Dancing Hands
Discovering Movement Potential
This lesson comes from what I learned in NIA class with Rosanne Russell. Nia is a sensory-based movement practice that draws from martial arts, dance arts, and healing arts. From this class I began watching people’s hands and feet as they moved. I noticed just how beautiful hand movement is and how much it could convey.
When I looked at my own hands, they looked clunky and separated from the rest of my body. It was even hard for me to watch my hands for any period of time. I realized it was hard to watch myself. Put me in front of a mirror as I practiced, my mind would leave the moment pretty quickly. Maybe this was related to not watching myself on video? Hmmm…
This was surely a learning opportunity. I began to wonder if my hands were more than just key pushing digits. I turned on Adele’s ‘Hello’ and began to move my hand as if it were a dancer, responding to changes in the music’s flow, and intensity. I watched my hand as it moved. I noticed the ways it could move and shapes it could form with wonder. I had never taken the time to really look at my hand, watch it move, and explore what possibilities it had.
It turns out my hand was capable of more than closing a key, typing at the computer, and gripping objects, it was expressive. My mind was blown. In fact, when I took this new image of my hand back to the flute, I could feel the flute differently, could move my fingers differently, I even experienced the size of my hand in new ways. This changed my playing!
Today, turn on your favorite tune and let your hand dance. Be an observer of the movements and shapes it can form. What happens when you that this new image of your hand to your instrument, paintbrush, computer? Do you relate differently? Do you move differently? Do you think differently? Do you enjoy the movements of your hands?
Be curious, there are more than just 4 fingers, a thumb, and a wrist in your hand…