Questions for my Second year

Going into my second year I have some questions about my dance practice.

• Now I have the building blocks on how to embody my movement how can I let my movement become embodied?
• I have some understanding now of my solar plexus but how I can I extend this knowledge to the rest of my body?
• How do I let my body initiate the movement and for my mind to follow and trust?
• How can I lengthen out my appendage skeleton more in order to aid new and interesting movement my body doesn’t usually do?

Who knows if I will find any answers to these questions but it will be fun trying to find answers!

 

What are your questions?

Yoga, first lesson back

Also today we had our first Yoga lesson back from our summer break. i certainly feel like i have worked out now.

I didnt realise how much my body was out of shape and although i have excercised i have not done much yoga so therefore it was a shock to the system when it came to each sequence in the session.

im glad to be back doing yoga and looking forward to Pilates tomorrow morning.

I intend for this term to work on my stamina during yoga lessons as i tend to tire half way through because it is intense and my body isnt used to supporting the rest of my body i.e lifting myself off the floor. plus i intend to work more on my balance which yoga will help me so i must not give up during balances.

Overall my body aches!

Lauren Moore- Extract from "Body Stories"

Today was our second day back into our second year and were able to watch Lauren Moore's new masters piece. it was great watching Lauren as she was like me a few years ago because she studied at Cov Uni too.

Her piece was great to watch because i could connect on an emotional level as i felt her vunerability and anger. After her piece she explained what it was about and here are my notes:

The whole piece was based on investigating cultural memory and the embodied process ultimately finding who we are. the process took a heavy influence on structured improvisation and is actually part of a duet. the other dancer would actually make Lauren do things such as "through her" around. Lauren and her partner combined their own body stories in order to make this piece. their body stories take on childhood memories and feelings that they felt. they wanted to relive these emotions and to make it as real as possible. they wanted to feel these emotions through their bodies and to not fake but to really feel the emotions. i.e pain and hurt, where Lauren through herself on the floor multiple times. Repetition and patterns are used to find memories and feelings. there is always a constant bare bones of the material but each time is different. still in keeping with the emotions.

After watching the piece i got a real feel of connecting memory and the body and led me to ask the question, what does the body remember? and what does the mind remember?

Ask yourself this. i certainly will take this question into my second year of practise.

Day 4- Summer Dancing 2012

so i just thought id post what i have done on my forth day!

as i didnt dance today i cant really talk about much in this post so ill just tell you about what i did do, i washed writing off alot of walls! i rolled up 4 dance floors with hannah and set up the room ready for tomorrow :)

this is all :)

still having a great time :p

Day 3- Summer Dancing 2012

ok so yesturday was the longest day ever! however i had an amazing day in the workshop with Kathy and watching some performances and discussions!

so the workshop was brilliant as it was the day before and our main focus was IMPROVISATION! and THE UNDERSCORE! having got used to improvising with a different group i wanted to challenge mself and throw myself in with improvising with people that i had not danced with the day before. it was great to do the underscore and we spent alot of time on it so we could take as long as we wanted in each stage. it didnt matter where everyone else was as long as i knew in my body and if i didnt i pressed the idiot button! i wish we could do more of this in our lessons and have put this forward because it has given me a great experience and the more we improvise the less scary it is!

having a blast at summer dancing :)

Summer Dancing- Day 2

so actually today i took part in a 7 hour workshop led by Kathy Crick and i must say even though it has been a long day ive enjoyed myself to the max! it was great to attend a workshop led by someone who has been working and choreographing for years and is different to our usual teachers. Kathy loves the fact that we can just explore and we dont have to be exploring the same things at the same time. she asked us what we liked to get from the workshop and i said sense of discovery and having more time can really let us find ourselves, especially after a few weeks away!

