Sensation and body acceptance

In class this morning (given by the excellent Robert Hewitt) I spent some time working on getting the balance right between - I think - sensation and muscularity.

The first sensory task, starting at the barre, was finding and accepting my physical limitations. With each single port-de-bras I was telling the body "OK, seems you won't go further and that's fine. This is about you telling me how to work, not vice versa".

That simple little thought seemed to initiate a wealth of physical feedback. Perhaps the most immediate result was better balance. Now, that truly got me thinking:

Physicality and psychology can be so wonderfully related in dance. Even in general language we use movement-specific words like "balance" to describe mental states. That is one example of how experience of mental and the physical states is similar.

So, if balance depends on sensation, and sensation depends on accepting your body, and physical and mental balance are as closely related as I experience them to be, it shows how we need to accept physical limitations to achieve mental and physical balance.

I guess dancers (and perhaps non-dancers, if any such beings exist) should take responsibility for themselves and actively protect themselves against the more oppressive body imagery around us. It might mean turning the TV off when people on it get too skinny..

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