Experience of Teaching...

I am reflecting today after my peer facilitation/ teaching session.
Teaching is something relatively new to me - I have aiding in others teaching & led small improvisations before, but never have I self-led a group on a topic of my choice.
What follows is the hand-out sheet I gave to my peers...



Contralateral Movement Pattern..

"The Contralateral pattern is the basic pattern of our bipedal walking and running... Most mammals display this pattern in their normal walking gait. Although at certain phrases of the movement the coordination appears to be the same as for the homolateral pattern, the initiation is different"   Wisdom Of The Body Moving, Linda Hartley

Seeing the body in 4 quarters...

Finding the diagonal lines through the centre...

Intention and desire for the other... Being engaged in the world...

 Psoas Muscle:

"As part of the iliopsoas, psoas major contributes to flexion and external rotation in the hip joint. On the lumbar spine, unilateral contraction bends the trunk laterally, while bilateral contraction raises the trunk from it's supine position."

"It forms part of a group of muscles called the hip flexors, whose action is primarily to lift the upper leg towards the body when the body is fixed or to pull the body towards the leg when the leg is fixed."

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 I found it was really difficult to know when to add in more information.
I gave my dancers choices of what they wanted to move with.

Feeding into the space - different things to work with.

Showed clear images

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Cecilia Macfarlane Workshop, Give your heart to another..

Cecilia is an independent dance artist who passionately believes that dance is for everyone.
(I think she is an incredibly intelligent & influential woman - I could listen to her for hours!)

Trying to remember myself as a dancer without deadlines!!!!

Finding the heart of me. Where is it?

What colour is it?

For me, today, my heart is in my core. A deep connection. It is a purple light floating within my core.

Un-organised, messy, asymmetrical movement.

Discussing our knowledge of the difference between 'therapeutic' & 'dance movement therapy'

Therapy:

Mind-based

Helping

Finding a way of being

Soothing

Individual

Relaxing

Comfort

Dance Movement Therapy:

Relationship with my body, the space & the therapist

Expression through another means

Silent form

An agenda - something you want to change

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Homologous Pattern..

The frog!!

www.arkive.org

Not walking in opposition.

Differentiation between upper & lower body - 2 limbs at the same time, symmetry.

Begins in the later stages of utero - this pattern is part of the birthing process, ingrained.

Like the spinal pattern, we have yield & push and reach & pull in the homologous pattern.

This pattern starts to take us into moving through space.

Can find support from the organ system in this.

Sense of sight is coming into play.

Moving with intention.

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Improv..

Exploring readiness in the hips, knees & ankles.

Softness.

Simplicity.

Space.

I feel as though there are bubbles in my hip joints - the space is there but it is being inhabited by something. 
Sending my breath to this space to try & burst these bubbles.
Loosening my heels - trying to free the tension in my hips, but then it tends to sit in my heels.
Work on releasing tension all together - not just displacing it & sending it to another place.

Exploring readiness in the hips, knees & ankles.

Softness.

Simplicity.

Space.

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Thinking..........

Interior landscapes of space 

(tend to forget the space in the legs. SRT hollow legs.

Ways of imagining the legs as lighter.

Integration - centre & periphery

                     external & internal

Degrees of presentation

Inhabiting what I am doing

Dancing is not an idea, it IS something, a physical thing I inhabit.

It is real & happening, it comes into my being.

It isn't about removing something.

Making myself more available - how do I do it?

Knowing how to make myself available to the work.

Gravity. 

Understanding what it means & what it is.

How can I  allow it to fall through every part of me all of the time?

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Yield & Push / Reach & Pull

Finding the bony spine. Bony touch - waking up the spine.
Finding the bony skull. Bringing my attention to the organ brain. The back brain helps bring awareness to this. Finding the fluid - runs through all of my body, connection to the ankles.

Moving with this idea of front, middle & back. Digestive system, fluid, nervous system & bony spine.

Exploring the pattern head-to-head. Reaching through the head & pulling through the tail. Playing with crawling backward & forward as a duo with these initiations.

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...

Recognising our movement patterns & opening up possibilities of other patterns.

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Spinal Pattern..

Spinal Pattern - leaving behind pre-vertebrae patterns & entering vertebrae.   Still in water (fish).   This underlies what happens on land with limbs.   Head-tail relationship.  Digestive system (central line) stays with us - soft & flexible.  Spine was once soft in our movement memory.  Brain & spinal chord are still present - they are now protected by a bony encasement.  3 layers of the spine.

Fish fins - balance - replicates relationship between centre of the body & the limbs.
They sense temperature / light / sound / vibration through their skin.

Lateral line (side) is a particularly sensory place.

Nervous system is taking in information through the body. 

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YIELD & PUSH PATTERN..

Yielding so far - can feel a response to come out of it - rebounding.