we did plenty of contact and solo work today but my favourite excercise today was simple but so effective. i partnered a lad called Lewis and he just seamed like a really down to earth lad who wanted to get the same outcome as me in the excericise. one person led and one person followed and the follower would walk backwards putting trust in the leader who was walking forwards. we were holding each others shoulders and then we were told to think of a place in our lives where we feel completely comfortable and happy. the follower would then tell the leader all about the place whilst having eyes closed so we had to trust our partner even more. my place was my garden and his was a park in his home town. once we had shared any essence we felt strongly about each others stories we had to move to what we felt. lewis mentioned mud alot so i focussed on the softness and resistance on the bottom half of my body. this excercise was brilliant because we got inspiration from other people. i had never met lewis before and being inspired by a stranger really gets me thinking. i really enjoyed the workshop and i cant wait for tomorrows workshop with kathy!

also myself and Hannah partnered a bit today and we had a great time using our feet instead of our hands in an improvisation task and we really enjoyed challenging the other by putting pressure and making it difficult on each others legs.

Bring on tomorrow :)

Summer Dancing- Day 1

ok so yesturday was the first day of Summer Dancing 2012 and i have to say i had an utter blast in the open jam today. it was just so great to get moving again as ive had a few weeks off dancing the way we do at uni.

plus we had live music and i must say i was a little worried when i saw a saw come out of one of the musicians cases, but all was well he played the saw not attacked anyone! it was so great to dance with new people as well, even dancing with my lecturers was brilliant even though i did feel a little scared because it was hard for me to tell myself that they were just participating!

i really had a blast in the open jam and all i can say was it was the most SURREAL experience ive have ever had the pleasure to be involved in. i was just in my own little bubble tapping the ground with my feet and one of the musicians was walking towards me playing the flute and started bouncing off my movement and i did the same with his music. theres not many chances to participate in a open jam by wow i didnt want it to end!

:)

The War Memorial Park

Facts:

• it is coventrys largest park
• it opened in July 1921
• it is a tribute to the fallen soldiers of the First World War
• Every tree in the park represents one of the fallen Soldiers
• the war memorial is 90 foot high

As i only live 15 minutes away from the city centre i do visit the memorial park often to remember. although my family dont live in coventry i do have strong links to the city. my grandfather layed the final piece of the Coventry Cross. also during the reconcilliation operation in coventry and other areas my grandfather and his reg adopted a young boy whos german father sadly died during the rebuild of my church. the boy was in their care until it was time to leave.

Performance, Finding Abbey

so i went to see some of the 3rd years performances and this one was basedv on Site Specific work. this was ideal to watch as we are currently doing our own site work and assessment. although we did not see it live we watched it on big screens in an installation which we could view from any part of the room. there were multiple screens to watch and on each were different films of the site work. the work focussed on exploring woods and trees in the local area. there were some interesting view points and areas that the performers explored and documenting this would be an excellent way to look back and see how you could develop the practise.  

Another score, Orientation

so this score we focussed on just orientating round our chosen space and we were to draw the space and to write down what we notice and feel when we do the score. this is my drawing of our site and the site we chose is slightly closed in and had some delicate trees and plants. we chose a familiar site to work with because we wanted to expolre it deeper and to see whether we felt any different about it on a different day. i love this area of the

The RSVP Cycle Anna Halprin

so to help us in our assessment in our SR project we were introduced to the RSVP CYCLE that was made by Lawrence and Anna Halprin.

It stands for

R, RESOURCES, which is what we have to work with i.e human resources
S, SCORES, which describe the process leading to the performance
V, VALUACTION, looking at the results and evaluating what workas and what doesnt work
P, PERFORMANCE, the resultant of the scores

this is a great way in developing our score for our SR project and i intend to use this as its a great template to work from to get the best possible outcome.

Dorner, Bodies in Urban Spaces

Dorner: Bodies in Space

Austailan artist Willi Dorner squeezes human bodies into nooks and crannies for his bodies in urban spaces project. groups of dancers and climbers wear brightly coloured clothes run through busy malls and high streets and cram themselves into doorways and gaps in any public buildings. the attention of the police hasnt been positive and have stopped performances there and then.

i think this is fantastic and i wish i could have been part of the project. i think its so out there and in the public eye that it presents a great message that everyone can enjoy and be apart of.

