Inside each of us, our heart beats, chest and lungs breathe, belly digests, fluids flow, our brain and all our other organs pulse — even our tissues and cells pulse. All of this motility — this spontaneous, pulsing movement — creates an underlying feeling of “you” just humming along as a coordinated whole.

We are living, dynamic, pulsing, emotional beings inside and out. And we can learn to participate in our dynamic body process and the shaping of our behaviors and feelings.

We all make body shapes all the time, whether on purpose or not, and these shapes communicate to others and to ourselves how we feel. In movement classes, the children learn to participate in how they physically shape themselves — their outer expressions and their inner state — and how this affects how they feel and behave.

Dynamic Body Shapes — Your Outer Expression:

In your Personal Bubble Space around You:

 

 

 

What Body Shape Do You Make?

Curvy Shape?

Angular Shape?

Jaggedy Shape?

 

What do you do with your arms, legs, hands, and feet? With your torso — your chest, belly, and center? With your eyes, ears, and mouth?  What body shapes do you make and with how much intensity? How does this affect how you feel? How does it change how you move through the room?

The children move through the room in straight lines, curvy-swervy lines, jagged lines, and in circles. They discover how changing their body shape and the way they move through the room affects how they feel.

Dynamic Body State — Your Inner Experience

In your Personal Space Within You:

How do You Participate in Forming Your State?

The children freeze-frame their deflated body state-shape and investigate the intensity of their body state.

Are you sort of droopy, droopy, or super droopy?

And how does your body state affect how you feel?

How does this affect how you move? How you interact with others?

In movement class, the children learn how to modulate the intensity of their body shape and discover how this affects how they feel, think, and can behave.

 

Are you somewhat compressed, compressed, or super compressed? How does this affect you? 

How much do you tighten, stiffen, squeeze yourself? And Where?  What happens if you decrease your intensity one step and wait? What is that like?

What is Your Degree of “In-tense-ity“? 1, 2, or 3?

From slack to supple to taut, how much tension are you holding and where? How much inner pressure do you create? And how does this affect your body state?

The children explore how changing the intensity of their body shape affects how they feel, how they perceive, how they think, and how they relate to themselves and to the world around them.

They practice participating in and influencing how they shape their body attitude and influence their personal state.