Bow to Boat and Surfing Banana Rolls

As it's essential to learn the basics before attempting anything, we began by looking at bow to boat rolls. For this roll, you must go from lying supine on the floor with your arms above your head and only your back support you to lying on your front with only your torso is supporting your weight. You have to use your abdominal muscles to roll yourself over onto your front whilst stretching your arms and legs away from your body to lengthen your body as much as possible. This exercise strengthens and works your abdominal muscles and the muscles in your lower back. I generally found this exercise easy to carry out, I have quite strong abdominal muscles from years of regular ballet, but I generally think i was successful at carrying this roll out.

We then moved onto banana rolls, like a bow to boat roll but continuously carried out across the floor. You have to try and carry this out without letting your head, arms, neck or legs fall to the floor - although this is harder to carry out as you have to have complete control over your body whilst in the roll otherwise you wouldn't be able to carry it out successfully. I generally found this exercise easy to do and I really enjoyed using it to travel across the room. However, I found that you really have to commit to the roll and to the movement of your body - I found altering the speeds of the roll or learning to hold it in certain places really helped me improve of my technique and enabled me to carry it out more effectively.

Then we moved onto the final stage; surfing banana rolls. With this exercise you pair up in partners and one person takes the position of a banana roll on the floor whilst the other kneels leaning across their body vertically. The person lying down has to roll over as if they would with a usual banana rolls and the other person has to let their body move with the movement as the person below them rolls over. This causes them to travel across the room then swap with the other person without stopping moving. I found this a really fun exercise to carry out as it was a really interesting exercise to use when travelling across the floor - I also generally found it quite easy to carry out and transition the different roles within the roll.

Place, Press, Push

Another exercise we carried out in class was 'Place, Press, Push'. This involved in pairing up with another person and then in pairs, one person lies on the floor in supine position with their arms resting above their head. The other person chooses different points on their partners body, avoiding areas such as joints, and placing their hands onto that point and just letting them rest there without placing any pressure. If you are the person doing the movement, once you feel you are ready to progress further, you have to start pressing slightly down onto you partner's body part so a slight pressure is felt by your partner. In the final stage, you use your whole weight to push down onto the point on your partner's body. You then explore different parts of your partner's body, getting comfortable with each other - going through the exercise in a cycle of three stages; placing your hands onto your partner's body, pressing down slightly, then pushing down completely. You then switch with your partner so they are able to place, press and push down onto your body.

Benefits of this exercise is that it really helps you connect and interact with your partner in a comfortable environment, you gain a deeper and detailed understanding on how much your body can take as the pressure placed on your by your partner doesn't feel as strong as it may seem. You and your partner learn each others bodies and become comfortable working so closely together. Learning and becoming comfortable with each others bodies is extremely important as you develop a deeper understanding of how your body works and how much your can physically achieve with your body when you put as much effort as you can into it. You learn to place your faith in another person as you trust them not to hurt you throughout the exercise. It needs to be completely clear at the beginning of the exercise that if either member feels any form of discomfort throughout, they can just say 'stop' to completely end the exercise. Trust and being comfortable around on another are both extremely important components of partner work as your piece can't properly flow or work successfully if you don't trust and feel completely comfortable around one another.

I personally found this exercise quite relaxing when I was the one lying on the floor, I felt comfortable with my partner and trusted them not to hurt me or make me feel uncomfortable. I found doing the exercise on my partner slightly more daunting as I didn't want to hurt or make my partner uncomfortable in any way possible. However, I feel that both me and my partner carried out the exercise successfully and we worked well and efficiently with one another to achieve the best possible outcome.

Push Me/Pull You

Push Me/Pull You involves holding the wrist of your partner, bending one knee and keeping the other leg. You have to trust your partner to keep a hold of you as you have to bend your knees and fall back, once you're on your back and your legs are in the air, you need to rock back so that your legs almost go over your head, this gives you enough momentum to then rock back forward onto your feet into a squatting position so your partner can fall backwards. You have to keep a right grip onto your partner when they fall back and bend forward to follow them as they rock back too keep the movement consistent and fluid. If it works successfully and flows, then you and your partner are almost moving in a rocking chair movement. Your whole back comes in contact with the floor when you rock backwards, it's a really interesting and effective way to move and come in contact with the floor. 

Me and Chloe worked together on this exercise and we managed to grasp it quite quickly and develop into a fluid movement. We trusted each other with the movements and were confident enough to let ourselves go, this really helped us develop a deeper understanding and get a grasp of the detail and the attention the exercise needed to be successful. This exercise definitely would've been harder if we didn't have the confidence to work with the floor and trust the flow of our bodies. I really enjoyed this exercise and found it quite fun to carry out once me and Chloe got the hang of it. 