A group Score in the Park

One of our first group scores in the park was,

Focus on the Spine, levels and working with limbs for support, breath practise seeing with moving and offer pauses with points of contact with one and other. move with intention of Bones and Muscles.

the image above maps where i moved around in the space. at first i really did think people were looking at me and i felt really exposed. also it was raining and was aware that i was cold and wet. this made me reserved and not commited to fully use the trees and ground around me. another problem for me was that others in the score obstructed me in my pathway and i had to adapt and change what i wanted to explore. i think i am getting there with trying out new things and not being afraid but i still have reservations .

Staircase Score

to introduce us to other places to perform in our SR classes we conducted a score that involved us being on a staircase. for me my main focus was to open up my senses to see what i could hear, feel, see etc.

i found myself making sound withour realising and then i would move to different textures and how the sound differs. for example the metal bars made a loud echoing sound whereas the carpet was dull sounds that were quiet.

at first this was challenging for me because its not the dancing im used to but i think as i stuck with it i found new ways to dance and found myself giving myself to the environment and how i could move.

Bedroom, Lounge, Garden, Street

we conducted a score in class to help us in our SR classes. this score took me through all sections of my body and how i can transition into them when i felt more confident. there are 4 elements to the score and are represented by a room in the my make believe house. the 4 areas are,

1. BEDROOM, we start here and the main purpose in this room is we explore our fingertips and toes by layign down and only moving these areas. the aim is to not move the air around me.
2. LOUNGE, here we take the movement a bit further and explore the edges of my body, here i can lenghthen out and reach out and explore my own dance bubble
3. GARDEN, here the movement gets bigger and we can now move to 4 limbs for a while and eventually onto 2 limbs but still not traveling through the space
4. STREET, here we can move freely in the space travelling through the other people, we notice the community around us but still be aware of what i am doing and staying with my movement practise

personally i found the GARDEN most clearly as i really understood what was required and was able to experiment with more movements on different limbs. i would say this is my comfort zone and i would happily stay there for a while

the BEDROOM i found a little more difficult to concentrate and to fully give myself to exploring i think becasue there isnt much movement involved i found it hard to concentrate because i like to move in a big way and so paying attention to the smaller movements was harder for me

i found transitioning between the rooms was nice going in 1,2,3,4 but i didnt really enjoy it when it came to reversing the process. i think this is becasue i prefer to move on the floor and then get up as i feel like i grow and i will be ready to move. however going the opposite way i felt a little restricted and i found it difficult to transtiton back down to the floor

this is something i will develop into my movement practise as i feel it will enable me to understand my body a little more .

Score with Skin

During one of our SR classes we conducted an indoor score focussing on the skin. the skin is the largest living organ that we own and has thousands of tiny receptors which allows us to feel and sense things. this score made me focus on just how sensitive my skin is to the simplest little touch or even just laying down on the ground and allowing myself to feel the ground on the areas of skin that connect. the iimage here shows how i felt when i had finished the score. i did feel like an avatar a little in the sense that when they touch the ground it lights up and i had this imagery when i was in the score i felt clearly the exact parts of my body that were in contact with the ground.

this score made me realise just how much we take feeling to granted and that we need it to survive yet we dont think about it at all. for instance now i am sitting on a chair and until i really think i dont pay attention to the contact i have.

