This two-day intensive was called ‘basics’ and was a massive eye opener for me in regards to what is essential if you take the movement path. Actually, to what is essential not just to individuals who embark on a journey of movement, but basically these are teachings every human should receive who has the luxury of owning the most advanced piece of technology on the planet – the human body. These two days were a snapshot into a long process and massive amounts of time invested by Joseph to create a clear way to develop yourself as a mover from the ground up. This was one of my main takeaways from the workshop: it’s not a fucking race! You see some cool video of movers doing a complex skill, the ego likes to get in the way and wants to jump straight into the complexity without honouring the journey and processes that must be undertaken to get to that point.
It began with a very simple concept of isolations, which are not generally thought about but are essential to creating awareness through the body, learning to control it, and gaining an understanding of the different planes, directions and ways in which we can move particular parts of the body. As humans we’ve lost spinal mobility especially through the thoracic, which is built for rotation, flexion and extension. We spent a lot of time working on mobility and isolation of the spine along with the neck, chest and hips which are connected to the other parts of the vertebrae (cervical, lumbar, sacrum, coccyx). By day two I was already experiencing a sense of space and openness I’ve never felt in those areas. The Chinese proverb ‘you’re only as old as your spine’ started to become clear as greater freedom throughout my vertebrae was a great feeling.
I believe that inside every human there is an aspiration to be able to dance with rhythm to a beat. But the avenues to dance are usually highly specialised, complex and poorly taught. The way Joseph presented the coordination section, along with other interconnected topics, blew my mind by showing that the processes of creating rhythm were rather simple. This was learnt through learning about contralateral and ipsilateral patterns, the five kinds of jumps, bounce stepping to a beat, isolation flow, arm swings and floor work. This was very refreshing because the dogma of conventional specialities of dance are a turn off for me. With the tools we developed you can learn to connect with your body and flow into your own style with a smooth feeling rather than feeling rigid and stop/start. Through the practice of these tools I believe that anyone can create great rhythm: stepping into the infinite possibility of this movement feels really good. As humans we need to re-learn to release our creative expression, especially as adults where we have lost our connection to play and expressing this freedom through the body.
I was constantly challenged over the weekend. It was very humbling as I was surrounded by a group of more experienced movers, which put me in a great position to learn and grow while giving me a sense of motivation as I could see where the process leads. For me, it’s important that I implement a ‘basic’ approach to my practice in the coming months, to build the foundation to move toward more complexity with a healthy mind and body for the road ahead. As the saying goes, ‘A house built on a shaky foundation will eventually collapse’. This is important to understand as we have the body for a lifetime: if we don’t lay the foundations for moving correctly and with integrity now, problems will come early in life and will be much harder to heal later on.
Overall, I was very impressed with how well Joseph presented these concepts in a clear, structured format, especially considering how broad and endless movement is. I gained a feeling of appreciation for how much time, effort and dedication was invested in order to present the topics in such a way. I’m excited to implement the tools over the coming months and see how my mobility, strength, flow, rhythm, fluidity through the body and mind all develop.