Peer Teaching

Through my movement practise I have formulated an interest into the initiation of movement and in particular refining the moment in time when this occurs even in the most subtle of movements. My studies in BMC have helped me greatly in this interest as it has made me aware that in order to initiate movement there is usually a shift across the midline of the body.

In particular this point can be investigated more clearly in the homolateral yield and push pattern of the upper and lower body.

To clarify, the homolateral yield and push pattern is the lizard stage in the animal kingdom:
>The spine is still low and close to the floor, as it has been in the stages previous to it, meaning that the movement naturally shifts side to side
>Hearing and sight are coming more into play, with the inner ear regulating balance and spatial awareness

In reference to infants:
>At the stage where we begin the notion of going somewhere/belly crawling.
>As we find asymmetrical movement this pattern also allows for the beginning stages of picking things up as we are able to shift our weight over the midline to one side allowing the other side to be free and balanced to pick up objects
>Differentiation between left and right side has occurred, with awareness of supporting/yielding side and articulating/pushing side

Reflections in Katye's class

1. Not moving for movements sake. Slow. Everything done for me...What I need. Lengthening. Awakening body parts that feel like they're resisting. Joints ache/protest, body cold and unwilling, mind is inwards/quiet.
2. HIP JOINT! What am I working with? Connections within the body - doing one movement leads to another. Soft, spongey body. Am I working with this because of how I feel today? Doesn't matter. This is where I am...need to keep working through.
3. Pushed through it...Did movements I wanted to do, not just for the sake of my joints/body's needs today but for me personally. Instantly started bringing me out of myself. This meant that I spent less time analysing and more time doing, consequently less pauses, more substantial material to work with. Also began to travel more through space.

'seeing everywhere' > directing the dance
                                                                                                                                                    change
                                                                new experience but relates subconsciously 
               Avoiding staying on the ground
                                                                                                        Does it matter?
                                                          Development 
Last/ left behind rather than initiating
                                                                                                                          Do I need to move on?                                                      eyes open brought myself out/ opened awareness to the room and to 'being seen'

Pass or Passing

Pass or Passing

        Pass by                                                Passing By                                              Passing through

  

                             By pass                                                       Passing time

    Under pass                            Pass down                                                   Passing time

                                                                             Overpass

                                                                           Opposite

                     Avoid                              Obstruct                              Join                        With

                                                                               With

Walk with                          Be With                                       With me                   Stay With

                                                                 Run with

Reflections on Andrea's classes...

A reoccurring message to let go of predetermined beginnings or unnecessary arms. There is an initiation point but subtle. Just do what I need to do and no more...

                      Journey of the arms...
                                                            not decoration

     Articulating feet, finishing off movement (one of my goals at the beginning of the year) but don't overpoint!!! I in particular have to be careful about that 

Cradling the head

Head feels so much lighter. The looseness allows my neck a freedom/loss of tension from normal. Partner felt like a clamp holding it in place even after she let go. In a good way. Moments where I felt 'right' in movement - feet and skull in conversation. Moments when it didn't - that's okay, moments that feel right feel better amidst moments that don't.

                        Light headed

> Partner was firm in weight bearing

> Made my head feel lighter/freer than usual

Connected skulls

Weight bearing through the skulls connecting

Need to give enough weight to stay connected 

finding the balance

Speaking whilst walking

This class seems more eager to talk, makes it easier to vocalise myself

The story was random and not from my observations. I woke up in a strange and unfamiliar place and was completely lost. I tried to find my way back home but was just walking in circles, I came across a log and jumped over it I then began swimming across a massive lake when suddenly I see a crocodile and stop. I stay still and then carefully creep away. Getting tired I fall asleep, waking up in my own bed 

