Contrasts in Effort

coordination vs release

This week let’s explore awareness in more intentional movement, maybe even applying it to a coordination challenge. 

We navigate a plethora of different coordination challenges as we play. My old approach was to put all of my efforts into creating the sound/nuance/rhythm, almost like closing my eyes, squeezing everything, and hoping for the outcome I was going for. The process was effortful and inconsistently successful which was frustrating and discouraging.

Today in my movement practice, bet you can’t guess what I was doing, I recognized that as I moved in my arms, I could simultaneously allow release through my feet and legs. The contrast between the release of tension and coordination was strikingly clear. The same thing can happen when we are playing, think grounded, easy, effortless expression.

To get you going, I will walk you through the practice. After experiencing something easy, scale it up, increase the complexity.  Even take it into playing, again start simple, just making a basic sound is a great entry.

Be curious…