Hi Dancers!This week you have snatched the pebble from my hand and begun your own Pilates warm up. We continued with new Pilates mat exercises, i.e. leg circles, roll ups, spine rolls (which hurt Amy) and arm and leg extensions while lying on our fronts. As for Alexander, on Friday we touched the crowns of our heads together and rocked back and forth in order to feel the lengthening spine energy. We had cone heads at one point and talked a bit about using the abdominals to roll up.
We connected with our partners and took one another for a walk side to side with eyes closed. The combination this week had us connecting our heads together and rolling around. We did a little hand dance and some partnering with leans, throws and catches. It was fun! I saw lots of smiling.
What did you learn this week? What was most difficult? What was most fun? What do you want to do again? Please email me with questions or concerns.
Louis
This past week has been really cool! I am really enjoying focusing on my core strength with pilates. It is nice that we are able to work on our own exercises but that we are still learning new things. What I enjoyed the most this week was the partnering work that we did; it was fun and confusing at the same time. Partnering work seems really interesting to me and it was fun learning to trust my partner when we were walking with our eyes closed. It was hard because my mind could not let the feeling go of where I was in the space or where I was compared to other people when my eyes were closed. I like the fact that the choreography that we learned was slowly built up and put together to create a larger piece. What was intriguing was that the dance became a duet rather then a solo. It was fun to work with a partner and try to figure out how to put everything together, to combine and connect our movements so that they flowed smoothly. I can’t wait for next week and I really hope that we can continue partnering work.
ReplyDelete- Katelynn C.
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ReplyDeleteOops, I accidentally posted my other class blog up above, Sorry.
ReplyDeleteSo, this week of modern was a lot of fun. I really liked the partner work, even though I find it challenging. I learned that connecting with a partner is really hard if you are focusing on the steps and not on what your partner is doing. I struggled with this exercise, because I am a “what are the steps” type of person. Still, I really do love the choreographing with a partner exercises. I love sharing weight, the lifts, the leans, etc. I find it really creative.
I also love the Pilates. It is one of my favorite parts of class, because I love working on my abs and thinking about controlling individual parts of my body. I do find that I sometimes have trouble focusing on individual parts without tightening up all the parts of my body. I find myself tensing everything up instead of focusing on just one body part. Learning how to become less tense throughout my body is one of my prime goals for this quarter, and Pilates is helping.
I had a lot of fun in class this week and I did things I have never done before in all my years of dance and in all my years of living for that matter. For example, closing my eyes and walking around the room made me think of the space in the room in a way I have never experienced before. Also, connecting our heads together really caused me to be intuned to my parter and it forced me to work with them in a way I never had before. I also enjoyed doing the lifts because I have done similar lifts like this quite a few years ago so I was happy to be re-introduced to modern movements like these. I would have to say that the most difficult part for me was all the partnering because I do not just have myself to worry about as a dancer because my wrong step or mistake effects them and I feel bad when I mess up. Switching sides was especially challenging for me because I had to think quickly about the changes on the spot and when I messed up it messed up the whole flow of the sequence and made us unable to do the lifts and transfers of weight.
ReplyDeleteI have really enjoyed being introduced to more and more Pilates. My only concern is that I am not doing all the exercises correctly and therefore I am not getting out as much of the exercises as I could be. The leg circles have been difficult for me because it is hard for me to not let my legs do the work and only let my abs work. My goal is to master all the Pilates that we learn so that I can successfully do what I learn outside of class. I would really like to continue to do more Pilates and yoga because I feel like I am really improving and especially with the yoga I feel like I am experiencing a new state of mind and experiencing new sensations such as spine enegy. On the same note, I really like when you give us things to think about and visualizations for example when we are doing something as simple as standing still with our eyes closed, but you will help us visualize a cone on our head or remind us to broaden our shoulders because these are things that I probably would not think about on our own but that I should be thinking about. I feel like everything we do in class is really making a stronger and more multi-dimensional dancer and it is a great feeling!
-Nicole Breitenstein
I loved doing the head to head rocking exercise on our knees with a partner. It was so interesting, relaxing, and meditative for me. The feeling of shared energy and stability with my partner was really powerful. I also really enjoyed walking and running around with my eyes closed, solely depending on my partner to make sure I didn't run into anyone or anything. I felt completely comfortable running with my eyes closed, with no worries of crashing because I could feel the motion of my partners hips, which gave me some security. It was a really liberating feeling.
ReplyDeleteI also really enjoyed the partner combination with lifting and catching. Each time we did it, it felt like we improved and by the end we really figured out how to better share our weight. I liked having to coordinate so many different things with my partner-steps, speed, where to hold their leg, etc.- because I haven't done it much.
