Skip to main content

Mental Blocks

 I mentioned before the things I had to get over to be able to do a somersault. Like how my brain couldn't comprehend flipping my body over like that. Once I got over that (literally, I guess), my focus could shift to trying to stand up. I've gotten to a point where my feet usually are spread apart enough for standing, but momentum is still difficult without support. 

Aside from my brain adjusting to physical obstacles, it's also working on mental obstacles. When there's a whole class of people watching as you try to process your body's movement, it can be overwhelming. It is important to learn from everyone's experiences, but everyone's experiences are different. Some people are immediately able to do somersaults and cartwheels and handstands. Some are slower, but they get it eventually. So far, I'm just slow. I'm hoping to get it eventually, but when my progress is far behind most of the class, it's difficult to stay with it. 

My anxiety has definitely put a hold on my progress, but my goal is to work in spite of that. I can allow myself to take a mental break sometimes, but I will aim to get on the mat at least once during class.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Thinking about freedom

 Our next movement project is about Freedom. I'm trying to think about what to do with that for mine. There's the freedom of doing whatever for the project. There's freedom to move however we feel. It feels like a very open-ended prompt. My last project was more personal to me. You would never see it outside the classroom because that's where I experienced everything going into that piece. It was reflecting my progress, however limited it was. With this one, I want to do more with movement and expression. I am not a very BIG person when it comes to movement or voice or choices. I find it difficult to make choices, which can be frustrating. So I want to find something where I can just let go and be . 

Movement in my Life

Something I have realized with the movement projects I've been doing for class is that even if I don't consider myself a movement-oriented person, I still do some movement daily. Even if it's just standing up to grab something across the room, or even moving my finger to do stuff on my phone. But for me personally, I realized that when I am alone in my room really listening to music and getting into it, I improvise movement. It's not dancing, but I just feel the music. After classes today, I put in headphones and turned on some music. "The Ballad of Sara Berry" from 35MM by Ryan Scott Oliver came on, and I just got into it (check the link at the bottom). Then I just kept that energy while the songs kept going. Having listened to most of the songs before, I found that I could easily come up with some kind of story on the spot. It felt really good to just let go and move and feel . (Here's the link to one of my favorite covers of it: https://youtu.be/GqSEAv8...

Contact Improvisation

We started working on contact improvisation, working together to create movement and trusting your partner. One exercise was a trust fall where you face each other, lean back and balance, then pull back up in unison, fall back, and grab each other at the last second. I learned that eye contact was really important for this. Keaolani and I were partners, and one thing I used to help us was to keep eye contact and follow the beat of the music playing in class. The action provided momentum to stay balanced. I haven't been able to do much momentum in solo work, so this feeling was very cool to experience.