The Psoas connection is a class i have taught with different foci, sometimes it is more a movement analysis class, sometimes i gear it more towards movement integration and dancing. The material comes out of my research on how to use myoreflex principles for dancing. i have been teaching the material for a while, yet it still feels it is evolving and changing.

The issue of this idoc is how is it possible to transform deep muscular sensation and detailed anatomical information into a morning class, without getting lost in the ocean of bodily and cognitive knowledge. And I also hope to inspire to dig into concrete anatomical information as a resource for dancing.

In training classes, especially in 90 minutes it can be a challenge to make the transition from a focus on sensing to a focus on moving.This turned out to be true for the first day in Zürich, where I start with the psoas location and palpation. Many people experienced tightness in the psoas area, and there was a tendency to sink into details of sensing, releasing, next to the question what makes a psoas tight? In my opinion, it is often an incomplete transition from sitting to standing, such as doing office work, sitting down, with increasing tension in the body, and then not doing a complete shift into standing, releasing the hip joints. Because the psoas is also related to stress and fear, it sometimes takes conscious effort to let go again if we do not have the option of immediate physical release of stress.

How to keep the awareness in the inside and cultivate being ready on the outside? Instead of avoiding movement patterns, I rather want to encourage to embrace and complete these patterns as a way of differentiating and possibly letting go of them.

On the 2nd day I planned to focus on lower thoracic spine as a support for the lower back by releasing into the length of the back. Only to be astonished that there was a whole new group of people in class. For a moment I was tempted to redo yesterday's class. But as there were also some people from the day before, I started with Trude Cohn' s "switch score", as a way of warming up the body as well as engaging our visual perception, mirror neurons in watching others warming up. It is a quite simple score of moving to music, witnessing others moving to randomly switching music (I use shuffle on my mp3), and increasing the switching speed inbetween. It is a crucial exercise for me, especially for advanced dancers, going back to the roots : the pleasure of dancing!

Switching groups quicker (switching every 10-30 seconds) makes the nervous system react differently, less cognitively. The choices are more intuitively, come from a different place in the bodymind.

Interestingly, this warm up score can be challenging for some dancers: There is a sense of openness in what you focus on, which can become confusing if you don't catch the wave to go with the flow. So it is a practice of centering your attention as much as it is an opportunity to warm up, connecting your body with your intentions, attention and joy of moving.

I went on working with the M. iliocostalis and the diaphragm, connecting to the Simone Forti rolls: Learning how to sequence through the center - learning how to release the body part that are close to the floor into the the floor so the other body half can roll on top. An easy looking movement puzzle, that is a challenging exercise to do, that can reall connect the lumbar spine with the thoracic spine, releasing unnecessary tension in the lower thoracic spine, thus releasing stress on the lower back. (If you are more interested in these, you can find them on Steve Paxton's dvd "material for the spine".)

Releasing the head and neck and exploring how the release weight of head and neck affects our movement is how I went on the third day. I sometimes use a yoga warm up as a base for release, as a deep release is easier after physical action, palpating and finding neck muscles such as short neck muscles, semispinalis capitis, splenius capitis, sternocleidomastoideus and scaleni. looking at pictures.

From there on to rolling the head at the floor, stimulating glandular support, articulating cervical spine. partner exercise with a vertical leg push, partner holds and releases head -> differentiating action in the torso with action in the neck. into movement exploration and some scores, such as dancing with a 'secret partner'.

Based on the feedback of one particpants it gets me thinking on how our experience of moving is determined by our concept (i.e. if the head - tail connection is being perceived as a straight line)? Is there experience without concept? I believe that creativity is based on un-naming, allowing to not knowing, clumsiness and voids.

Andrea makes me aware that i am striving to create "the autonomous dancer", that what i am looking for is the joy of moving as a base for both our professional life as dancers and for life itself. It brings me back to the LEAP teaching residency I attended recently, and to Sabina Holzer's question: Is a dance class a place for politics?

It is important to me that 'autonomous' in this context does not mean 'disconnected' from what is happening around me, especially thinking of dance as a communal art form. I'd rather think of it as 'artistic autonomy', being the author of my individual experience and expression.

The next day I chose to work with two different concepts: folding / unfolding and tensegrity

floppy dance, joints, duets, young dogs in a basket feeling. bones give direction. control versus planning. i keep a certain amount of control but give up the planning. folding / unfolding as a base for level change and rolling.

tensegrity. islands of tension in an ocean of compression. how to move while keeping my structural integrity. having a clear spatial relationship that supports my movement. a balancing solo on one leg while another person redirects my movement, thus learning how i keep my whole body integrated while not being in a stable position. Spatial support.

The day before I had a long discussion with Andrea where we also talked about the difficulty of proposing a somatic class in a morning training, as the sensing process eats up quite some time. She suggested to dedicate half an hour after class ends for individual questions or other things that come up. So I organize the class a little differently, with after class time for movement analysis (instead of during class), so people can come with specific questions. That change worked quite well, and we went on to have some interesting discussions and discoveries with the participants who stayed on.

Participation at Kerstin Kussmaul's training followed by an Interview

It was a pleasure for me to take part at Kerstin Kussmaul’s dance class at the Tanzhaus Zurich, on the 4^th of June 2014. Afterwards I conducted an interesting conversation with her. I would like to share with you the thoughts and questions of our dialogue.

Kerstin’s basic questions

• How can I dance all my life?
• Who am I in my way to move?
• What does mean dance for me as a form of expression?

These questions have led Kerstin to offer training which has preventative effects and which aims to move away from aesthetical concepts. It is aimed at dancers of different styles and backgrounds and free from predefined shapes so that one kind of original can emerge.

Letting go of aesthetical concepts

According to Kerstin it is useful to question aesthetical concepts and the coherent experiences. She invites us to let go of such concepts with the aim of immersing in new physical experiences. Doing so opens the possibility to experience outside of what we know and to discover the original, the very individual language of movement.

Although Kerstin’s work is aiming away from aesthetical concepts, the content of her class that she is communicating is very clear. In addition to physical self-experience she gives detailed information about anatomical understanding which helps achieve a differentiated physical experience.

Lead to autonomy

Teaching specified class content is important to Kerstin. She does it in a way which leaves a lot of open space and much freedom. She asks dancers to choose within a wide range of possibilities and to take decisions. Behind this invitation lies Kerstin’s motivation to lead dancers to autonomy which can be seen as a consequence of Kerstin’s basic questions regarding the personal artistic source.

In general, teaching has nourishing effects for her. If she can’t have new experiences while giving a class, she takes this as a clear reference that she played her program instead of paying attention to the participants. This statement attests not only her need to respond to the needs of the participants and the wish to suit everybody, but also her capability to reflect.

The right context

A sign of her ability for reflection is that she asks herself the question if the professional dance training as it is offered at the Tanzhaus Zurich is the right context for her training, respectively where her training is optimally placed. Regarding the duration of the class she has a clear idea: She would like to offer a training of 2 or 2 ½ hours. And that corresponds to what I thought when her class ended after 1 ½ hours: I wished to enjoy the dance experience, thanks to her exercises, for a much longer time. 

I thank Kerstin for this training and the inspiring conversation!

Andrea Fäh