Cecelia MacFarlane...Workshop 2

Boundaries

• environmental space - use the same space/settings, a comparatively clean and safe place as a comfort zone 
• personal space - find the right distance and position between therapist and client
• behavioural - establish that there is not going to be any hitting/verbal abuse allowed
• confidential - establish that everything communicated is confidential unless under extreme circumstances
• energetic/engaged - be in the appropriate mood/emotional and in an engaged state for the individual client
• time keeping - always be on time and don't make allowances for late clients, still finish session at correct time
• don't use the word 'I' - by saying 'I do that too' you are enabling them, gives the impression that its okay. Takes away from the client

My personal and significant thing:

My ipod

Red - one of my favourite colours

Me - A collection of MY favourite songs/music

Dance - A tool used to stimulate dance - a big part of who I am

Personalised - Personalised by my family that reminds me of them 

My partners expression:

Feel connected to the dance - because I know what inspires it? All the details? 

Repetitive and enclosed, even when movement is opening out it seems that she is holding onto something

Full of emotion, by the end she seems like shes had enough...

How it feels for me?:

Everyday movements triggering memories, making me smile. Going down memory lane, trying to evoke more. My item more one of comfort and happiness, rather than raw emotion, but just as strong.

Cecelia MacFarlane...Workshop 1

What is Dance Movement Therapy?

• Using dance and movement as an outlet for emotion and expression
• More of an agenda, working towards helping a specific aspect of life 
• Tends to be a silent activity and body and movement used as expression
• Artist triangle Client/ Therapist/ Art Form
• Use of transitional objects (props)

What is therapeutic?

• Something calming and relaxing to soothe the body and mind
• A method or activity that promotes well-being
• Massage, candles, music, talking, sauna, spa, baking, touch, petting animals, sleeping, shopping

Looking at the four major emotions: Happiness, Sadness, Anger and Fear. How might they manifest?

Client Group: 5-8yrs with ADHD

Associate the emotions with an animal, the children are able to recognise

Happiness = Monkey

Sadness = Donkey

Anger = Tiger

Fear = Mouse

So if a child is acting up out of anger, we can communicate to that child to transition that anger into pretending to be a tiger. Through this method the child can get out their anger during this play and at the end they can potentially leave the tiger persona and the anger behind.

A class with Andrea Barzey...

Walking around the room, finding a way to the floor - memories of Charlie Morrissey's session, different easy ways to find the support of the floor. Once there connecting to the floor and massaging. Thoughts of the different movement patterns emerge, in particular the mouthing pattern, starfish and the image of yield and push.

Observations include losing unnecessary preparations into movements and allowing the head to flow more freely and relaxing into limbs

Homologus Pattern

The frog pattern...

Two upper limbs moving together - Two lower limbs moving together

Symmetry of body

Begins in later stage of utero, part of the birthing pattern

This pattern starts to take us moving through space, we can find support from the organ system. A sense of sight comes into play: not outwards but in my own hemisphere...attention.

I find this movement pattern familiar and easy to initiate but at the same time unfamiliar from lack of usage and frustrating in its limitation and simplicity. I recognise the pattern within different classes mainly during jumping but it isn't used for very long

Connections

Awareness of connections in my separate classes affect my movement?! Able to make more sense of what I am doing meaning I worry less and enjoy it more. Also I feel like it is allowing me to take on board more layers of processes in class.

Able to work with more things simultaneously without losing quality

Walking around the room, finding a way to the floor - Charlie Morrisey on Monday - and connecting to the floor massaging - mouthing pattern, starfish, yield and push

Class with Charlie eased me into this class. Although the classes weren't linked I felt that because earlier on in the week we had explored different ways of finding the ground. I felt more at ease doing it/ more natural

Once on the floor I felt very connected to specific BMC movement patterns spiralling (spinal), starfish/naval radiation (sinking into the support of the floor) and yield and push.

Soft Spine Pattern

Moving on from the mouthing pattern (sea squirt) to soft spine pattern. The Lancelet. Three tubes down the centre of the body.

Digestive - A long tube connected from mouth to anus.
Notochord - Soft tissue that eventually becomes the little discs in the spine
Neural tube - Eventually becomes the brain and spinal chord

All of these are what allow for sequential movement, fluidity and awareness of back, middle and front within the centre line.

