| With many thanks to Greg Holdaway |
|
|
Good Dancers Make it Look Easy
An example of Somatic Movement Education in Dance Education
by Greg Holdaway © 1994
Good dancers don't make it look easy - they make it
easy; ease in movement and postural alignment is an
underlying factor in the development of good dance practise
and a long lived practical enjoyment of dancing.
This paper discusses the way we use our bodies. It considers
the role of muscle tension and proprioception, or body
awareness, in dancers alignment and movement quality
from the perspective of the Alexander Technique. It
then discusses the Alexander Technique as a method for
facilitating ease of movement while dancing.
It benefits both teachers and students to 'make it easy'
for themselves.
Alignment, Tension and Proprioception
Bodily alignment plays a very important part in ease
of movement and coordination. Movement looks better
and feels better, when a dancer or student has a well
balanced alignment.
We all have a characteristic alignment, which is usually
thought of as the arrangement or 'stacking' of our bones
on top of each other. Alignment involves more than this
however, it forms the dynamic series of inter-relationships
between the various parts and structures of our bodies.
It is changing constantly, and yet always changes within
a characteristic pattern, reflecting your personality.
Your alignment reflects the way you 'use' your body
, the way in which you integrate all of your parts together,
how they interact and relate in movement.
It is by their characteristic alignment that we recognise
our friends from a distance, yet our own alignment resides
almost completely out of our conscious awareness. We
have grown used to it or trained ourselves into it,
and like background noise or static we often only become
truly aware of it when it changes. Our alignment affects
all our movement, no matter what the context.
Most teachers take care to direct their students to
have good alignment, what is not so often understood
is how to create good alignment. The relationship between
muscular tension, proprioception and alignment needs
to be considered. Alignment distortion or poor alignment
is usually a consequence of unbalanced and inappropriate
muscular tension in the body.
We have an "anti-gravity reflex", which "integrates
[our] other reflex systems" , keeping us upright
and balanced without any conscious attention or effort.
When this is over-ridden by habitual muscular tension
our alignment is disturbed (Jones, 1976). Our bodies
become 'pulled-down' against our natural tendance to
balance upright.
It is this pulling down which becomes habitual, residing
out of conscious awareness. Yet it is actual muscular
activity being carried out in the body - you are actively
pulling yourself out of balance.
The conventional method of alignment correction, "pulling-up",
succeeds in altering, sometimes drastically, the alignment
of dance students. Specific corrections, for example;
"drop your shoulders", "tuck your pelvis
under", "knees over feet" etc, while
often representing accurate and necessary improvements
in alignment, all tend to generate extra and compensatory
muscle tension throughout the body. (Can you tighten
your fist without tightening your neck or lower back?).
What actually happens is more accurately described as
"pulling-down" - the student strives to correct
by adding more surface muscle tension and, rather than
returning to a natural easy balance and coordination,
succeeds only in further disturbance and distortion
of their system.
As senior Alexander teacher, Marjorie Barstow states;
"You can't get rid of tension by adding tension".
As the student applies conscious effort to alter their
movement pattern or alignment, they gradually become
accustomed to the effort involved - the correction of
the habit becomes a habit itself, holding the moving
body together with muscle tension. They eventually lose
the feeling of doing anything and cannot feel the effort
nor the alignment other than in terms of this is what
feels right.
The unfortunate result is a taught, 'held' looking
mover who, as a consequence of fatigue and a loss of
ease, flow and lightness, loses also their natural joy
in movement - without knowing why.
This is exactly the problem. It feels right to move
in an habitual manner, it feels right to correct faulty
alignment using the same habitual tension pattern. We
become accustomed to a certain level of tension, a certain
style of alignment and it just feels right to work that
way. Even when poor movement quality, restriction and
injury are present it can be very difficult to assist
a trained or training dancer to give up the old habitual
way of moving. For them it often does not feel possible
to move at all without this characteristic tension.
This is what Alexander referred to as 'faulty sensory
appreciation'; it feels to us as if we are 'aligned'
and applying appropriate effort, when if fact, seen
from the outside, we are not.
A graphic example of faulty sensory appreciation is
provided in the following anecdote: Alexander was working
with a young girl who had been unable to walk properly
for some years. Her body was twisted and distorted.
After Alexander had worked with her, and she was "comparatively
straightened out ... the little girl looked across at
her mother and said to her in an indescribable tone:
'Oh! Mummy, he's pulled me out of shape.'"! Alexander
goes on to say; "In accordance with this poor little
child's judgment, her crookedness was straightness,
her sensory appreciation of her 'out-of-shape' condition
was that it was 'in shape' ... Small wonder that all
attempts to teach her had resulted in failure!"
(Alexander, 1923:91)
The principle of faulty sensory appreciation operates
on a very subtle level: when a student holds his or
her arms to the sides behind the line of their body,
the teacher may offer the correction of bringing the
arms further forward, in line with the body (depending
on the style of dance being taught). If asked now what
this feels like, the student will reply that the arms
feel too far forward. Often, the student will very shortly
return to what feels right, i.e. moving the arms back
again. Similarly, a person with a posture which leans
backward in the upper back, when assisted to stand easily
in a balanced upright position, will usually report
that this feels like they are leaning forward. A quick
check in the mirror shows the inaccuracy of the feeling.
Alignment can thus be seen as only one side of the
coin. Tension habits are the other, and both must be
addressed if the student is to regain the accuracy in
proprioception which will allow improvement in movement
quality.