What is Site Responsive Dance?

so our next module is site responsive so i thought i would just have a think at what it means to me

• Working Outisde
• Chance for the public to see work
• moving out of the conventional space
• Marc Brew has done work outisde
• Trisha Brown also likes working in unconventiaonal spaces
• we conducted our Red Letter day performance at the start of the year
• i have had previous experience in working outside in my A level Performing Arts

Imagery For neutral Spine

I recently took part in a Pilates Teching class and just thought it would be great to share my imagery for neutral spine. i think this will really help with our other classes because we should always find a neutral stance before every lesson. Though it might be of some help:

• Spirit level hip bone to hip bone and must not move
• zipping up a pair of trousers, that will activate the transversis
• Breath and relax
• Naval sucking down a plughole on the breath out
• no tension in the neck
• Staying parallel
• let the skull float!

Enjoy finding neutral spine!

Florence Peake Workshop

So recently we took part in a workshop with artist Florence Peake. We basically had a blast by being creative in our Duet partners mapping each others movement on paper with pens. Myself and Ban had a good time creating and listening to each other in moving and drawing.

We experimented with pressure, force, body parts, heavy, light, rolling, stamping

Basically anything we felt like we could do on a big sheet of paper. while our partner would draw what they found interesting ont he paper. there were times where we smudged and creased the paper but thats all part of the creative process so we made it work.

We experimented with imagining painting the paper with our whole body in different ways, we had to get every part on the paper, i.e ear, arm pit and inside thigh!

I think it would be great to do this again but with differnet mediums such as paint or charchol. we would get messy but we could experiment more with whatever our bodies desire to do!

I enjoyed moving more than drawing around ben. i think it was because i enjoyed creating different sounds and working with pressure on the paper more.

Here are the end pieces!

GREEN@CU, COLLECT, CATEGORISE, RECYCLE

So after we did our own exploration of sculpting objects we saw and participated in "COLLECT, CATEGORISE,RECYLCE" by the third and second years for a project running at the university. It took place in the Lanchaster Gallery.

I had alot of fun taking part in this as we got to use the items in the space as clothes, making the items into patterns and even got to take anything home we wanted as part of recycling the items at the end of the performance. We spent half an hour just moving items around and basically playing with them to create a durational performance, i guess to anybody that just watched didnt have half as much fun as what I did!

Find 3 objects... Go!

Right so in preparation for seeing the Recycling piece from the third and second years we did our own little workshop. We found 3 objects and what we had to do make sculptures by moving the objects one at a time.

My findings were:
It was great to use the radio so it didnt just become a visual piece.
was great to see how others interpret the objects and place them places where I wouldnt
Arranging ourselves within the piece was good because we could explore the spaces we created with the objects plus we ourselves became part of the piece.
each object had its own properties so i questioned, What did it feel like? How does it move? How does it support a body? What can it do?

Here are the images of our own sculpture we made.
Artists: Whole Class!

A kick phrase from Florence Peake

Okay so this is a phrase we did with Florence Peaka a while ago and I just wanted to share this with you and any comments would be great. I'd like to know if it flows well? if you can see how my core is engaged to be able to keep balance?

I think doing Pilates and Yoga classes really helps with stabling my body when my Apendage skeleton moves more than my core Axial skeleton

Artists: Abbie H

Letting my Skull relax

In this phrase there are several places where i need to let my head relax. i need to learn how to just let the crown of the head feel the gravity and just "send my head" down to the floor. An example of this in this phrase is when i do the handstand. if you lok closely i raise my head which comes from my previous training in acrobatics. where i should be keeping my eyes on the ground below me. this is to get a nice long line in the spine. when i look up it breaks the line and creates tension in my neck which could lead to injury, this supports my body story in keeping my Axial Skeleton in line.

Another place is where i roll on the floor. I could let my head fully relax on the floor and give the weight of my skull to the floor. having tension around the head and neck can lead to prooblems later on in life

Artist; Abbie H

Just another Phrase

Whilst looking at my documents I recorded this phrase we did in technique lesson. My main aim for this phrase is to keep the fluidity and smoothness throughout whilst letting the head relax.

I found from watching this back that I hold alot of tension in my feet. This is due to my background in Ballet and modern where I have been taught to always keep my feet pointed. I have learnt from watching this back not to be afarid of realxing in the feet when they are resting on the floor. the less tension i have to more it will flow i think, plus it will help with relaxing the whole body.

