Moving Imagination

Chapter 1

The Elements of Earth ~ Flow of Air

I'm looking forward to a really great afternoon with you. And one of the reasons for that is because I think that, well, I remember, let's say I recall when I very first went to New York to work with Romana, she said, I was so proud of myself that I had done Polonius at ballet school in London and she was completely distraught. She said, I can't believe it. I have to unteach you everything because you will have no rhythm. So she beat me up every day because I had no rhythm. Even though I had danced with royal ballet for many years. Um, yeah, I had no rhythm. And uh, I'm certainly not here today to teach you about classical rhythm.

We're going to look at rhythm the Pollstar way, right? And the Pollstar way means that we want to look at it in a more organic way. We want to look at it in a way that it's tied in with your principles and we want to explore it at different levels. So I know it's not in that very flesh, fancy book that you have, but I did put together. And the reason for that is it took me a long time to really try and put it together the way I wanted you to receive it. Right? So, um, I hope that it is in the way that you wanted to receive the trying.

So we're starting off with flow, right? We're starting off with the elements of earth, meaning air, the elemental movement. And I don't know if any of you have read Ray Johnson's book called elemental movement, but if you haven't, I recommended I've put her name down a few times, right? So the few people that I've tried to represent, I put down their names. You can Google them, you can youtube them, you can really do what you like. But Ray Johnson is really an amazing racer.

Um, okay. So what I want to look at is the elements and they're relevant rhythms. So the element of air for you, what kind of element would that, what kind of rhythm would that replicate for you? Moving on through all the other qualities that exist, we're going to start with the element of air. So you have on your piece of paper in front of you.

Now here's another gentleman I recommend that you go to youtube and find out about. It's a man called, um, Victor Wharton. Um, he's a wonderful drummer and he talks about how he grew up and that his brothers taught him the language of music first. And he said, the thing about learning to speak as a child is that you, you're, as he said, you're jamming with the professionals. When you talk to a baby, you say, hello sweetheart, how are you? You don't try and teach them a tone or an ae. You teach them, he says, but somehow musically we try and do that. So his is a very interesting talk to, um, to really access, you know, said he was on youtube, but he's on Tedx as well. Those of you who listened to Ted talks, he's on the Ted talks program, right? So we're going to really explore the elements and how they like the Pollstar principles. They, you know, we'd go to, towards movement integration. Of course. That's the main goal, how they all come together.

How did you organize yourself? One of the things about air is space, right? Something area about air space, right? So there's, there's something, there's a study they do called proxemics, right? And it's how comfortable you are with the space around you with spatial clarity. Uh, and how that differs culturally in Hong Kong. If I go and sit at the beach, uh, the city is so big and so crowded that if someone else comes to the beach, they'll actually sit right next to me even though they may be an entire into beach. Whereas Uri, those of us who grew up in Africa, if you're sitting there, I'll go to the opposite end of the beach to give you your privacy. We just have different senses of what is comfortable with regard to, uh, balance in space. So you set up your, you set up your area, much like we do on an airplane.

I put my eyepatch here and my water here and I make sure that I've set up my boundaries. All right? So we want to look at a territorial margins, how you expand your territory and margins or whether you need to and how you do that on a rhythmic level. Okay? So what I'm going to have you do first, you know, and think about the area elements. Think about the sound, the feel, because these are things that you bring into your teaching as a Pollstar teacher, right? Well, you don't have to be a Pollstar teacher to bring it in. I've heard, you know, every other system does a really good job as well, but we, we really put a specific emphasis on, on imagery. So here are your rhythms, right? The wind is the sounds. I grow up, we're in Hong Kong, we have quite a few typhoons that we've got this sound going through our house when there's a typhoon, right? Uh, for us in Hong Kong, it often feels clammy because our humidity is 95% a lot of the time. Right? Okay. And you can see I put in things like polluted because in a big city we have those kinds of smell.

So what I'd like you to do first is just simply stand up, right? That's a good start for me, right? And what I'd like you to do is just go for a walk. See how you interrelate as if you are going down the street, going shopping, walk anywhere you like with intent or not, doesn't matter. Notice how some of you head off into the quieter areas of the room.

Some of you are happy to stay internally. The name one that back to your place [inaudible] right? And each of you chose a different rhythm, a different, a different rhythm. Some of you put your indicators out to show that you are turning left. That's a good sign. Okay? So what do I want you to do now is to make it, to contain this walking a little more. In other words, you are going to make a full circle taking six counts.

And now Gabe is going to set the rhythms. So now we're going to do what we call this. Uh, some of you have maybe read a book called the power of sound in train moment in training. That means when you bring everyone together and there's this kind of of primal, rhythmical balance to our relationship with each other. And that's through this. Four, five, six, one, two, three, four, five, six, change. Two, three, four, five, six. Change. One, two, three, four. Is it big? Go small. One, two, three, four, five, six. Change. One, two, three, four, five, six. Change. One, two, three, four, five, six.

Change. Two, three, four, five, six. Okay, so the thing about the six is once you get to the six, there's a little bit of a hiccup. Yes. Right? So the balance of the rhythm, even though we're creating this really balanced circle of movement, Ryan, we can build on that, right? So I'm going to take you into the Gyrotonic. Well, we do it at the end of our Jarrod Canisius class and we walk in figures of eight. All right, so figure of eight. Your DNA symbol, your symbol of eternity or symbol of balance, right? So how you now create this movement in space is really quite interesting because it seems easier than it is. So I'm going to start, I don't know who's Matt.

