Pilatesss

I am having a lot of pilates classes this term as I understand now that it is a very important practice for any performer as well as human. We focus more on the body parts that don't move, but stay still while performing any exercise. I also feel very connected to the breathing as the teacher also explains how the breathing should work in relation to every exercise ans how the breath travells through the body, simmilar principles to SRT classes, when we are encouraged to visualise how the breath travells across the body, around the bertebrae,etc. Another aim of the pilates practice is to control the body by using the deeper muscles and always taking time to focus on the natural position of the spine and on the 'quiet' ribs, so bringing the body to its natural paths and curvatures. I also enjoyed visualising the idea of paralel lines going across the body from the shoulders to hips and knees and toes.
Every class I can feel how my balance is improving and that I feeling much more grounded.

Body as energy system

This week my attention dropped over the body as energy system just by starting with Polly's SRT Class whan we had some new and exciting graphics. Tracing in a figure of 8 patterns of energy starting with the front of the feet and legs coming up to the skull, going over the face, torso and coming on the back of the legs. Also including the front and the back of the pelvis. While receiving all this delicate energy traces on the body partner A can evem sway from side to side and the when we work alone we can even imagine how fantom hands appreas and trace the pattenrs again and then disappear.
I think as a dancer it is vital to be aware of teh fact that the ENERGY keeps us alive together with all the organs and bones and blood and air. It is interesting to recognize what chemical rections happen into our body every instand we are alive and this is why I went back to Polly's handout about SRT and :
'the hunam body is seen not as a mind-body duality, but as a dynamic network of energies. The network is totally unified yet within it are complex, diverse autonomus patterns and forms of energy. Although there are reverberations within the network of energies, there is no linear pattern of cause and effect.'

underscore by katye coe [ 19.03.2012 ]

Today we have been introduced to a new type of practice, the underscore that leads into the contact improvisation. We were encouraged to arrive physicly (stretch, warm up, do what my body needs to do) into the space as well as energeticly ( and this is an important moment as I have remembered the energy graphics that Polly was talking about---> patherns of energy that cross our body all the time when we are alive, maybe even energies that keep us alive. So I integrated the SRT principles into my regular movement studies and I feel proud that I am now able to apply all knowledge in any class and that all th practices starts to interconnect and inter-relate, as a whole experience rather that separate practices). After the arriving phases we did dome preambulation, we found out about the kinaesphere and raveling with it as well as pverlaping it with other people. It's all about a series of choises, like choosing from a palette of 'colors' :

• touch
• attraction
• repulsion
• releasing
• sensing
• intersection
• copying
• I found this session very playful and I even had strong moments when I just could not stop laughing and smiling, but I felt like flying and the energy was amazing. This engagement took us into contact and I think the best part of this course for me is the contact improvisation practice ( it gives me a massive range of ideas and potential).

I just celebrate the fact that I can connect all practices we do into all classes and this journey starts to make a lot of sens. Moreover it's not just making sense, it's falling in love again with myself, it's about rediscovering myself, but this time in a natural way and I do celebrate that!

SRT [2nd year-term 2]

Starting lying on the floor and doing a body scan by releasing all tensions in the body. It feel like a necessity

now, maybe because of my period pains, all belly muscles get tensed and I need to stop them shaking...or maybe because now Skinner represents a vital and regular practice for me as a dancer and human...now I arrive more quickly into it!

This picture represents my view over the 'pulse' exercise, dropping down the pelvis and then dropping ino sliding, plyaing with the rhythm seemed to be the most challenging task as it need a very strong sense of play combined with seriousness and focus. It developed into galoping but leading with the pelvis, so it is a new approach of doing the gallop and I find it interesting as I am looking at how can I integrate different styles of movement into the somatic practices.

Improvisation- Steph

Steph Class
ONLY SET PHRASES...we went through them very quickly and I feel like a lot of the details were lost, were simply not present. Sarah usually goes very fast through her phrases, but her explanations are very rich and valuable, fact that I didn't feel in Steph's class. She just threw movement to us without offering so much "brain work', but I need to admit that the energy was fantastique!!! At some point the movement was so fast and my arms and shoulders got so tensed and I could really feel that! In the next moment SRT principles came to my mind and I took a moment and a released all that unnecessary tension out of my arms and shoulders and the chance was amazing! I could dance faster and easier! I started to enjoy those quick movements and my body had more volume and I started to expand myself!

