1. Describe your process. How did you choose your project? Why did you choose this method?
I initially had no idea of what I was going to do, so one day while talking to my friend about this training and she was intrigued about what it entailed given I was explaining the different exercises we went through. So she asked me if I could show her what it was. For context, she had been to a few pole classes with me a few years ago and that was her only “dancing” experience whatsoever. That is when I realized I should do a little class thinking of what could someone handle if they knew nothing about what we learned this past months. And how I could try to make the experience different and enjoyable.
I choose to do a video in person because it felt comfortable and because I wanted to test how a floor course would go if I lead it. I was curious about the exploration of organizing my first class. I did a mini trial-error with my husband first where he gave me feedback being another person who had never been on the floor with the purpose of moving consciously when I was first building the skeleton on the class.
2. What felt good (or provided a healthy challenge) in creating this project?
The fact that I had never taught anything other than pole classes. After we finished recording, my friend mentioned how good she felt and how it felt as if I new exactly how to guide her in a meditative way. That is when I realized that this experience felt completely different because I distanced myself from any muscle cues and from having to show a step by step process.
I really felt amazing leading something other than pole and I feel so happy that I refused to take what I learned on this training and do a project related to pole which would have been my comfort zone. I was one that could do many things on the pole, but when it came to dancing without it on the floor would freeze, so this training gave me the opportunity to explore past my comfort zone and I am thankful for that.
3. What do you think your project offers the viewer/participant? (tools for a accessing a flow state, more awareness of the floor, etc)
I think it offers the participant a sense of presence and encouragement to move even it feels weird or it doesn’t look as one would expect. I tried to remind my student to breath and take as much space as she could. For more awareness of the floor I included techniques like rocking, pushing to distance ourselves from the floor and sliding.
For the viewer, I think it offers a movement meditation where they can see contrast between trying to close in some moves to later expand ourselves big into the screen. I think the viewer can gain an insight to what curious eyes would see if they were doing floor movement for the first time because we tend to forget how I first time on the floor went.
4. If there is one thing that you would do differently, what is it?
I would do it in a space that was way bigger where we could work more on the expanding/contracting techniques to also have more students to guide.
5. What did you learn from this experience that you will apply to your own training or teaching?
From this experience I learned that uncomfortable is good, stillness is good, weird movement exploration is good. I learned that every time I hear / write the word pandiculation I yawn. I learned how to greet and thank the floor for supporting my every move. I learned to ground myself.
For teaching I will apply more breathing cues, more movement exploration and add more emphasis in how everyone’s movement will look a little different and how that is perfectly okay. I will apply more loops and how those can be progressed / regressed to make them look like a completely different loop.
I love how this training got me so much out of my comfortable space, I now welcome the weird looking poses that can be cleaned or incorporated as they are into my movement. I also know how refreshing and how life resets once you have at least 5 minutes sliding on the floor.