This is going to start in the middle of my mat and I'm going to turn to face the left hand corner. So if you are on your mat, I'm not sure who's Matt. I just, I think it was yours. Jack Ground. Sorry. Right. Okay. So I'm going to be your mirror, which means that I'm facing my left hand corner. Right. So I need now to take five full steps. One towards the corner. Keep going around the front edge of your mat to the front edge of your man.

Yes. The one, the front three, four. And you should end up with one foot in the middle back where you started. Did that work? Yes. Yay. Okay. The thing about that is the foot that's in the middle, ideally, ideally is your right foot. And why? Let's start again. So I would go right, so I'm stepping forwards on my right, left, right, left, right, right foot as ended up in the middle. Yes.

And now I'm facing the back. So some of us are, some of us are. And now we're going to go the other way. One, two, three, four, five rice, legs. I'm always crossing diagonally over. So for those of us who do ballet, this is cozy Dec. Follow me. We're going to go make our circle. Two, three, four, five. I'm on my right foot, left foot. One, two, three, four, five. And you know what?

I think your mat is too small. You're holding yourself into that space. So how about going outside your mat? The sharks won't eat you, right? So if I were Jack, I'd be going one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five, one. Yes. And that space should get bigger and bigger. It's like a crescendo right now.

The thing about that is, do you want to have a little rehearsal? Just practice on your own. See if you've got it. Five steps to get yourself back to the center. Start with your left foot. So Jack, let's move your, I'm glad you know in in South Africa they have a cookie called the cook sister. It's made like, like a Plat, what do you call it? A braid.

It's dough that's braided up with three pieces of dough. And my ballet teacher used to say to me, you are so lucky you're not a cook sister. Because the way you dance, you could be right. If you had three legs, you'd be a cook sister. So almost almost, right? Let's have a little look again. I'm going to face your direction and I'm going to go one, two, three, four, five and then I'm going to go this way. One, two, three, four, five. So basically what I've done is I've taken the circle that I made earlier and instead of going around and around and around and around and around, they've gone around one and then around the other.

Okay. That which simplifies it and creates the balance so that I can start to give a mermaid sensation to it too. Three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five is that I'm stepping on an opposition leg. There you go. Does that make life easier? Yes. So interestingly, when you integrate everything, okay, so if for instance, I think, okay, let me simplify it for myself even more, I can put one hand on my shoulder so my elbow is pointing down, then change so that I'm still stepping three, four, five who feels like they're struggling?

Now if you think you are, you might want to move your mat somewhere else to give yourself more space, right? If you feel that you are spatially challenged in terms of proximity or proxemics, then you might want to move a little further. So now we are going to have five steps. That game is going to play as a rhythm of, what did we decide? Eight. So yeah. Okay. Two, three wait.

Four five, six, seven, eight one, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five oh one, two, three, four, five oh one, two, three, four, five oh one, two, three, four, five oh one, two, three, four, five oh one, two, three, four, five oh one, two, three, four, five oh one, two, three, four, five oh one, two, three. Big Girl. Still allow one, two, three, four, big. One, two, three, four, five outside your mat. Three, four, five, one, two. If your things are in the way, move somewhere else. And one, two, three, four, five oh one, three, four, five, two hands, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. Sweep your mermaid. Um, of a head. One, two, three, four, five. Oh one, two, three, four, five. Oh one, two, three, four. Um, good. Are we getting there? Are we getting there? I think it needs to be bigger. I can do my figure eight up and down the Mat.

One, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five. Or I can change to three, four, five, or one, two, three, four, five. One. I'm still making figure eight. Sometimes I'm still changing direction and there's this kind of position to it. So allow yourself to be less restricted. This note, this is no longer your, your goalpost, right? The trick now is to be aware of everyone else in space.

Chapter 2

Flow of Water and Pulse of Earth

Daniel meant sideways, if you will, and come into your mermaid position. Now in your mermaid position, you are going to move up on a cloud, right? So that is a sensation. Now up and over up to three, four, five, one, three, four, five, one, three, four, five, one, three, four, five or one, two, three, four, five, one, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five. So let's have airy, quality, light over to the right twice. Third time rotation, back, reach. Ready to start facing the back. Yes, right now, what if those clouds got a little fatter and thicker and blacker, right? So what if it were to go start out nice and soft?

Four, five, two and then it went one, two, three, four, five, one. So that the thunderstorm starts to build. How do you make the thunderstorm start to build in this movement that you changed the quality, the air quality of this movement, such that at one point you start coming all the way up, right? That you start coming into your twist position, right? So let's have one summer day movement, light breeze, light movement in the sky, right? And then let's build it up.

Now let's see if we can do that with Gabes assistance. I think not with the music. We can still go with the music, but you can see it's quite a nice even tone and lovely African American native American beat. Right? I think Gabe can give us something that it's a little, that will give us a little more emotion to it. Right now I do it in my ballet school with the students with a scarf, right? To extend their sense of where they are in space because whatever you carry becomes an extension of yourself. Outside my ballet studio for instance, the Tai Chi teacher always has the fans and the swords and and it really changes the quality of how people move as they do their particular, um, Tai Chi series. Okay, so let's play with this one, right? We, when we're doing the navigation, but at the bottom, the darkening, the swirling reflected in the movement until we come to that very last raindrop, in which case you're going to settle down, roll down onto your bank. So we want to take at least let's say five mermaids into twist on one side and then switch around to the other with our, with our spine stretch.