I really like the diversity in speed and tempo of all of the phrases and combinations we are learning in class. The Pilates and Alexander are really helping me to stay loose, which is helping me do the faster combinations more easily. I really like the roll ups and the arm and leg extensions that we added to the Pilates warm up too!
i love the picture at the top of this post too, Louis! :)
ReplyDelete"My favorite thing from last week was the partner dance we put together on
ReplyDeleteFriday. It was SO much fun! I wanted to keep doing it! I hope we re-visit that
dance. I also, like others have really enjoyed learning pilates. I can feel it
working on my core. It's challenging to strengthen muscles that I've never
focused on before but I am enjoying it. I am enjoying the flow of class, and I
have enjoyed taking the pebble and expanding on our own. I love the mellow but
demanding start of class and have loved the combinations that follow as our
chance to integrate our skills being learned in yoga, pilates, and Alexandar
techniques."
Kimberly
I really enjoy doing pilates. I feel like it really strengthens my core. Which is cool because i always try to do core strengthening excercises at home, but it doesn't happen very often either because i don't have time or i'm lazy.
ReplyDeleteIt was really fun to do all the partner work. It made me realize how important it is to listen very closely to your partner in order to effectively move together. In moments when I let my attention drift just a tinsy bit our togetherness became a bit more awkward (in the walking hip-to-hip). And when I was being led by my partner with my eyes closed, I had to give trust to him completely by telling my self hey, he knows where he's going, he's got his eyes open, so it was really fun to speed through the air in the dark.
My favorite partner work though was the combination we did on friday. In this one I realized how important it is get our centers close together when we do leans and throws, otherwise it doesn't work as well and feels awkward.
I'm glad to have learned Alexander technique. I've been employing it pretty much everywhere I go. And it has helped so much especially in dance classes to move a little bit freer and easier, and even more effeciently. It also just makes my posture look better. Yay!
Alisa.
Last week surprised me greatly, in a good way! In all honesty, I don't really like to dance with a partner, just because I don't particular enjoy when others touch me while I dance, but the partner work we did was so much fun! It was funny how hard it was to roll your heads attached to each other. I also LOVED when we did the partner running bit; I've never experienced anything like that before! The sensation of running with my eyes closed was pretty scary for me, and I had to trust that my partner wasn't going to run me into anyone or anything. We should do that more!
ReplyDelete- Allyson Wang
I really enjoyed class this week. I love partner work! I think it can truly inform how you sense where you are. This was especially true with the running around with your eyes closed. I tried to keep track of where I was even though I couldn't see, then you called take your partner to the window and I was sure we were already very close to the window then we had to run across almost the whole studio.
ReplyDeleteI personally am not a fan of the leg circles they make my hips hurt and I can't seem to stop from gripping in my hip socket while doing them. I have done the spine rolls and while they didn't bother me that much on the dance floor, they are definitely nicer on a mat.
~Caitlin Bannan
To continue with the sentiment of so many others, I have to say how much I've loved the partner work this past week! I especially enjoyed one of the first exercises we did last Friday (I think?) where we were being "taken for a run" by our partners with our eyes closed. So exhilarating!
ReplyDeleteThis exercise gave me some great information about contact and weight and sharing a center with your partner. The exercise was so much easier and less scary when I really leaned into my partner and gave them more of my weight - that way, we could collectively move our shared center much more easily.
This information continued to help me later, too. I felt that the same sharing and connection made the three lifts we learner together much easier. I'm excited to take this new information to a Contact Jam soon and see how it plays out.
I also really enjoyed the "Creature" exercises. I have a strong tendency to get stuck in my head space, over-thinking, judging, analyzing my movements instead of letting them happen. This really inhibits my dancing sometimes. It was easier to let go of these habits when I allowed myself to stop being a "dancing human" and start being a "moving creature," because there was no wrong way - however this creature moved was the way it moved and it was something I needed to not think about and just do.
What a great week - so much fun and laughing, but also so much information and growing!
cheers,
Kristi
I love the time we take at the beginning of class to warm up with various exercises like pilates and yoga. I really enjoyed the partnering and learning how to do a lift. It's not something I have ever learned before and it was really fun!My favorite part of class is learning the phrases in class. My knee has been bothering me a lot lately, so it makes it difficult to go all out and move the way I really want to move. Other than that the class is great!
ReplyDelete*Kali
I loved the partnering and the choreography this week. The movement seemed very
ReplyDeleteorganic and flowing so it felt really good in my body. I loved the lift/jump!!!!
It was also really cool to watch everyone dance it because it worked well with
the space. I like the pilates and yoga at the beginning of class but I sometimes
get anxious for the dancing to start. I generally like pilates and yoga but I
get a litte frustrated because I have so much energy and I just want to move.