Also I have found keeping low to the ground in the swooping motion into the downward dog is a it difficult for me due to have longer legs, it means i have to stay lower for longer whilst making sure my legs are in the correct position so they dont hurt or get twisted up.

Artist: Abbie H

Siobhan Davies Scrapbook

When I started University I did not know who Siobhan Davies was but was interested as to how she has contributed to modern dance in this era. On her website http://www.siobhandaviesreplay.com/ you canc reate your own scrapbook of her work that you are interested in. I have mainly used my scrapbook to help me create new ideas from her pieces. Plus I am very interested with the still images of artists in different body lines. I like how the body can be tested to be able to create these amazing shapes and lines. For example this image http://www.siobhandaviesreplay.com/record.php?id=1904&view=metadata from "Plain Song" 1991 shows me just how the body can move and make a great shape in the space.

Although my scrapbook isnt very big at the moment I would like to create a new scrapbook that involves more video work and the creative process to show me how one idea can be developed into a final piece.

Year 2 IPP preformances

A few days ago we watched 4 year 2 pieces of work. Each 1 was very different and unique each exploring and answering questions about themselves and society.Below are the programme notes we were given along with my thoughts and feelings.

The first piece was by Fiona Jackson and entitled "The traces left behind". I think preforming in an Art gallery itself made the piece very visual and calming. There was something about the quiteness as well as I watched the performer explore with art materials and her body on paper and on herself.

 "Stages" by Oana Rotariu was the second piece I feel was an exploration of a very personal emotion the artist has. Her stimuli was a photo of her Grandmother and so her experience would be very different for her and the audience. She worked with material and how they felt and moved. I like the uniqueness as everytime she moved the material it changed everytime.

 The thrid piece was "Behind the mask" by Julia McCaughley. This I felt was the piece I connected with the most because it made me question just how material things like make up are. It made me question just what is perfection? and how make up is a comfort blanket for most women.

The last piece was called "fieldwork" by Joaba Tischkau. This piece to me was a little more complex and I did feel the space she performed in was perfect because I just thought I was invading her space and that I was watching her in her room. This piece I think deals with OCD as she arranged all of her things into catergories and colours. She also spoke in her native language of German. Which added an extra layer, the piece became audioable as well.

Sculpting in pairs revisit

So from a previous post myself and Steph explored with sculpting with our bodies. It was suggested we filmed our exploration and see how each transition happened. Here is the video, I hope you enjoy it. I think from this video there is alot of good ideas that can be explored further. For example adding in movements or changes of levels in a more precise way to make it a little clearer of how each shape is formed with our bodies.
Artists, Steph D, Abbie H

Playing with Sight and Sound, Duet Rehearsal

Ok so in this rehearsal we decided to play with how if you take sight away we really on our other senses to make sense of our surroundings, and in this case we used sound. In this video Ben has his eyes closed and I am moving around as quite as possible. The aim for Ben is to find where I am in the room and for me to keep Ben guessing as long as I can. This is an exploration and will hopefully lead us onto something solid to put in our duet. I think this exploration works beacuse in everyday life we don't really pay much attention to our hearing, and when we do we can see it gets enhanced when sight is taken away.

As the person trying not to much any sound I found it difficult to move around the space and when Ben got close to me It was difficult to move out of the way. However I did like what happened to my movements because my body was more aware of what was happeniing to it. For example I worked through my feet to make no sound.

As for Ben it must be difficult to move around in the space with his eyes closed as he is moving around trusting his own instincts to move to where he thought he could hear sound.

