This week of AT was one of the craziest yet. The process of rolling out my shoulders was slightly painful, but the results were completely amazing. While we were laying out our little pinky balls, I had the thought, "This feels terrible, what is Margi doing to us?!" When I got up off the ground, my thoughts shifted to something like, "Where has this technique been all of my life?" I felt light throughout my entire body when we got on our feet. I tend to hold a lot of tension in my shoulders, and I felt like a new woman this week! It was like I was floating, in a way; I wasn't being weighed down by my upper body anymore. James was my partner, and he made the observation that he felt this unified energy throughout his shoulders and arms, like they were operating as one instead of being comprised of separate parts (shoulder, bicep, elbow, wrist, etc.). I didn't connect with the foot roll-out quite as much , and so this whole shoulder roll-out blew me away.
Overall, I think AT is going well. I just feel like I haven't had enough time to really implement it into my every day routine, and that's the only way to see a real difference. We have had a lot of new information and ideas thrown at us in these first few weeks--Linklater, Alexander, text analysis, scene work--so for me, it's been difficult to find a way to bring all of these things together on a daily basis. At times, I find myself falling on bad habits when I'm rehearsing. I guess at this point, all I can do is keep reminding myself. The only way to get rid of bad habits is to replace them with good ones!
Thank you Britta. Yay for happy arms! It is so lovely when they aren't pulling you down. I hope you can keep playing with that shoulder routine. Just a few minutes of attention to the body and some new awareness will take you a long way right now. At some point all of these new ideas will feel more and more like a part of you. Keep up the great work.
ReplyDeleteMy arms felt loose too Britta! I totally felt that my arms felt more free to move than before we did the ball exercise in class. I felt that there was more space between my collarbone and shoulder blade. My arms felt lighter almost like they could float weightlessly. I never feel that I tense my arms on stage but I have always felt that with my arms being really thin they can look long and awkward. I would be nice to feel like my arms are weightless while on stage while still having awareness about what they are doing. In class it felt easier to make graceful movements (at least they felt more smooth, I'm not sure how they looked). Feeling like that before a performance would be great because it could lead to spontaneous movement. I tend not to move much when on stage but when I am actually having a conversation I gesticulate a lot.
ReplyDeleteAlso the re-mapping hand out was very informative because I was also one of the people that considered my arms in 3 joints. Seeing the mapping of the arms I can tell that there are 4 joints and I always knew that but for some reason I never take advantage of the freedom that joint provides. Seeing the re mapping is useful because it reminded me of what I already know.
-Jsizzle aka JC aka Jacqueline Nwabueze
In regards to Jsizzle's comments and Britta's and Ellen's (in the other post), I also agree with several of their comments. I think that the best part of the arms work for me was the instant relief. I left feeling like I could lift a thousand pounds and like I could take on the world one blue wave at a time. The other work we do in class is fantastic for me to go forth into the world and think about things and take too long on the subway to sit down and stand up, but the arms work was in the moment.
ReplyDeleteI also appreciated how the partner aspect played a role. Dawn and I were really in sync, and I learned a lot about the parts of the arm and shoulder!
The hallelujah arms 😂.... I still find it hilarious that we call the exercise or the "after feeling" of the exercise that. But honestly, being able to know that there is a more efficient way to do things with the arms, in terms of moving or using them for an activity, makes me want to do more exercises to completely grasp the mechanics and structure of the arms. After class that day, I honestly felt like because I knew where the energy was coming from in my arms and how my joints work, I was using way less energy to do things because I let my arms actually work from the joint instead of over compensating with muscles. I truly hope I can get to the point where I'm not awkwardly inhibiting my bad habit of gripping things tightly but truly using my arms efficiently because I can only lift my backpack so many times without people thinking, "why does she keep lifting her bag over and over?" Lol.
ReplyDelete-Tamera <3