A dancer's habitual alignment and tension habits underlie
and dominate all of their movement, both those developed
before dance training and those developed in training.
An untrained dancer may look like they are "falling
apart", "slumping", "dis-integrating"
or "poorly balanced" with a lack of precise
technique. In this state they are in danger of acute
injury through accident or chronic pain problems due
to poor alignment.
A trained dancer however, is working on their alignment
by "pulling-up" and using conscious effort
to specifically "get it right". By doing so
they are increasing muscular tension throughout their
body, and eventually develop a tension/alignment habit
sometimes referred to as "the dancers grip"
(Conable, 1991:114). The dancer looks "held-together"
and lacks the flow, extension and ease of movement coordination
of less tense colleagues.
Both of these situations rely upon the dancers feel
of what is right to do, their proprioceptive sense,
and in both situations this feeling is inaccurate and
leads to problems.
The muscular tension and faulty alignment associated
with habit and faulty sensory appreciation both before
and after training, interferes with movement quality,
fine movement sensitivity and enjoyment of dancing.
It leads to greater risk of injury - stress related
and accidental injury. Coordination and movement learning
processes are disrupted and greater effort is required
to balance.
A means to improvement
Alexander said "if it is possible for feeling
to become untrustworthy as a means of direction, it
should be possible to make it trustworthy again"
(Alexander, 1932:36).
It is possible to re-educate our sensory appreciation,
making the proprioceptive sense an accurate and sensitive
guide to ease and coordination - this amounts to a training
in body-feeling analogous to specialised training in
visual skills (painter) or aural skills (musician).
It is indeed possible to 'make it easy' for yourself
and your students.
F.M. Alexander discovered an integrating principle of
whole body functioning; he found that the moving relationship
of his head, neck and torso was the major factor influencing
his coordination. Directing the movement of this relationship
and other moving relationships in your body with your
thinking, has the effect of allowing your body to coordinate
itself, using the effort necessary for the activity,
while easily balanced and aligned. The movement looks
and feels natural, flowing and dynamic.
The faulty appreciation of ourselves in movement makes
it very difficult to assist a person to improve their
coordination through the use of words and demonstrations
alone. You may well have discovered something similar
yourself. Alexander developed a particular use of his
hands to guide the movement of the student's body, and
this skill, refined over many years of practise, is
the foundation of the training of the Alexander teachers
of today.
The basic characteristic of this approach is that the
student learns to un-do patterns of habitual tension,
thereby allowing the body to re-establish a natural
easy coordination. The student does not learn any 'new'
movement, or do any Alexander 'exercises'- rather they
learn how to facilitate current movement skills and
assist the learning of new movement skills. This means
that the Technique, once learnt, can be practised during
ordinary dance classes.
The Alexander Technique in dance class
The Alexander Technique incorporates easily into dance
classes of any style.
The experience of the Technique is unique and unusual
and the first consideration is for the dance teacher
to have personal experience of this. The Technique can
only be really appreciated with the delicate guidance
of a qualified Alexander teacher's hands.
Then the students are given both class and personal
instruction in the Technique by a qualified instructor.
As this occurs, the dance teacher finds it possible
to use the insights, concepts and sometimes even the
terminology of the Technique directly during classes
and rehearsals.
In particular, the dance teacher learns how to see movement
quality differently, and to assess the movement organisation
of each student. It becomes easy to identify those students
who are tensing unnecessarily in the attempt to succeed,
and assist them to regain their balanced alignment in
movement. In particular, the learners attention is drawn
to unnecessary tension in the attempt to copy or learn
a movement - and care is taken to prevent or inhibit
this tension.
For the students, this approach can feel less 'dramatic',
than just 'going for it', but the clarity of their understanding
of each movement is enhanced, ensuring clean integrated
movement skill development, especially in energetic
and strenuous movement sequences.
The dance teacher's use of language and instruction
in class becomes attuned to easy, flowing released movement.
Accurate functional information is given during classes,
allowing the students to think accurately about the
way they move to assist their development of more accurate
and easier movement skills.
Conclusions
Simply correcting alignment in dancers is not enough
- tension and movement integration need to be addressed
in the process of correction, to ensure movement is
as easy and coordinated as possible.
Our responsibility as dance teachers is to ensure that
our students move with a minimum of unnecessary muscle
tension and an integrated dynamic alignment from the
start - easing the long process of refinement in mastering
their skill, and avoiding the need for later retraining,
or worse, having to give up dancing due to tension,
pain and injury.
The Alexander Technique is a method which addresses
the sophistication of the moving person. Using a trained
body awareness and accurate knowledge of the way your
body functions, movement becomes comparatively effortless
and you may experience a reawakening of a joy in the
freedom of movement not experienced since early childhood.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Alexander, F.M., Constructive
Conscious Control of the Individual (1923).
Gollancz Paperbacks: London.
- Alexander, F.M. The Use of
the Self (1932). Gollancz Paperbacks: London.
- Conable, B & W (1991). How
to Learn the Alexander Technique, A Manual for Students.
Andover Road Press: Columbus, Ohio.
- Garlick, D (1990). The Lost
Sixth Sense, A Medical Scientist looks at the Alexander
Technique. School of Physiology and Pharmacology,
The University of N.S.W.: Sydney.
- Jones, F.P., Body Awareness
in Action, A study of the Alexander Technique,
Schocken Books: New York, 1976
- Sacks, O., The Man Who Mistook
his Wife for a Hat, Pan Books: London, 1986
www.alexandertechnique.com.au
www.alexandertechnique.com.au/teachers.html
|
|
|