If you would like to comment that would be great on your thoughts from this exploration :)

Todays Warm-up

We started todays class with doing our warm-up we usually do working on alignment of the body and in particular for me the alignment of the skull and allowing the skull to float. i tried to imagine strings from my ears into the air and my ears shooting up into the sky almost like a puppet. I am then suspended by these strings allowing the skeleton to just hang and the skull to float. During the warm- up I was thinking about the crown of the head being the highest point of the body. rising up onto the balls of the feet whilst the arms are in second position, allowing the shoulder blades to spread across the back and the arms to lengthen right up until the fingers are lengthening out into the space, allows me to really think about relaxing the tension in the skull and jaw. This also gives me a chance to practise stacking each bone on top of each other aligning the skeleton into the correct position. For me having a floating skull is really important as I have always been taught to lift my chin, this of course causes the skull to be out of line with the spine. I will always be thinking about the floating skull during lessons to help me improve.

Does anybody know any more warm- up examples to help me feel my floating skull?

Phrase from SRT, Florence Peak

This is a phrase we learnt from when we had Florence Peak come in a lead an SRT class. The idea for this is to really think about dancing on a big pillow, especially at the start when I am rolling around on the floor. this is to help me find a state of total relaxation. This poetic imagery really helps me understand how to move as visually it is clear for me to make sense of the movement.

This choreography isnt what I wouold normally do. This focuses more on suspension and force all through the breath. Also I am trying to make the moves flow into one. There should be no fixed point in the dance and it should blend into one.

Artist: Abbie Hannaby

Feedback:

Does the imagery of the big pillow work for you and why?

Any feedback on the video to improve?

The Sponge Dance

During one of our SRT classes we were greater by this in the middle of the room...

It is a line of wet sea sponges of different sizes. We could feel these sponges and to me they felt very rubbery and sprung back into place when I squeezed them. With this image in mind we were told to imagine our bodies were sponges and we were to move to create our own sponge dance.

Findings:
At first it was difficult for me to imagine my bones were sponges and even the joints that are physically hard trying to imagine them as soft sponges as I moved is difficult. the more I commited I found it was easrer to give in and imagine my bones could move just like sponges do folding and expanding.

I found feeling the sponges first gave me more of an image to work with. The sponges felt soft and I could manipulate them into small shapes and letting them expand.

Duet Rehearsal

Ok so myself and Ben had a rehearsal today and we spent about 3 hours working in the studio trying out different ideas that we have been speaking about.

We started by doing a short warm-up by improvising together with our eyes closed for 5 mins and then 10 mins. this worked for us in a previous lesson and soon found that having our eyes closed opens up so many different ideas and feelings.

From this we talked about how our other senses are heightened when our eyes are closed. for example i could hear Ben breathing infront of me so i knew where he was because i could hear him. We found this very interesting as we sometimes felt finding each other was difficult but also interesting to dance.
We began to experiment with the other senses such as sound and touch. With sound we looked at a piece made by Rosa Danst Rosa which experiments with natural and man made sound e.g slapping hands on the floor and breathing heavily. Heres our ideas from each sense that we thought we could explore.

And this is the video we watched by Rosas Danst Rosas. I think the timing of each dancer is amazing and something myself and Ben are exploring together doing certain things at the same time and seeing what effect it has on both ourselves and the audience.

Surfing

I have been looking at my journal and found the evidence from when we experimented with surfing over each other. Although the drawings in my journal are not clear the writings help me to understand the technique of the rolling.

I found the more me and my partner practised the more fluid it got. The key idea here is to just go for it and commit fully. It you don't commit then you can run the risk of injuring yourself he your partner. Also you cannot be afraid to give your weight onto the other person. No one will judge.

Probably the most important thing here is to never stop rolling. As long as you have the momentum the rolls will happen smoothly and not look awkward . Here is my entry for this roll.

Can you think or anymore rolls that would offer giving and receiving weight? Maybe a more difficult version of this surging roll?

Further reflection from blog session

Having looked at the videos posted from the blog session I have noticed that my posture isn't great. When I looked at my feedback video I was sat down curled over. I realise now this isn't good for my spine and could lead to later problems in life. A way to tackle this is to sit up against the wall and feel just how stacked my spine is. I then will sit away from the wall and Capture that same feeling. I think for me I have to actively think about sitting up and keeping a straight spine.