Connected but loosely, soft and supple with inner tubes connecting head to tail. Using the soft spine imagery I am able to work closely with the head to tail connection with renewed ease.

Mouthing Pattern

Exploring the mouthing pattern. Taking imagery in the form of the sea squirt.

Sea Squirt - Marine mammal that lives in bottom of the sea. Tube like, or bell like in appearance but still no spine.

Brushing the cheek of my partner and her following the brushing with her mouth, similar to new born babies. When it comes to my turn feels oddly familiar. Memories from way back when. Feels more comfortable going one way rather than the other. It is this movement that starts the rolling motion through the body.

Navel Radiation Pattern

Imagery of starfish - no one part of starfish is more important than any other. Each limb is equal. The navel is the centre of being. In uterus, the life source is from the umbilical cord from navel. How can this pattern offer integration between core and distal movement?

forgotten space, my partner and me

Find a space with your partner, listen with your body and note your noticings

With Hannah Graham-Martin...

Whispering walls, telling stories emitting chatter but faceless. Cold, alone but not alone. Loud feet sqeaking fading, fading gone. Cold and hard, white and clinical yet warmth from the familiar. Itch, moving muscles pressed against the wall. Loud deep voice, soothing, giving guidance, but not to me, can't quite hear, it's not for me. Smell... smell, I can smell perfume - hers - and wood or at least I think I can. HELLO?! Not to me, not noticing me. Creaking. In my own world but life is still going on around me. So alive, so loud, wedges of space and time more accessible than others. Open doors. Closed doors. Stomach growling. I'm hungry, my body knows this. What do others see? hear? smell? Am I alone in my own observations? World is muted until each new big bang in which a flurry of activity invades my ears

Myself

My stomach hurting, pulsing. I find positions where my back expands and relaxes but won't settle. I like my own little world of darkness, exploring through feeling and sensation. When I slowly open up my eyes to the light I feel like a newborn bird in a nest, squinting through my eyelashes. Different sensations of hardness of the floor. Skin on floor cold and smooth, through fabric warm and spongey. Always supportive.

Even when I think I'm seeing I'm Not

Deep Listening

Deeply listening to YOUR body
                      Individual Needs

As I move I am aware of different sensations, sometimes to the point of overload. Noticing what is new to me as well as my habitual patterns.

It is important for me to notice what I want to pay attention to but I need to practice trying to keep with what I'm with.

Where Am I?

Eyes closed
Being led
Responding
Exploring
Trusting

Where am I? Being led around the room, eyes closed by partner. My other senses come alive; pieces slowly come together, remembrance from my eyes but also noticing new things that my eyes are unable to pick up: The course fibers of the floor, the musty smell that clings to the curtains.

Surprised by how easily I trust my partner, I felt as sure footed as when I can see. I trust my partner to watch and protect me as I would watch and protect her. How would I be if I did not trust?

Denise Rowe

Denise Rowe is a choreographer, dancer, movement artist, singer and mbira player with 10 years experience performing and teaching traditional and contemporary pan-African dance.

To know her personally has been a gift. Denise is a lovely, inspirational woman who has indeed took me on a movement journey that has been incredible, educational and just generally inspiring. I know that she has taught me many things and the memory of that will stay with me for a long time.

Never put together a piece of choreography together in this way before. Seemingly non-related pieces of structured improvisation fitted together as if it had been the grand plan all along. None of it was forced and we were open to where the choreography wanted to lead us.

Site - Coombe Abbey

One of the sites at Coombe Abbey used for inspiration for Rooted. A place so familiar to me now yet still contains the magic. Memories of my time there will linger. I hope I left an impression there no matter how insignificant. Conversations with trees, details of life, being still yet open and full and being part of the landscape. Calm, Peaceful, Magical, Quiet, Interruptions, Connotations, Flickers of Movements in the outskirts of my eyes, Cannot control anything here... why would I want to?