We then looked at using the pelvis in different ways, we tried an exercise that involved us laying on the floor on uor backs with our feet planted on the floor not in line with our hips but in line with our sits bones we then had to press up using 'yeild and push' through out feet and switching to having more weight in our heels or in our ball of our foot. How does this feel different? well for me personally when putting more pressure on the heel of my foot it felt as if i was curling my pelvis up and shrinking it almost whereas when putting weight through the ball of my foot it felt as if the pelvis and my back were being opened and had more of a sense of lengthening behind the movement.
We also look at the rotation of the hips and different ways of moving your leg around yourself e.g from the front to the side rather than lifting your hip up. Peggy Hackney used the term 'gating' when opening and closing your leg and taking it straight round, opening it up like a gate. A different exercise was to feel your pelvis rotating underneath your leg almost at your sits bones and feel the femur rotating. When I practiced this at first, laid on my side on the floor I could feel my legs start to work and ache this must have been because I was using them in a different way, I could especially feel the rotation in my inner thigh and feel my pelvis rotating. I could feel the two way battle that my body was having because I knew deep down I wanted to lift my hip up to rotate my leg because this is the easier way but trying to stop it from doing it and using my femur and the ball and socket joint that connects the femur and the pelvis physically rotating. Apparently we don't use this joint enough we use the knees and the back to compensate for not using it when in fact it makes everything more natural to do even walking!
This video shows one of the sequences that we have been using to explore all the principles. It gives me a chance to feel how different principles work on different feelings rather than having a new sequence for each principle. I feel I will be able to apply this more to future work and technique and it wont be just for that one sequence. For this sequence today you can see the pelvis and the legs working from the pelvis, when we first go on the floor, the legs are hanging from the pelvis because all the core is doing the work. To see myself do this I can see that I don't use my 'scoop' this means I'm not holding my core correctly if I used my scoop it would give me more stability and strength to hold things for a length of time. Also on part of the video when we lean on to hand I have been lifting my leg up right to the side rather than in line with my hips and my turn-out this might mean that it is slightly forward compared to my body but this is the correct line.
At the very start of this video it shows the idea of the gating and the rotation rather than lifting from the hip, I hope this shows in the video because I find that when practicing these principles I get the grasp of the idea but when coming to put them into practice in an actual routine its not that I forget about them but I feel I have a lot to think about so its almost like an after thought or I remember in some places but not others. Can you see the gating and also the yield and push? The yield and push is a big part to play on the handstand I have to really yield into the floor before pushing to go out and reach out into the handstand. I also need to try to go through my feet more when coming out of the handstand which makes it more fluid and helps regain myself for the next movement.
This is an old video of the same routine as shown above, when watching this for the first time I thought I seemed grounded but from watching the updated version I feel I am more grounded and I am focusing more on the yield and push for example right at the very end doing the arabesque line and using the yield and push to get out of it, I think I am focusing on more in the new video above. I think I can see an improvement can you? One thing I really do need to focus on is walking out of the movement remember to take my pelvis with me and not leave it behind, walk heel first and feel connected to the floor, lift out of my waist, it looks then as if your walking for a purpose and not just relaxed.
From watching new and old videos I can have a sense of improvement and I can see the focus on the principles of the bartenieff fundamentals, I think its making my work stronger and I hope to take this on to other technique classes and also in performance and choreography also give me the opportunity when teaching to try things out on students to help them improve.
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