Just something I noticed...

Any imagery I could use to help me with this?

Phrase & Peer Feedback (Travelling across the floor)

I thought it would be useful for me to film a phrase and to get peer feedback on how I can improve. this phrase involves moving across the floor making sure it is fluid and it almost skims across the floor in one motion. For me this is exactly what I was thinking about, making sure there were no sudden movements that would make the phrase look awkward and difficult. Here is the phrase.

After this I perfromed it to my peers and they gave feedback on what they saw. Thankfully they noticed the fluidity I wanted to show. For me this is important as the phrase is on the floor and a bit complicated with the legs, having long legs I found this phrase a little difficult to keep it smooth and low to the ground. this is my feedback and i agree with the end comments that Yoga will help me more to keep my core engaged all of the time and to keepp lifted up off the floor.

Do you have any more comments to give me from this piece? Maybe you could suggest more feedback reguarding keeping the smoothness or the overall look?

Free writing

So in our improvisation classes we have created a number of free writing entries in our journals. For me I found the more I practised this the more I let go and let my mind be one step behind of my writing hand. I found it difficult at first to not think about my next words. Looking back at some of my entries some of it doesn't make sense but that is ok, there are certain phrases that could help with creating pieces. I will continue to free write at the end of lessons to express what I may have picked up during the lesson. Here are some examples of my free writing that I want to share.

Can you think of any phrases I could start with for my free writing?

Silent Walking

Ok so looking through my artists journal I saw my entry from when we practises silent walking around the building with a partner. The aim for me was to observe objects, structures and sounds that we wouldn't normally observe in everyday life. We spent ten mins walking around, not even thinking about where we were going. when we finished we wrote down what we remembered from our journey. This would then become a stimuli that we could create from. Here is what I observed and my feelings from this experience.

Axial Skeleton

These two images represent how my spine and pelvis felt after a technique lesson. The first image shows a rather rooted and restricted feeling of my spine and how it was stiff at the beginning of the lesson. Although I felt strong in my core supported by the axial skeleton I did feel that I couldn't really engage and free up my upper body in moving.

After the lesson I drew another image of what my axial skeleton felt like. It felt loose and fluid in between the vertebrae and that I had created space during the lesson. This then helped me to move more freely.

Cinderella 2012

First Powerflow Yoga Lesson

Ok so today was my first Powerflow Yoga lesson and suprisingly I found it ok to begin with. Don't get me wrong it is very taxing and it takes alot of strength which Idon't have... yet. We began doing similar sequences to warm the body and heart up but adding in longer breath's for us to challenge us. For example in the downward dog we had to hover our knees above the ground and pulse up and down to increase strength in our legs and arms. We did this alot through the lesson and to be honest by the end I had to release my knees to the ground to relax as my strength and stamina began to dip.




We also did some new stretches to get deeper into our muscles. This did challenge me as although Iconsider myself flexible these stretches seem to stretch muscles that I had never stretched before. For this reason I did find it tough but keeping with the breath really helped as every out breath I could sink into the stretches more.




I look forward to continuing with Powerflow and hope my stamina will increase and help me connect with my body more.

Sculpture Work with Steph continued exploration

Following a previous post myself and Steph decided to explore more about making sculptures with our bodies in a continual improvised way. Here is the video of our exploration into this. Looking back on it I think we could hold our posititions a little longer to fully appreciate the shapes we are making with our bodies. however watching to movements into these shapes is interesting because when you are improvsing you dont really take notice of what your body is doing. generally you just listen to what your body wants to do and your mind has no say in this.I like the transitions we have made and I think further exploration into this can really show me how creative the body can be into making these shapes




Artists: Abbie H, Steph D

Dear Blog

I'm sorry I've neglected you recently but as of now I will tend to you starting from now :) x