Let's see if we can make that happen. Might take a little bit of rehearsal, but that's fine. Three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five oh one, two, three Oh five oh one, two, three, four. [inaudible]. One, two, three, four, five. Up Faster. Three, four, five. I am two, three, four, five are down to three, four, five and up to three, four, five. And that down to three. Four, three counts. One, two, three, a down full. Five oh one, two, three. And down to five. A one, two, three, four, five. Oh one, two, three, slow again. No. One, two, three, four, five as slowly. Two, three, four, five through your camp. Three fall five a bag. Two, three, four. Up, up a fall.

Five or down to three. Three. Over one, two, three. Back full. Five oh one, two, three. Back. Four, five oh one, two, three, four, five oh one, two, three, four. Long stretch. One, two, three, four, five. Perfect. We needed no rehearsal, so now we're going to do mermaid. So let's make sure you bring your shoulder down. Reach your elbow down to your two and taking. Inhale, lengthening out through the top of your head, reaching up and over, right? We've done all of that in some way inside all of this, right?

Carrying you through the emotional, this sensation of floating you are flying through the air, maybe maybe dissipated more than we need to. Okay? Now, the thing about that is that oftentimes, my sense is that when I teach a Gyra [inaudible] class, I often say to the students, do you know where you end? And space begins. So if I were to say to you, if you close your eyes and we did an exercise, those of us, those of you who are with us, with Alexandra yesterday, if you closed your eyes and I walk up behind you and I had my fingers one inch away from your elbows, would you know that? You probably know it was there, but not quite clear where my fingers were. We are elbow ins and my hand begins, unless I really came in super, super close. So we're going to play with a tapping technique. Now, again, this is taught a lot in a [inaudible] class, but if you were to go to Taiwan and go up into the mountains, you'd see all the old Taiwanese people doing this, this tapping, and I'm sure it's the same in Japan, right? I know in Hong Kong they, you see all the, the elderly people in the park, they're banging away, right?

So we're going to do a little bit of tapping too to just get a sense of where we end, where space begins and the rhythmicity that comes with it. Let's have a little thing. So let me just talk you through the idea, right? The idea is that if we start with this to podium, right, where we're innovating the nerve endings, right? You bringing a sense of awareness to the nerve endings, softening the muscles, the back of the neck. So those of you who've done Jerick and Ess, you know Ryan softening the upper trapezius.

So basically we're preparing in the, in the direct Canisius class, at least we're preparing it for the nice karate chop to the side of the net, right? Ha. Turn sideways, roll down, lie down. And just take a moment to scan. He should feel an increased blood flow, right? You should be like, I know where my kneecap ins and space begins, right? We haven't worked on the fingers and the toes, but you would do that in a class like that. Right? Okay. So what you want to do is just lie here as if you want to fall asleep.

Please don't. Right? But that's the idea. And then bring your knees, bend your knees, slide your feet in, and take the exhale that you're used to in your [inaudible] session, whatever that is for you. And with each exhale, imagine if you will, that you're blowing a small feather up towards the ceiling and you know how feather and it goes. And then when you inhale a the will likely descent. Try not to swallow it. Okay? And then when you next exhale, blow it up just a little bit higher.

Um, might take a little more air to blow it a little higher and then blow again. Low it. Keep doing that until your failure completely disappears. Floats up so high that it disappears. Yeah. And now your hands by your sides. When you next inhale, take your bridge and as you peel the tailbone away and reach the knees over, inhale into the shape.

Inhale into the long balloon shape of your body. So you're inhaling your knees. Feel the air extend out through your knees. Then as you roll down below the feather, feel the air gently exit your balloon body. Okay? That's all you're doing.

You're inhaling your balloon body up into your bridge so you're not worrying as much about or not thinking or not as cognizant, if you will, of the articulation aspect, but more of the lightness and of the air exiting your body as you descend. And now when you next reached the top of your balloon filling experience, so the top of your bridge embark on a figure eight. Much like a feather would do. If you watch a feather as it descends, as it floats back down to earth, it this the sensation of the figure eight so it's an airy eight B, a feather coming back down to the earth in your figure eight your figure eight moves from right to left, down and up, but it's light. It's feathery. Do that one or two times just to be sure of the light quality of this movement.

So there's a different quality than if you are trying your best to move as much to the right or to the left or down and up, but simply floating into the shape that that works best for your body today. [inaudible] and when you next d send, come to rest, stretch your legs out again [inaudible] and see if that sensation in your body then is one of likeness a different sensation than if I had put broad shore awareness say to each segment of the spine, but that there's just a sense of the body floating lightly in space and in that position, let's do what we call a leg slide canon. So you want to, we do this in the Feldon Christ system in, in, in the bones for life system. You start to slide your right leg in, so you start to bend your right leg towards a tabletop. So it's going to slide all the way in and arrive at a tabletop. Now we want to hanging tabletops and it's got a lovely one.

The foot is just hanging next to her sitting bone, right? And then it's going to come back down. Now the idea is that if you did that in four counts, that your left leg would con commence on the count of two. Have you done a cannon? Have you done for Zarqa? If I started singing for Ara Jarka for erosion, Arca used arts singing once I said, or may food or Mevo right?

You've done cannons. Yes. No maybe. Right? So the idea is that if I start, so if you need to turn your head sideways or look up, you can, if I start sliding my right leg in on the count of one, my left leg chases it and then my right leg. So there's this floating, there's a wafting aspect to this movement. [inaudible] right? It's like, just create that sensation. So don't let your foot leave the floor too soon. Let it slide all the way up. And you want to be in a position where you never have the legs in the same place at the same time that they find the floor as soon as they can.

They've, they're really just starting. We're starting now. We're starting now to be a little more weighty, right? We're starting to pour the legs out from your body, little more weighty [inaudible] and if you want to start the movement on the other leg, you can. It's a little harder than you think, right? To create the cannon. So that one starts, the other follows it chases. And as it arrives, the right leg, the scenes and continues to go.

