‘Feeling the calm at the center of the cyclone.’ ‘Feeling the stillness within motion.’ These are some of my favorite metaphors for how dance can feel for me.
Think about it: most movement does not seek to “stabilize” but rather to move though space, whether the motion is small or large. It’s important to develop balance, sensitivity and control in place, like doing dance adagio movements that mostly stay still around a planted standing foot, or “stabilization work” on a boss ball or some such. That will not be enough to develop coordination skills for moving through space, which is a different use pattern, IMO.
I am not working ‘scientifically’ here, though it may sound like that. I am trying to express the feeling that showed up for me in the course of ‘discovering’ or uncovering what had already been going on for me and probably most “movers”.
I’m working with the large Gym Ball to help people explore eccentric muscle contraction, but also while going off-center in movement. I feel that this more than many things I have come up with helps develop the sense of staying ‘centered within the movement’ in a coordinative sense.
This is as usual a work in progress. Stay tuned.
The Calm Center in Motion