Routes to the floor

Developing different routes to the floor is extremely important for an actor who is developing their understanding of physical theatre and movement in many various ways. Developing different routes to the floor enables the actor to learn and teach their body different movements and different ways to travel down. By developing different and creative routes it helps the actor's movements flow and tell imaginative narratives, so the actor can colour their physical theatre pieces creatively and explore different ways to the floor rather than just dropping down. 

We explored different ways of getting to the floor to gain a further understanding of the importance of knowing various movements and to gain confidence in carrying out these movements. One of the ways we developed our understanding was through capoeria movements, such as; ginga, cocorinha and nagativa. We worked in pairs to develop and work off one another, using these movements to get in contact with the ground to avoid the kicks of our opponent. I really liked learning these movements as it really helped me build confidence and an understanding of my body and how it can come in contact with the ground in different and interesting ways.

Another way we developed to get to the ground was through forward and backwards roly polys, these were quite challenging at first for me as I haven't done either in a very long time so I almost had to relearn how to carry them out. However, after a while I managed to get a hang of both of them and used them as a creative and effective way to get to and travel long the floor. 

Milling

I found the milling exercises extremely satisfying to carry out, they let me be free with my movements and gave me a chance to let my body take the lead rather than over-think my movements with my mind.

The first milling exercise involved walking around the space, getting aware of your surroundings and the people in them. We were allowed to move freely without limitations, walking in a way that didn't conform to the usual idea of walking. I really enjoyed being out of my comfort zone and pushing myself to experiment and try new things that I wouldn't have necessarily done previously. I found it so interesting how the rest of the group also let go from over-thinking or letting themselves be nervous, we all flowed really interestingly with each other, intertwining our movements with very few collisions.

Working with one singular person in the free mill exercise was strangely freeing as it flowed like a conversation through movements - it didn't need any words. We were able to work together at our paces and levels, just letting our bodies take over with the movements. We were able to work together with such ease that didn't allow us to be embarrassed or put limitations on any of our movements, which I personally think helped us relate to one another better and help us develop a more effective piece.

The only way to be completely successful at this exercise is by completely letting the body take over, not thinking through every movement you're about to carry out and I think, I personally, and the whole group managed to capture that.

Sun Salutations

We then learnt and practiced a Sun Salutation. Sun Salutions are a sequence of yoga movements that aim to honour the sun. Starting the session with a sun salutation really put me in focus for the rest of the lesson, it left me feeling open and ready to put as much effort in as possible for the rest of the exercises.

Every transition to different positions are facilitated by either inhaling or exhaling, this is to gain a deep focus on your breathing, making sure it's regular rather than irregular. These movements lengthens your spine and stretches muscles throughout the body, doing the sequence regularly has many positive health impacts on your body. For example; doing the sequence at a fast pace is a good cardiovascular exercise, it helps improve blood circulation as well as adding health benefits to systems throughout the body. The particular sun salutation we did in class focused on stretching and opening up the back of the legs, this meant I had to push myself to carry it out as successfully as possible - which I think I managed to do.

I found the sun salutations extremely interesting to carry out as it really got me to focus on my breathing and as well as carrying out the different positions. I found holding some of the positions for an extended length of time a bit of a task but I know i will be able to improve over the next coming weeks.  I used to do yoga regularly when I was younger but I haven't done it recently so to spend time to really focus on the sequence was really refreshing and left me feeling strangely peaceful.  

Developing and finding a sense of alignment

We started the lesson by trying to find a good posture, but in order to find a good posture we need to find and develop the perfect sense of body alignment. It's extremely important to find a sense of alignment and use body parts to their highest efficiency because many pains and problems with the body are due to mis-alignment which can lead to health complications in later life. These bad habits that cause mis-alignment are picked up throughout life and can also be due to sporting activities or further outside forces that cause you to hold your body in a certain way. 

To find a perfect posture, the spine needs to be extended, eyes level, knees need to be relaxed but not completely bent and feet need to be hip width apart. This ensures that the whole body can be used to it's full potential, all your bones, muscles and ligaments can be used how nature intended them to be. Poor posture and alignment can lead to further health issues that can affect systems throughout the body (such as; digestion, breathing, muscles and joints). This causes those without a good sense of alignment find themselves easily worn out and unable to work efficiently or move properly. 

I found finding my sense of alignment generally quite easy as I've been studying ballet for the last 13 years which requires good posture throughout, however, I do find myself regularly slouching and by doing this exercise I gained a deeper understanding on the importance of finding a sense of alignment. I have now developed a deeper and more detailed understanding about the health complications that can occur without a good posture and how our bodies have adapted to form mis-alignments (such as; locked knees) due to bad postures and the misuse of our bodies.