So the quality of chasing, but keeping a similar rhythm with each side of the body. [inaudible] and then come back to the position where you had both feet planted on the ment and revisit the bridge. But this time, right? Let's try for a watery sensation. So we're going to float up. You're going to use the airy quality to get yourself up. So you're going to take your inhale and fill the balloon body. Yes, but now as you d send in the figure eight instead of d sanding like the feather, you're going to slush, you're going to slosh yourself. You're going to pour yourself from one side to the other pouring cause if you are pouring your water from one hip pocket into the other.

So there's a pouring sensation of, so it's a little more weight, but they still, it's still, it's not heavy. It's not sandy, it's not earthy, it's watery. You're pouring. So let's use the element of air to move up. Take the airy quality to porridge up and the watery slushy movement to go down. And when you arrive, rest one more time with your legs out as if you were spread out like a puddle soaking into the earth.

Be a puddle. You a puddle, you all soaked out, spreading out into the earth. Okay, now come back for a moment. Roll onto your side and come back into your mermaid and think of how you would do it with the pouring quality. So earlier on we did it with the, with the sense of moving through air, much like a tree blown by the wind. So if you were to pour yourself into the movement, that would be something quite different again. Right? So just again, in your own time you can count to five, you can do what you like. Just come up and over and think of how that would feel if we did. One, two, three, Paul, Paul, Paul, Paul, Paul, one, two, three, four. Pour out the last drop. Who? One, two, three, four.

Pour out your tea pot. One, two, three, four. Paul, Paul, Paul, Paul. Yes. Okay. Is there a difference in the sensation for you or is it, do you think? That's a little too subtle? You have to think a lot more, right?

You have to think about maybe perhaps changing the quality. Is there anything you want to say about that water? It's, it's heavier. It should be heavier. It should be more watery. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Great. Now, earlier we did the tapping thing, right? So one of the things we do in our dance Improv class at the academy for Performing Arts is we paint ourselves, right? So the idea is that if I poured, I sloshed your favorite color onto your mat.

You would have to paint your entire body. If you're lying here now, which parts of your body would be covered in paint? You know there's bits that aren't though. So what are you going to do to cover the bits that aren't? So I want you to try, it's going to be a little hard because you three are so close together, but you can try. You're not allowed to paint each other. That's cheating, right? So rolling onto your side. How do you get your armpit painted?

How do you get the side of your leg, the top of your foot, your arms, your legs? Maybe you need to Jabil a foot and drive it underneath the back of your car. What do you need to do to paint your body in its entirety? [inaudible] like the side of your face, your ear, your like. You have to kind of get paint on one part of you and put it on the other. Oh, Aaron, I liked that. You're getting the top of your head. Great.

So now if you come up and now you pour yourself into your mermaid movement again, what do you sense about the parts of your body that are were less accessible as you, as you pour and paint? Is there a, is there a sensation that you can perhaps open more into those areas? So basically like moving like that you're lubricating your joints. Clients say, Oh, I'm going, what am I doing rolling around on the floor like this? My five-year-old does this. I say, do you know how many joints you're lubricating as you do this? You're working with your inner landscape, the inner fluids of your body as you do this painting exercise. Right? So, and what we did with the bridge, or even with the pelvic clock for instance, is that we're moving in tides.

We're working with a cerebral spinal tides of the body. There are those beautiful tidal waves of the body that are so important. Now, this is all on your papers, so, um, but this is if you really looking for another great book to read, this would be one of them. The craniosacral therapy in the energetic body, very readable, talks about the midline of the body. It talks about everything gravitating to the midline and then the fluids, how the cerebral flies and movements that we do naturally in our polarity session that lead towards this, this kind of shape. How are we for time? Good. I'm glad that our time is fine. Okay. I like what Ray Johnson says here.

She says watering is wavering in its commitment, so it'll take on the shape of a glass, but if I pour it into a jug, it'll take on the shape of a jug so I can really pour and I can continue to move and I can take on shapes that I might not otherwise do. Right. But again, exploring movements that I'm in your class resonate with. The lubricating fluidic aspect of the body is quite important. Right? And we tend not always to do that. Okay. So we painted on both days, right? We've done the rhythms of five. Right. Um, oh, okay. I have another great clip by a man who does something called the Tucker.

Tina method. Has anyone heard of the Tuck a Tina method? It comes out of Germany and he put this method together as a form of healing. He really uses some interesting rhythms. So if you just stood for a moment, your hands by your side with your eyes closed, and since how the movement is resonating in your, in your body, they know if in your eyes, and now take a little bounce, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum bum. MMM. MMM, mmm. MMM. Now you say at yourself, bounce the air from your heels.

Um, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, heart beat, pum, pum. Pum. Pum. Pum. Pum. Pum. Pum. Pum. Pum. Pum. Pum. Pum. Pum. The wrist. This is a rhythm that, uh, if you want to sit down, it's fine. This is a rhythm that, um, my master trainer for a Feldon Christ for bones for life, Ruthie Allen put together for the bones for life program.

So she was invited to, to um, uh, a big national event, um, and um, to talk about the issues of bone density with astronauts. So of course they go up in the air, they have issues with bone density, also have issues with hard going back to the blood heart gangbangs for blood blood going back to the heart. That would be a start blood going back to the heart, right? So they're up in space. They don't have the same relationship with gravity. So a wonderful, uh, scientists called Alexander McAllen.