Image of getting into a bath.
Finding movement up from the floor.
Finding support before we push upwards towards activity.

(image from journal to scan in!!)

Hands-on:
Inviting possibility of yeidling. Melting into the floor.
Something gooey.
Yeidling taking you into activity.

The floor swallowing me. Allowing it to release me into moving.

Sometimes yielding so much that I don't want to move.

Heavy body.

Connected with my breath & my weight to be able to readily accept movement.

Exploring the articulation in all of the vertebrae. Trying rolling down a wall. Still keeping the digestive tract with me. Connecting with the nod in my head - where my skull nods on my spine.

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Integration..

Bringing the mouthing pattern & soft spine into my phrase work.

Figuring out where it is more prominent.

centre line

moving on my axis

layers of the movement & layers of the body

soft spine

cellular breathing

centre line

fluid through the body

soft spine

layers

.

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Cerebrospinal fluid..

health.rush.edu

Mouthing Pattern..

Sucking, rocking head into spine.
Movement down the whole length of the spine.
Whole body experience.
Fluid line.

External & internal witness.
Can witness internally if coaxed.
Noticing seeing eyes.
Switching on attention.

Moving from the Sea Squirt (mouthing pattern)

towards the lancelet (soft spine)

Adding two tubes to the digestive system - the NOTOCHORD (soft - eventually becoming the spine & disks) & the NEURAL TUBE (eventually becomes the brain & spinal chord). Recognising the difference between front & back. FRONT - digestive tract. MIDDLE - reminance of notochord. BACK - reminance of neural tube.

Gives us sequential movement, fluidity & awareness of front & back in relationship to the central line. Spine & brain are bathed in fluid. We have all lived a soft spine.

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Writing from my experience:

Organ brain.   Fluid.   Jelly spine - soft. Like a baby in the womb.   No gravity.  Spine not having to support or hold anything.                Blue? Sea? Water?                 Floating.

Breath floating through my spine. Weightless digestive tract.   Relationship between brain, mouth & spine. Spinal chord - spinal disks.       Water.               Backwards blinks.            Spiralling the fluid. Awareness of middle in relation to front & back. Jelly fish brain - tentacles dangling down into the body.

Spine not as solid bone.                                           3D.                                  What's in-between?  

Thinking of my spine as a water sock

(as you squeeze it, it slips  from your hands - has a hole travelling all through the centre)

- has fluid in-between the outer layers.

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Hut..

http://www.briksdal.co.uk/colour/

My very talented Step-Dad.

Really love the frames & the colours in this picture. 

Sort of looks like a mirror image.

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Continuation of my score..

Energising. 

Rubbing the navel - sinking around navel & using this to come back to standing straight.

Diagonal.                                                      Length.

Clear feet - jumping.

Deep fold is not so deep today  -   playing with availability.

Coming to starfish as a way into moving today.  Allowed my scattered brain / body to integrate.

Moving the noise from my head into my core.

Focused.

Very much inward - start to allow it to be outward.

The idea of being seen.

Embodying material.

Quality of movement.

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Finding my own score..

Exploring the relationship between condensing & expanding & my organs. 

How they are moved , wobbled , poked , twisted , stretched.

Working starfish into this.

Folding.

Do they stay in place?

--

Alix:      - In sync with movement, yet they stemmed from different initiations.  
              - Me moving from my score, Alix offering me hands-on information whilst talking about her score. Found that because I was so focused on my moving and the information I  was receiving that I was listening to her talking but less what she was actually saying.   

              - Gathering snippets of information.

             - Similar movements and similar ideas - only realised this when we spoke and when we moved together allowing the roles to blur. Following her movements with all of my body rather than just my hands. Found similar movements (condensing) but with different qualities (mine curving, hers folding).

I listened to her hands more than her voice.

What we notice & what we ignore.

Choosing how we orient our focus.

Navigating internal & external information at the same time.

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1. How was it to be seen?
   I found that I don't mind being seen as long as my face isn't - as long as I can't see you.
2. How did it clarify the phrase?
   As soon as I had to speak it, it became clear. I tried not to 'set' a phrase as I feel that it then doesn't go anywhere - it gets stuck.
3. What happens to my breath?
   I didn't notice it, but I think it was present in my moving - it wasn't trapped.
4. Can I layer them into my phrase?
   I need to make myself more available to being seen!

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My Score:

Finding the fold in my hips - deep. How this is connected to my centre / core. Allowing breath to be present. Suspension & falling. Clear contact with the floor - jumping. Deep fold, stretching & twisting. Deep fold - psoas muscle, connected to centre. Starfish. Suspension. Travelling. Travelling & speaking.