Even when I don't have a lot of energy, if I don't start moving right away, I
get really tired and relaxed (from the yoga) and when we start dancing I feel
completely dead.
-Jessica
One thing that answers all of your questions (something I learned?, what was most difficult?, and what do you want to do again?)... is partnering :-) This week I got a much better feel for what it means to partner. It’s more than dancing with another person. It means communicating with, connecting with, sensing and trusting someone else.. Someone who you may not even know until the moment you begin dancing together. I found that that comfort barrier was one of the more difficult things my partner and I dealt with, but once we tackled that? smoooooth sailing. I’d definitely like to do some more partnering. What I found most exciting about it was that once I connected with my partner, and felt like they had become an extension of myself (and me of them) we could so much more than what we could do on our own - a small jump can become a soaring leap.. but don’t lose the connection... It won’t all come crashing down, it just wont be nearly as interesting.
ReplyDelete~Casey
Ive had a few back problems in the past, so Ifind it very important nowadays to focus on more control of my center. Pilates helps A LOT. I've done then on my own time and also in other dance classes, but even in those classes, it was more about getting through them than really focusing on their ideal purpose. Also, I've never been asked to reverse the breathing sequence during any Pilates exercise. It's really counter-intuitive and... well... harder! I like it.
ReplyDeleteThe partner stuff was surprisingly challenging. It's not that the steps are too hard, it's just that the weight-sharing portion of everything doesn't feel as comfortable. Not that I'm not comfortable with everyone in the class, I love you guys! It's just odd to think of your center as being off center so it can be IN the center of two separate beings. If that made ANY sense at all.
I'd love to do it all again and see how far we can [literally] push each other =]
~Jennifer
ReplyDelete[Sorry, I forgot to sign it.]
Hey Bloggers:
ReplyDeleteLast week was interesting with partners. I enjoyed the end results of the partner dance. The end of class on Friday was cool when the partner dance went with three pairs from downstage to upstage. The criss-cross of the dancers when partners went away from each other and back together was visually appealing. The head rolling combination was fun... I feel like we did it a lot of times across the floor.
Pretending I have a cone on my head works really well. My head actually feels like it's making my neck longer. I can feel my breath better. The sequence of remembering head-length, broad shoulders, ribs falling off the cage, legs dangling from hips--all helps with my breath as well. Lately I have been forgetting to breath when I dance... The Alexander Tech. helps with my simultaneous breath and movement.
Peace
Rashelle
There was something that I wanted to say in class today, but I didn't get a chance to.
ReplyDeleteIt addresses what Jen said about how she struggles with making her dancing her own because she feels that she wants to master the choreography first. I know that a lot of people feel the same way, and I definitely know where you're coming from too. I've only been dancing for three years - before this, I did gymnastics. The way I was trained, perfection and precision were ingrained in me constantly, and I always felt the need to be "perfect" not only in my gymnastics but also with all other aspects of my life. I remember when I first started dancing, I had no idea what I was doing, choreography-wise. I would see other people and admire how they could just move so easily and...well, perfectly - in my opinion - and I wondered how they could do that.
My teachers would say in my classes, "Make your dancing your own! Experiment! Take risks!" I would always be so stiff, just going through the movements - arm here, leg here, up, down - like a robot, and I too couldn't get past that feeling of "I have to get the choreography down first, then I'll work on making it my own". It wasn't until last year that I realized that going through movements is not really dance; anyone can just go through movements. What makes dance dance is taking those movements and showing YOU through them, if that makes sense. Dance is just like any other art - it's your own personal freedom of expression. And I've realized that what I used to do was look at other people's dance and want to do it how they were doing it, and I felt like if it wasn't like them, then it wasn't right. But the magically thing about dance is there's not really a "right" way to dance, because it's all subjective. So at that point, I just kind of...let go and took the movements given to me and did them how I wanted to do them.
It was hard to me to do so, like seriously hard, because of my whole previous part of my life was filled with this "perfection" way of thinking. But to me, dance isn't always about perfection, dance isn't about just moving...what dancing really means to me is having the ability to create something, something that unique only to you. And I love it, it gives me meaning to my dance, knowing that it's all my own creation. Plus, when you make your dancing your own, others can see it, and other will be inspired by it. I don't know, I think that's a cool thought.
Wow this was really long...but I guess my point is that I know how you feel and I just wanted to share my story of how I kind of got over it.
- Allyson Wang
Great work everyone. Thanks for a great week of work. We will return to the partner dance on Friday.
ReplyDeleteI learned that breathing helps, a lot!
ReplyDeleteThe most difficult for me was in Pilates the rolling up! I find it more than frustrating I have been trying to do it for years. Now though, after help on Friday I did it once for the first time ever! Thank you Louie! I have been working on it every day since and I can do about one in thirty a huge improvement!