So if you want to write down his name, you can Google him. He has something, he has a system called Viber, gymnastics and he worked with the spades engineering program because he had a heart issue himself, it seems like Feld and cries [inaudible] all of these people, Alexander, they all had their own self issues and they did their own self healing programs like the Takata man, Rome. So what Mr Mackolen did was he created this fiber gymnastics, bom, bom, Bom, bom. And he did it at the rate that the blood could pump through each of the valves to get it back through the heart. And Ruthie Allen took a little look at this and she went, oh, I liked the rhythm. I liked the sensation, but I can, I can, I can build it into my community a little more because if I have a client who's doing it in this position, we know that if we work with a client that, that that movement is going to ricochet out somewhere else through the body. So she teaches it with systems that hold the rib cage in place, that lengthen the tailbone in place, that hold all of the, what she calls a sensitive curves of the body in place.

Uh, and I always tell my clients, you know, you can do this while you're brushing your teeth. All right? But little systems like that, that resonate with the, with the primal rhythms of the body really are such successful little tools that we can pass on to our clients. And I hope, hope that you will too. Right? So we started to get a little more earthy. We had the sensation of the rain drops and you want to think now, if I took that Gamala and I wanted to make it watery, or if I, if I wanted to give it that sense, what, what exercises, what I choose from my repertoire that would best compliment the rhythm or that the rhythm would base compliment, right?

Chapter 3

Rhythm of Fire

Oftentimes we think that our client is doing a really good job with their fitness screening. You say, Oh yes, you know, you've got a three now this is, this is really improved immensely. However, when you put it in a situation like this, the entire movement often falls apart.

Did you feel that you felt like your squat wasn't quite where it normally is when you get to do it in slow motion under this kind of laboratory type experience? Right? So taking everything out of the laboratory is really what we're trying to do. When you, when you introduced rhythm and movement, it's not simply to set your [inaudible] class t music. It's really to get people to get in touch with, with the inner sensations of their body, with these inner rhythms. So, uh, what I want us to do now is can be a little more fiery. Yeah. So what I want you to do is just to take your walk around right now, I always say, you know, fire a is the almost follow tile.

If you think of your client's doing hundreds full tilts, have you seen those clients? Right? That's, that's a very fiery attempt at something that may not need to be so fiery, right? So we want to think of the rhythm of pulsing blood, right? So we're going to do this, right? We're not going to run quite as fast, but you're going to start by walking around the room. So do what you did in the beginning, which was just to walk, right? Just walk, and then you wanna walk with purpose. You've just locked your car. You're, you're late, you're late for your PyLadies lesson.

Your Claudia's lesson is about to start in two minutes, and you've got to get across the car park. You've got to get into the elevator, you've got to go up four floors, go across the other side of the building. You're really, really late. Now come on, you really better hurry. You're not gonna run because you don't want to, you know you're in your workout gear, but there's people in the way and you've just got to move faster and faster. You took a wrong turn. You thought it was this way. It's a new studio, so you better backtrack. You've got to go back. Now you've really, really late, right? You got to walk a lot faster than that. Noriko bigger steps. All right? Really, really fast.

Okay. All right. And you know that this is a classical class. So you get into the classroom, you get to your mat and the first thing you have to do is cross your legs. Sit down and do hundreds. So get to your mat, stand at the end. Have you done the, the classical starting? You stand at the end, you cross your legs, you do this, you facing along the long edge of your med.

You Cross your legs, you sit down and you go straight into the hundreds and go one, whatever you do, percussive. No, you go and single leg stretch and go, oh wow. You use the air in the wind? Yeah. Hug your knees rolling like a ball and a girl. And, and it's tight as you can. And after you've done four roll, two standing. Okay.

That's how Ramona means to make a role to standing. Turn to face me, hands by your side. Joseph's lunge and go. One, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, two, one, two, one, two. Duh. Yeah, Duh, Duh, Duh, Duh. Face the wall. And Squat and squat and squat. Squat. Now sitting further down, up. It's not your fitness greening anymore. Well, [inaudible] face the back of the room run and yeah. Hundreds arms please.

Well, what, what, what, what, what? Oh, the side. And now we're here and squat again and down, down, down, down, down, up, down, down, and stop. Face me. Good. Now some of you know Serafino. Most of us know theraphy now, right? So we brought him as a guest to Asia, to our Asian conference.

I'm going to save four or five years ago in Vietnam. We had a wonderful time and he taught [inaudible] for kids, right? So one of the things he did was, are these very particular about right Maria. He's that you warm up. Now the definition of warmup is that stretching your leg on a bar is not a warmup, right? A warmup is really getting the heart rate moving.

That's your fiery element that you can bring to your class very easily, right? Take a seat. So Sarah Fino likes to bring the fiery element to his class, first out, first off, right? That's what he does. He gets the blood flowing, it gets the heart rate up, he gets everything pumping. Then your decision might be that you want to play with a watery side of the body first or be a little more airing. But at least you, there's, there's this one aspect that one light that you can shine on the work and that would be, okay, I'm going to work with the, this kind of elemental movement, elemental aspect of movement. So the next aspect that I would like to look at, and I think it's in here, is um, to do with, um, basic rhythms that we use. Now I have a wonderful tap teacher in my studio.

She really, you know, we do rhythms like, and one and a two and, and four, five and six. And uh, you know, they really very complex rhythms. Uh, and I really, we have a fantastic adult class and I really liked that the adults do that in class because they learned to integrate these rhythms and create a sense of, of how they replicate the sensation of other movements. So let's have a little look at that now. Um, okay. So bringing everything together is a little similar to what we did earlier. I said, come up like air and come down like water, right? And pour yourself into the movement as you roll down, but as you walk into the plank, really ground yourself into the movement.