I also noticed that I don't enjoy doing set phrases anymore, I feel restricted and copying the one who is teaching. But I do enjoy improvising, I love when the movement comes from myself, it is natural and MINE!!! I fell free and alive what I do what I feel like doing! I feel this is a massive change for me and I think I am on the right track!!!

SRT Marina

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_BUBu1VH7g&list=UU8aaCcpIDdScTef7x1wjWTg&index=1&feature=plcp

again suspending the torso into the space and sending the skull into the air and allowing the spine  to curl naturally.  also a bit of help from my partner was vmore than welcome: brushing down the legs, up the arms and fingers, floating the head and torso, walking the spine, etc... I felt it as a reminder of my extremities going sideways and extending, but I also felt more grounded and rooted, supported and wider.
The idea of body mind unity arrived to me today...exploratin, curiosity, what is there/, feelings, sensitivity, beath through, giving a purpose, responses...

SRT Polly [23rd Feb 2012] -reflection

[gossima thread]

Just before the class I have noticed that I was arrivinh into my body...slowly and I felt like a special mood or a mist was covering me every second...
We went straight into the watchful state, in which I arrived very quicly because of last week practice and then we found ourselves a partner to soflen some body parts...leading into the whole body and the coming back. This happened as a dialogue between Jen and myself and I enjoyed a lot using different body parts ( neck, head, knees, elbows, spine) to send the softness into her body rather than my palm. It feels like a coin, as sending the softness into Jen also offered me a spongy feeling and a floating state. The torso raising fit extremly well after this duet as my whole body got 'pressed' as a sponge...and then floating up the tosro offered back my spine lenght and opened me up to the space again.
The focus drops into the open spaces of our body specially teh pelvic floor, torso and spine area. I felt like I had a huge ball inbetween my arms that shaped my body as a round one , offering me a lot of volume, weight and fluidity, as a image score for my movement....and then gossima thread appears and connects to the base of the middle fingers of each arm and sometimes dissolve into the space and reappear...my instinct leaded me through the curiosity and natural path...allowing the movement to find myself and to arrive. Balancing and suspending the torso inti the space almost feels liek flying a few seconds and then gliding on the floor again looking after the moment when it suspends again and it expands easily into the air...

[journal reflection]

phrasing class- sarah wately

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZUQ6_C9CPg&feature=BFa&list=UU8aaCcpIDdScTef7x1wjWTg&lf=plcp

This is another phrase that I enjoy dancing not because of the beauty of the movement but because of the way it travels through my body and because of the connections that I am aware of while moving.

• skull floating upwards into the ceiling
• lenghten into the spine
• balance
• skull leading
• spaces and air between the bones and vertebrae
• suspending

As feedback from sarah : wider lounge-having the sense of a grounded dancer and before going up side down feel the spine straight, having the sense of suspendfin the skull in the air.
Very useful feedback as it helps me to dance through images, to visualise myself in motion and wakakes my body awareness in relation to the space around. Also this phrase was designed for a line.

I also thins that all this principles are actuallu related to the SRT classes, as they encourrage the suppleness, the economy of the movenet, the multi directional alignement. I do believe that they are somewhere in my mind when I perform these set phrases and they do have a stong impact over my dancing.

SRT [2nd year-term 2]

[the use of the mist image travelling along your bones, tissues, skin...]

Readings....
"Releasing is discovered in the doing"
This little phrase makes me think of how I see SRT now, after I have already been through all this material once again, theoretical as well as practical. Now I feel like it's there, it's sort of set into my body and now it makes more sense. Even if I was used to "no pain no gain" I can admit that this type of work changes the phisicality and the mentality of my whole self. It even made me aware of another sense of the human being, the "kinesthetic sense", maybe at the end of the day, we are not who/what we think we are...as Kirstie Simson has said.
I just like this definition: (it makes sense for me anyway)
"SRT can be described as  a system of kinesthetic training which refines the perception and performance of movement through the use of imagery".

 Principles:

• suppleness
• suspension
• economy of movement
• autonomy
• multi directional alignment
• balance
• disorientation
• effortlessness
• immersion
• disori

Skinner Releasing Technique - Image

The "spongy" idea gave me the feeling of releasing all muscles and tissues : feet, tights, shoulders, arms, pelvis, hips...-> free movement.

I was focused on my breathing rhythm.

I was able to let go all my problems and outside thoughts ... and then I felt myself very easy and free.