to move and also helped me to find area’s needing more attention for the class ahead.
The two previous exercises from last week’s class were linked together. The movements in this sequence involved pressing through the hands and the feet to take the weight of the body. When I was comfortable with the movement I felt very grounded and floppy whilst performing the sequence. I could feel the connections through my hands and through the floor and they felt like they were reaching beyond the floor deep into the ground. I believe these feelings were intentional. I felt very grounded as a whole in today’s class however the feedback I received was to “really feel your feet on the floor and the floor underneath your feet. This will give a more stable foundation and a base for more dynamic movement as you push into and across the floor through your feet and legs.” This has given me the drive and motivation to try even hard to work through my feet to be grounded in the next class; I can feel improvements within my body resulting in far grounded movement and active body parts.
The second exercise we did today included four stages of rolling. These rolls were variations of teddy bear rolls. To perform the roll correctly you have to look at your stomach and fold your body in half to get the rolling position. The whole group including myself found problems with this material, as it felt very un-natural, however most people in the group had improved since the last session. Within the rolls i could feel the sense of my whole back space touching the floor, without any part of my back being left out. This felt grounded and spacious because none of my back was missing the floor so the roll felt big and juicy. My legs felt as if they were reaching long and out to get me to roll in the correct direction. This made me feel like i was expanding my whole body and i noticed that the more i connected my head to my tail within this sequence the more space i used whilst dancing.
The whole class built up to a phrase for the assessment, which incorporated many of the movements and feelings sensed within the previous exercises. Although I am not doing the technique assessment I believe participating in as many exercises as I can will benefit me in my writing.