Really make sure that I didn't want to ask you to sink like a puddle when you're in your plank, right? So those are really important aspects of the elemental quality, right? And of course, Ray Johnson, in her book, she talks about, um, integrating the nervous system, right? Um, inner and outer experiences, right? So the thing about, um, there's some great writings, um, now Carl Young talks about, um, he talks about the quaternary structure. All right? So, uh, I find that the work that we do in the Gyrotonic world, uh, reflects that a lot. It doesn't mean that we don't do that in the [inaudible] world because we do, uh, you, those of you who've seen some of the work, they, you'll see this kind of opening and closing aspect much like we do in Utero, the reaching out and finding your edges and then coming back in.

So creating this like a sternal cross, sacral cross, opening up the end, but always coming back to a center center of the body. Right. What draw me to the work of Carl Young was that he spoke a lot about rebalancing people with play, like making things fun, right? Uh, and I don't know how many of you have, um, looked at, um, brain gym, right? Do some of you know brain gym, right? They work with figure eights and the elephant, um, and balancing right and left side. So we did quite a few figure aids today for that specific reason of balancing.

Right and left. Alex spoke about balancing the Yin and Yang of the body and call young he two, he speaks of, of the importance of play. So coming back after the break and just playing again, like, yes, you're late for your class. My, my dancers love that. You're late for ballet class. You've got to, you've got to warm up. You've got to get your point shoes on. You haven't put your hair in a bun yet.

And that's their warmup. I'm, I'm not interested in them doing a little leg slide on the bar. It's, it's not, it's not what, what's going to work for them. So we've done pass the beat and I don't think we need to pass this one, but you could play this, um, pass the beat. But I want to look at how we can integrate beats according to a movement. So, um, when we teach dance, we work with something called an Anna paced movement. Does anyone, has anyone know about the anapestic rhythms? Right? So an paced rhythm is short, short, long, short, Duh, Duh, Duh, Duh and a one and a two. Right?

So I was looking at that and I thought, well you know, let's have a little play with that. So we want to do spine twist saw rolling like a ball and open leg rocker. Yeah. So you probably want to face link, if you want to turn your mats this way it might be helpful so you can still be looking at me. So if I want to use an anapestic rhythm for the twist, right? Or spine twist, right.

I am going to think of what's entailed in the end. Ah, right. I've got the, the expectation of movement and uh, [inaudible] and uh, reach low middle reach, low, middle, high, low, middle hi. And one I might want to slow it down and to Da da Dum bum, bum bong and a one Duh Duh Duh and one Duh Duh Duh. And so boom, boom, boom. And a reach up, um Oh and a rich short, short, long and a rich short, short, long and a row. So up, up, hold, roll back, reach up, up home from back, reach up, hold, roll back, reach open and a one and a back and assess pain coming back that Da, oh Duh Duh Duh Duh Duh Duh Duh Duh up Andrea.

So do you need to tell your client that it's an a paste? No you don't, but in your head you do. I oftentimes when we are giving them information, we know what we'd like from them. We know that we're looking for shoulder girdle organization and axially long gate and get good number them. But we don't talk about it. We give them information in other ways. It's the same with rhythm, right? That reach coming up, bump our reach coming up that reach rich camming.

Ah, there's that kind of Onomatopoeia of the music, the dad, ah, that Ah, oh Duh Duh Duh. Yeah. So it's the rhythm that you're putting into your voice that makes this, this so interesting. So if I were to say to you from our open league rocker position, alright, okay, we could go dad down, Duh. Up. Yes, you can go down and up data, down, data up, down data, the down, data up that a downturn to the site. And now we're ready for something else.

Right now we're ready for a what they call. And it's interesting because it's the same beat, but it's reversed as a compound rhythm. Right? So finish your open link Roca. Right. So now here we go. This is really hard. Sorry. Okay. So here I am, legs come together and we go done, uh, down the uh, ah, the dam to uh, up the, down the up the down.

Stay there. Roll onto your right side. Yeah. Any right side. Oh, other lines. Okay. So now we want long, short, short, long, short, short. So we're going to do devil or pay long. So Dave lawpay. Yeah, right now hot potato.

Who knows how potato da Da. Up, down, down, up, down, down, up. So we've got turn around and look at me for a moment. You've turned to your side. We've got and down. Long, short, short, long, short, short, long, short, short, long bomb. Duh, Duh, Duh, Duh. And up and change. Right?

So have you got that? Let's do developer pay on the first one. I didn't do a developer, I just threw the leg up. So here we go. Long, short, short, long, short, short, long, short, short, long, short, short, long, short, short, long, short, short, rotate into Teza app, change sides and the long short, short, long, short, short, long, short, short, long, short, short that, Duh. Long, short, short, long, short, short teaser. Damn. Okay. Now we're not going to come straight out of the teaser there. Oh wait.

Chapter 4

Playing with Rhythm

Cause if you look at this, we've got three B, which is one, two, three, four bomb bomb one and two and long. Well that Duh, Duh, Duh, Duh, Duh, Duh, Duh. Right? So that would be one, two, three, four, a, one, two, three, four, up, down, up, down. One, two, three, four down. Yeah. So there the rhythm changes. Duh, Duh, Duh. Down do three. I won't go that far. Here we go. One, two, three, four, up, down, one, two, three, four, up, down, one, two, three, four, up, down or 24 up and down. Yes. I tell you what, at the end of teaser to get us into a even gama one, one, two, three.