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Digestive Tract / Mouthing Pattern..

www.umm.edu 

greaterimmunity.com 

www.childrenscolorado.org 

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Initiating from the mouth - stroking the side of my partners face. Rolling toward the stroke and tracking through the digestive system.

Splitting the body in two. Digestive system - central line. Yet it is still connected. Mouthing Pattern offers a fluid central line.

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Reflective Questions..

1. Discuss understandings of readings.
   
   
2. Connections across classes.
   
   
3. Learning points - what these patterns.

- Changing one things, changing another (Katye's class).  - Coordinated movement through the navel.  - Each finds its relationship to the other through the navel.  - Locating our own individual centre. Need to nourish it to find it, breath. Found it through navel to spine in pilates.  - Movement is not conscious, it is what is needed.  - Re-patterning.  - A whole with separate entities of self.  - Core support, approaches to life, personal growth.  - Pilates, balance & stability.  - Navel being level with partners (CI) coming to self in order to meet other.  - Back to back (Katye's class) core to core, two starfish stuck together, connected through the navel. 

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Finding Possibilities..

Releasing the body.
Moving the flesh on the bone - deep.
Pressing the tissues of the face.
Beginning to say YES to the movement and the moving.

Degrees of saying YES.

Can be from a whisper to shouting.

Giving them direction.

Aware of my bones. Like child's soft play.

Entwining bodies - connections.

Figuring out where you have to go to be supported.

Trust.

Figuring out where the YES is.

Trying to involve the YES to get off the floor.

Absorbing weight.

How much weight is there in a lifeless body?

The whole of me used to move & organise the other body.

A responsibility for the other body.

How easy it can be to find the possibilities.

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Walking score..

Allowing for surprises.        No anticipation.     Seeing eyes.
Letting the mini duets be as long as they need to.
Dropping centre of gravity - shift in the room.
Allowing the duets to occur naturally.

Letting this move into contact improvisation.
(With Emma)
We are usually both quite apologetic in our moving & in our voices.
Today we seems to fall into gravity more readily
-gave the weight  of our bodies.


Allowing the awkward  /  accidental  /  funny moments to be a part of it.

Focusing on the elbows.

Martial arts - elbows close to the body.   Extending out into space.

How this can move us in space, support us on the floor.

Looking at the spiral in the arm -
does that move through the body?
Connection to centre?

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Moving across the room with this notion.
Linear movements on a forward trajectory. 

Angles.

Straight lines.

Forward.

Not going back on myself.

Noticing whether I feel comfortable in this????

Coming into axial movement.

Radial.

Tipping off my axis.

Limbs as an extension of my centre.

Axis starting deep into the earth's core & ending way way above my head.

This is how I feel comfortable moving, this feels natural.

Circular.

Palms to the air, swooping.

Trying to integrate these two moving patterns.

(recreated score from journal)

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Starfish...

 

Back to back. Sitting, eyes closed. Feeling the breath. Feeling the skin, clothes, temperature. My partners breath. Contact points - my relationship to the environment.

Awareness of self & other..

Anchoring to the self..

Negotiation of awareness..

Touch is a central part of life.

In culture we are restricted in our touching.

Potency of touch. Skin is our communication with the outside world.

Skin is the outside of the nervous system. Many receptors.

Receptors in the organs.   Internal & external world.

Skin as a container, body as a whole.    Fundamental..

Naval Radiation Pattern

Movement in utero...  Intention-directed movement will emerge later...
Unconscious purpose of movement, pre-intentional... Through the stimulation of
movement, tough, and vibration, the potential of the nervous system
will begin to unfold... Actions appear to originate not locally, in the muscles of the
limbs, but from the navel centre of the infant's body... 

Centre of the organism..

Significance of the navel as the central organizing point...

Equality between the limbs of the starfish...

Integrated through the centre...

In utero, the head and the mouth is unimportant, importance of the navel...

Stomach and mouth are the same in a starfish...

Mush more like a starfish in 8 weeks of utero...

Movement & touch is our main sense - proprioception...

6 limbs of the body, each equal...

How this movement pattern can offer integration between centre & periphery...

Core & Distal movement...

Connectivity...

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Squashy, vulnerable centre - protecting it.

Can almost see through my limbs.

Re-remembering our centre.

The arms don't end at the shoulders, they come right into the centre.

The hand is almost like a starfish - the palm being the centre & the fingers the limbs.

Tracking in my minds eye...

Lying on front, partners hand resting on the back where the navel is. Leaving one have in the centre and using the other to trace along the 6 limbs. Allowing the receiver to play with condensing and expanding around the navel. Felt busy and warm in the centre and my limbs became longer than they are. Feeling Charly's cold hands still buzzing on my skin. Resonating. Felt really interconnected - all limbs joining in the centre.

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The Skin..

"Touch is the other side of movement. Movement is the other side of touch. They are the shadow of each other" - Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen

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