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Rolling up the spine
Transition from floor to standing
Three minutes
Lying in constructive rest:
❍ Roll to one side of your body, allowing the head to stay relaxed on the floor. Feel the effects of gravity as you lie on your side.
❍ Spread the palms of your hands on the floor and push into the floor to come to seated. Feel the change of gravitational pull as you sit in vertical.
❍ Again, place both palms on the floor in front of you. Press into the hands and simultaneously rotate your pelvis off the floor so there is no weight placed on the knees. You are now in a relaxed push-up position with the pelvis in the air, knees bent, weight supported on hands and feet.
❍ Relax your neck and walk your hands back to your feet, bending your knees as you need, so there is continuous flow.
❍ Slowly roll up your spine, letting the weight drop down into your feet. Allow your head to hang forward until you reach the end of the roll up.
❍ Feel the parts of your body balanced in relation to gravity.
This transition reduces stress on the knees and lower back. Repeat it a few times so the sequence is comfortable. Breathe naturally as you move.
Bodystory
Two hours
Give yourself time to collect as many memories as you can.
• the story of your birth (pre-birth if possible; the health and activities of your mother affect life in the womb)
• your earliest movement memory (earliest kinesthetic sensation you can remember. Examples: being rocked, learning to swim, bouncing on your parent’s knee, falling from a tree, riding a bicycle)
• training techniques (sports, dance, gymnastics, musical instruments)
• environment where you lived (mountains, plains, forests, oceans all affect how you move, how you perceive)
• comments you heard about yourself which shaped your body image (“Oh, what a cute chubby child! Stand Up Straight! He’s going to be tall like his dad. Children are to be seen and not heard.”)
• attitudes towards sensuality, sexuality; gender images
• injuries, illnesses, operations
• nutrition, relationship to body weight, strength, flexibility
• anything else that interests you.
DAY
3
PROPRIOCEPTION AND SENSORY AWARENESS
How do we register body position in space? Without looking at your body, take a moment to observe how you are sitting. How do you know where your feet and arms are in space, the tilt of your head, the curve of your spine? Throughout your body are sensory nerves with specialized receptors to record muscle stretch, pull on tendons, joint compression and the position of your head in relation to gravity. These nerves are referred to as proprioceptors (“self-receivers”), and they give us our kinesthetic sense. Proprioceptors are essential for movement coordination and thus maintain continuous input to the central nervous system for interpretation and response. Proprioceptive receptors can be found in the skeletal muscles, the tendons in and around joints, and the internal ear. Muscle spindles tell us about muscle length, golgi tendon organs detect muscle force and the pull on tendons, joint receptors monitor compression in our joints, and maculae and cristae in the inner ear apprise us of equilibrium. The receptors must transform a stimulus from the external environment into a nerve impulse to be conducted to a region of the spinal cord or brain in order for it to be translated into sensation.
The somatosensory cortex of the cerebrum has a precise map representing sensory information from all parts of the body, and works in conjunction with the cerebellum of the brainstem to maintain a continuous, cumulative picture of the body’s position in space. The cerebellum, in particular, is responsible for constant coordination and correction of posture, movement and muscle tone. Even more fascinating, it holds the image of where you just were, where you are now, and it projects where you will go next. Remember the sensation of reaching for a stair with your foot when there was none? Your brain projection was different from actuality. (See the Nervous System, page 119) Stimuli carried to the spinal cord may initiate a spinal reflex – such as a knee jerk reflex – without input from the brain; those carried to the lower brainstem/cerebellum initiate more complex, subconscious motor reactions such as a reflexive postural shift to relieve muscle tension; sensory impulses which reach the thalmic level of the brain can be identified as specific sensations and can be located crudely on the body such as awareness of generalized pain or tension; those reaching the cerebral cortex can be located clearly on the body, such as awareness of position and movement, and connect with memories of previous sensory information so that the perception of sensation occurs on the basis of past experience.* For example, impact on the shoulder joint as an adult might provoke a protective response based on an injury from a fight in elementary school. Thus we carry a neuromuscular memory of our personal bodystory. Any body part can possibly be brought to our conscious attention with practice; it can also, fortunately, be left to provide information for body functioning without our awareness. Refined movement skills such as partnering in dance, an efficient tennis serve, and a surgeon’s or pianist’s hands in action, necessitate a highly developed kinesthetic sense.
Choice
A thirteen year old wildlife enthusiast was teaching me to handle a milk snake. I like snakes, but as soon as I saw its diamond-patterned body and flashing tongue, I tightened my muscles and stepped back. “The key to holding a snake is never to squeeze it or hold it too tightly,” my young instructor informed me. I let my muscles relax and felt the diverse sensations happening throughout my body. Then I could see the snake more clearly and respond to its particular movements; I could act rather than react. In the moments between perception and response, I had choice.
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At a workshop with Nancy Stark Smith, one of the founders of Contact Improvisation, I was having trouble releasing my weight to be lifted by (or to lift) my partner. I held low level tension in my body all of the time to protect myself. “Tension masks sensation,” she said to the class,” and sensation is the language of the body.”
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“When I became addicted to running,” a friend said, “I stopped. At first I was satisfied with five miles a day, but when I wanted more after twenty miles (when I couldn’t live without it, when my life focus began to be shaped around my passion for my physical high), I knew my need was out of balance.” This moving in response to the sensation of moving is referred to as “motoring” in the evolving language of dance: We feel ourselves move,