No, no. Right? Let's get a nice even beat from there. So let's just practice something on your tummies cause we will find a transition to that in a minute. So come onto your Tommy's for a moment. Prone in a more sophisticated way of saying on your tummies. Okay. So if I were to say to you, if you were to bring your hands underneath your armpits and prepare yourself for ace into a swan one, right?

So let's have you circle up into this one one. Find your one one right now we're going to go into swan two which would be Gamala one, two, three or one two, three. Now there is no one, two, three or one two, one, two, three or one two or one, two, three. Yeah. Ma, la, la, la, la. Yes. Okay. How does that work for double leg kick then? One, two, three, storage to three on the three to three gamma.

Last stretch. Strange story. Gamal allow rich to three goddamn a bum, bum bum, Duh, Duh. Stay out swimming. One, two, three, one, two, one, two, three, fast, fast, fast, or, and two, three, one, two, three, or on two, one, two, three. Right? Do you see how, and I'm sure you do this intuitively in your own class, you're not going to stick with the same rhythm, but if you, sometimes when we come from the angle of knowing that we're playing with rhythm, it really improves how we, what our clients take away out of that class. So let's try and put it together. All right? So you've got your standing roll down, the three counts and one, two, three, four, five, six walk, two, three, four, five, six in, in four, five, six, down to three, hands behind your back. Double leg kick. Three, four, five, six. AA, kick.

Bam. Four, five, six. Devil, lay, kick, Duh. Four, five, six. AA, kick and hold. Swim, Mingo. One, two, three, four, five, six, two, two, three, four, six, three, two, three, four, five, six, four, two, three. Down. Slide. Push up and rock. One, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three, said back. You're here. Four, five, six. Oh, we ready. And Short, short, long, short, short, long spine with the short, short, long, short, short, long, short, short, long, short.

So one, two, three, short, short, long, short suit, length and short, short, long, short, short, short, short reach. Um, bomb. Bomb. And Are you ready? We've got rolling like a ball. Yes. And Ro too long. Up, up, long. Back, back, long.

Short, short. Oh, up. One, two, three. One, two, stretch. Open Lake, Rocca and go. She'll up up long. Show me the long one, two, three, one, two, three long knower down. [inaudible]. Pretty Long. Short, short, long, short, short, long, short, short, Long Hill, heel point, toe, toe point, short, short, short point, short, short, short, short. Again, Duh, Duh. Point Short, short teaser and change and up.

Short, short up, short, short, long, short, long, short showed up. Heel, heel, toe, toe, run up, Palm Palm, long, short, short, long. George, Short teaser, [inaudible] and lower, not too far. And now we've got so short, short, short, long, long, short, short, long, short, long, no short, short, short, short, long, long, short, short, short, short, long, long, short, short, short, long and [inaudible]. Very nice. Good job. I don't think the intent is for me to take, um, Miley Cyrus music for instance, and say to a class, t Miley Cyrus, the idea is to listen in on. You can hear all these different rhythms coming through and you decide which part of that rhythm that you want to access, uh, dependent on the quality of the shape that you want to do. Now, do you have to move at that tempo? No, you don't.

You can break the tempo in half. It depends what you want out of that lesson, what energy you want them to take away for that day, and it gives you another possibility. In other words, I may not teach a class to music for a while, but I then may say, but how does this correspond to the rhythm? What rhythm do you have? Do you resonate with rhythm? Right? Uh, and we do, we all have an internal rhythm. People say, I'm not musical, I can't dance, but you have a heartbeat. As long as you have a heartbeat, you have rhythm, right? You, you have, you have a basic rhythm they write. Um, and this is what you did as children, right? You played one, two, buckle my shoe. Let's try a cannon. So, uh, it's a Jarret, I'm using some Jarrod Canisius movements for that. Uh, so what I suggest is that people on this half of the room grab a chair and face inwards, kind of in line with that metal thing and people on this side grab a chair and face inwards as we're going to have a face off. So in the, um, Gyrotonic world, or in a generic Canisius world, we sit on a stool and we usually have a nice wide base of support. So you feel a little bit like a pyramid from your heels up through the top of your head. You've got that sensation. Those of you who've done the Gyrotonic work, you know about narrowing, right?

Basically, there are a few elements that come into it, but one of them is that if I were to put my feet here and ask Philippa had to pull her heels in against me, she feels active straight away. So everything that comes in to support the pelvic floor is active for her. Right? So there's a sense of axial length right already, just by dragging your heels into wards you. Yes. Now when I, so like about this work is it ties in with a lot of Bonnie Bainbridge as push pull patterns, right? So if I push with my back foot, I propel myself forwards and I have to pull myself forwards to get into some kind of position. So your gait pattern as part of a push pull pattern. Right now, if I have my legs this wide, the pushing disallows this, right? So if you were to look at me sideways, sorry, I'll be sideways to them.

They end sideways to you and I pull my heels in, right? And then I give a push. I don't go as far as if I put my feet in front of me and I gave a push and you see what happens. I start to open up into my lumbar spine, right? So I want to try and have them not that wide but a little further forwards. So now I can pull the heels in or I can pivot and I can push, which immediately sends me into this balance of opening and the rhythm of pushing and pulling. Yes.

So if I pivot and push with my feet, I get the curl and if I pivot and pool with my feet, the response through the body, and this is an undulation pattern that mushy felled in Christ toward it goes back historically all of those primal push pull patterns, right? If I move very fast, I'm going to get an incredible undulation pattern, right? That very primal undulation pattern, right? So if I were to say to you, let's take one count just to pull a feed one then to lift and open too. So here's where I spoke about the, if I just open here, if I just, again, I might just get an a longer to tunnel reach, but if I take a latitude reach as well, we've got the sternal cross, right? If I pivot and push, I want to think of opening up the sacred cross. Right?

