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| Photo: Arthur Borden |
Annelies teaches Body Awareness (DAN-1030) and Modern Dance (DAN-1111) at the Community College of Vermont in Burlington.
Why practice Body Awareness:
We have experiences where we know we feel content, satisfied, and comfortable in our bodies. These moments are brief. More often we are trying to make ourselves content, provoked by some feeling of dis-ease and lack of gentleness toward our situation and the way we may be feeling.
The Body Awareness class develops the posture and movement of the body through examination and practice of a variety of body awareness techniques. Emphasis is on the importance of proper alignment, energy flow, flexibility and strength, body/breath coordination and tension-relief exercises.
Body Awareness defined:
Living fully through the sensations and experiences that are felt through the body. We can learn to respond from an acknowledged awareness of inner sensations toward outer experiences in a way that is in harmony with what is happening, rather than what we paint on it by way of projections. We can begin to find this natural state through movement and "coming home" to the body. Movement can become free, spontaneous, coordinated and fluid like an animal, not through tremendous repetition of exercise, but through developing awareness and clarity about how energy moves through the body and how consciousness resides in every tissue of the body.
We come to Body Awareness not realizing that there are areas in the body that seem very dull, inactivated or without sensation. Body Awareness asks us; what can you feel right now? How are you responding to what is happening? Is it a balanced response or am I subject to habitual patterns that are leading me into the same routine that leaves me feeling dissatisfied, disempowered, empty or confused.
Why is feeling body sensation important?
As we learn to be more centered through the body, we become more acquainted with it, like a friend, and confidence, familiarity and trust grows. There is more space in the body for the mind to be calm. Consciousness at the tissue level. We can experience feeling whole, more positive, stronger in heart, more alive, and have access to more energy. When this occurs, we can respond more clearly and communicate more directly with what is occurring. We can become more responsible.
This work is born from a time that was more indulging. It is expressive and exploratory like dance. It is structurally accurate like yoga and dance. It is fun and active like sports and dance. These days, people look for body training that is efficient and practical, like going to the gym and watching the news as they are running the Elliptical. They are in jeopardy of injury due to lack of clarity in how to use the body. They also are not receiving the joy and richness found when slowly, consciousness within the body becomes familiar.
In this class, we are slowing it down, breaking it up, becoming precise enough to allow ourselves to sense what is happening. We are making a deeper connection to our body, our mind and therefore, our actions. Eastern Traditions have always done this. Even their medical system, like Acupuncture acknowledges sensation and awareness as a key component to health.
We tend to think that the body is under the control of the mind and the mind is frankly out of control when it cannot be grounded in the body. We say, "having" a body rather than saying, "being" a body. In reality, you cannot separate them. The work that we will be exploring brings mind to the fundamental level in the body, the cell.
We also have been taught to be reasonable, conditioned to fall into a standard paradigm. Imaginary students who have intelligence but do not fall into the standard paradigm become considered poor students. These powerful influences lead us to not feel. We develop self-protection because our feelings and sensations become overbearing when they are not met. We get defensive, we build up bodily tone and this blocks the natural flow of energy.
Touch:
"We learn to love through feeling love: The body-feeling image we have of ourselves as sensitive or insensitive, sensuous or unfeeling, relaxed or tense, warm or cold, is largely based on our tactile experience in infancy and subsequently reinforced by our experiences in childhood." (Ashley Montagu)
Awareness Tools to help you through this class:
Annelies Smith