Travel... Shift... Challenge your body!

Today, I witnessed a number of things in class. We began the first sequence as usual in collaboration with a pianist. This is a slow sequence so that you can move deeply into the muscles and feel the inner body working.

Beginning the roll down, I could feel every muscle and vertebrae contracting and relaxing; the use of breath accentuates this juicy sensation through the body. From hanging over in lumbar fold I could really feel my tailbone reaching the ceiling, through an easy spine stretching to soft achilles.We then bent into a crouch where began to twist the body, pulling from the torso to sending the shoulders behind the body. The pulling feeling was an energised feeling that pulsed through the body, this was contradictory because I felt relaxed (head, back and arms) but my body was working through various motions. We then went onto all four's to feel the linear connection between the tail and head, to then perform brushes of the legs; this was a flat back which was strong with shoulders down into the back to show all muscles were working to full potential. This was performed in parallel position, with the use of power behind the legs, putting pressure through the foot to help the resistance between the foot and floor.

After all of this work in the muscles, they get a chance to stretch by relaxing into the floor, to then finish lying on my with one knee crossed over the other; over stretch of the back. Still relaxed in this position, keeping the body into the floor, I began leading from the knee which pulled the body over to move the arm across and over forming a number of circles (this is full of energy). This is an amazing feeling as the body relaxes and flops through movement that creates patterns on the floor, with minimal effort required. Rolling soft and smooth to relax again in child's pose, to again feel the stretch across the spinal column moving back to lumbar fold in parallel positions (which people forget), bending the knees to roll up through the back feeling every bone in the spine.

To me, this is an excellent warm up to begin with, as you can mentally prepare and feel the inside of the body working and you can concentrate on breathing into the muscles to activate them. I find this very efficient for a warm up.

We continued on to a sequence of curves, which was performed in parallel, 1st, 2nd and 5th. In this sequence I concentrate on relaxing into the movement with a sense of control, using the back as this is important when performing a curve. As I have said previously, the most important thing to do when performing a curve is to breathe, to perform at our maximum. Keeping the centre connected by lengthening from the phsoas to the ribs, helps to keep the back upright during plies and on a rise. Ocassionally in 5th position, some pupils in the class sit on their heels and lean forwards instead of keeping a resistance in the quadriceps, tucking the tailbone underneath themselves. This will interupt the rest of the sequence and cause bad habits that will knock you off balance in the incorrect position.


In the next sequence I presented a sequence of curves, plies and tendu's at the bar. In this I realised the sensations that occurred through my body and the thought process that resulted this;
Thought process: 

• Deeper curves (resisting)
• Brushing the feet (feeling every metatarsal, tarsal and phalanxes moving)
• Dropping the head when curving (top of the head leads)
• Sharper feet off of the floor (from the pressure build up)
• Lengthening the legs making it smooth
• Resisting and pulling of the thigh and hamstring when performing a tendu to retire
• Dropping and relaxing the tailbone helps to lengthen the phoas, also tailbone is connected to the heels
• Prevent the pelvis from moving backwards (keeping an upright position in plie)

Sensations that occurred;

• Muscles working when doing plie's as I am thinking to slowly deepen
• Felt the feet working, space between each little bone
• Curves were assisted by breath
• the length of my legs gave me a satisfied feeling
• Resisting my leg out to slowly pulling it back to retire made the movement juicy
• Altogether I felt connected to my inner and outer body to help enhance the performance side

What Geoff encouraged us to do;

• Keep the body lifted and hang onto my centre
• Release the leg fast into Grand Battement
• Don't let the back go too soon when moving to an arabesque
• Contract the core before dropping into the curve
• Don't hang onto the bar (should be able to perform the sequence in the centre of the room with no wobbles).

I noticed in today's lesson Geoff would give us a lot of advice, as some people just go through the movements without trying to adapt various strategies to what they are doing. As we are in third year now I feel it is our job to now try out different things in class (even if you end up falling over) as this helps to prepare you for the dance world after uni (no one is going to tell you how to do things, you have to adapt yourself and try to stand out from others). 

A few of the things Geoff kept mentioning is:

• Use centre and spinal column.
• Suspend your movements.
• Deep plie's.
• Strong positions and postures.
• Challenge your body's limits.
• Connect movements.
• Shift across the room.
• Travel.
• Notice movement details.
• Be energetic.
• Relax into some movements.
• Use Core-distal.
• Juicy movements.
• 'Don't separate things, join the dots'.
• Lengthen when possible.

I already think of doing most of these things when dancing, in any technique class; I could still try and improve as nobody is perfect.