That's a very different feeling than just pushing and getting a longer tutorial stretch. Yes. It feels quite different. You really balanced your counts, you balance the rhythm. And here I am, I'm balancing this concept of arching pivot and Carroll. So if I have pull on one arch on two, curl on three upright on four. Right? So it would go like this. MMM. MMM. MMM. MMM. You recognize that song? [inaudible] [inaudible] yes.

We can go two times. Pull arch. Curl straight. Yes. Okay. Now we're going to do a spiral twist. One, two, three. Now on three.

I'm doing this one too, Paul. Relax and then left. Right. Pull. Right and bell's son. I Lay Martina Son La Matina. Ding, Ding Dong. Ding Dong pull arch.

Coul bum pull arch curl bump. One, two, three, one, two, three. Iam. Pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, Yadda Yada. Bum Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum bum. Have we got it? Do we need to rehearse that one more time?

Do we need to sing it at a different tempo? Let's try right here we go and pull. So here I am, I'm pulling. It's like a suction of the feet. So if I do that, it's no good because I've got to drag the whole foot along and I'll feel that this the instep is kind of doming. I'm doing that right? So I'm gay. Pull up.

Uh, ch push straight. Pull arch. Push straight. So here's the trick. You have to sing it with me, right? Oh, are we ready? Okay. If I can't hear you, I'm going to put my microphone on the floor in the middle. Are we ready? All together. Really?

N for Russia for Russia. Stage doors, center doors stayed center stage and door and stage. Door stage and door and stage. Door wave. God by wave.

Good bye. We got it. You going to be group number one? You're gonna be group number one. I'll move with group number two. We'll start right. Rady and Fred Rosa, Fred Raza, DOR, may ava, Dominique, Ava Son La Martina Son La Martina.

Deign done, Dong dinged down. Frere Frere door may the door, may Ava Sun La Muntean Sun La Matina Dane down, down, dinged and down. Yeah. Good. That's really good. So you know that clap not passed the clamp plus the beat, right? That clapping round that we did, if you did it in two groups just for fun in a class for people who used to, and what I do is I do a little bit and then we start again.

So they end up with quite a cardiovascular workout cause we do the roll down, then we repeat it and we add on one more thing. Then we repeat it and we add on one more thing until you've ended up with this hour of probably a four minute routine. But because you've done it again and again and then you, you add the Canon, you start, then you start, we'll do a face off. Right. And it's quite a lot of fun because you really have to focus and concentrate on what you're doing. As Brent was saying, that oftentimes as a new teacher, when I see students come into the exam, for instance, if I'm conducting a Pollstar exam, I get below a little bit of the load and be careful of your elbow and your wrist and as you do this, if you have a wrestler and then the whole balance of the movement. Okay.

It's kind of twisted and a little bit stilted a little bit because they're waiting for the next set of information. Uh, and of course we want that information, but sometimes it's better to hold back and wait for me to ask the question rather than for you to pile it all in. And you know, as you say, you've been doing that for years, so you just didn't realize that you were doing it for years. Yeah, that's what I find. Is there any other rhythm that you think you work with that I've left out? Yeah. I don't work with four fours much. I mean I, you can pour forth, but I like to cross phrase, like if I'm doing a, um, um, footwork, I'll do one, two, three, come in, four, five, one, two, three, come in for five, one, two, come in, one, two, come in, make, make them continue to almost keep doing the same thing, but it's so varying the rhythm to such a degree that, that it really changes how the muscle patterns work, the muscle firing activities. I think the history behind this is that, um, you know, one often tries to deny where you are in space. I go, okay, I'm a dancer and I want to do this to a three, four or I want to use the Harry Potter Waltz. Uh, and so I tried to keep very basic, um, instruction, uh, relative to, um, okay, when did you have to what we want within the system. And then I, of course, I met Romana and they would again, different lovely rhythms.

I really enjoyed how I did work on the reformer with her reading was very interesting for me. And you can't deny the fact that rhythm is so intrinsic in our lives. So my work is with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. It is sematic. I do a lot. I teach a lot of the Feldon Christ rocking. Uh, I don't know if you know a lady called Anna Halperin and how Perrin is an amazing, amazing lady who um, who um, on discovering that she had cancer at use dance and rhythm to rebalance herself and she teaches old people in rocking chairs. They move in rocking chairs. And if you look at all these primal rhythms, if you, you know, we go to Israel to visit my fast friends family and if you go to the Wailing Wall, people are rocking. If I'm an African, people are rocking.

They use that as a kind of balancing. So you know that those rhythms are just so inbuilt. So then once I think any one of us has an interest in something, we start pulling in threads of things, research, working with different concepts. And because I work with the students at the academy for Performing Arts in Hong Kong, they explore rhythm on a constant basis. And then you to pull them away from the, okay, it's a hip hop sound, or it's what is inside that? What is inside?

What is the depth of the rhythm? And then you just become fascinated in something that, that, that really is already inside of you somewhere. So, you know, and I think it just grows right? And to, to, to tie it in with principles, not just to take it and put it aside or, and to be able to tie in the fact that if I arch and curl in the Gyrotonic work that I'm, I'm doing exactly what I would do in a [inaudible] session if I went backwards over the, the spine corrector and they ended a spine stretch afterwards. Right. Balancing right. Finding that the rhythmic balances. Does that make sense? Good. And I think that's it. I mean, I'm feeling, I've shared as much as I can today.