Active Practice
During this month I took part in Breakdance, Muay Tai, Jiu Jutsu and contemporary technique classes. As well as this physical research, I continued my reading of literature, watched videos on YouTube and followed the posts of physical movement practitioners on Instagram. During the month I also learned even more about Functional Range Conditioning (FRC).
I think that FRC has some very interesting concepts that are applicable to dance conditioning, however after listening to the podcast from FRC creator Andreo Spina I found him quite pretentious and overly critical of other movement forms, which made it hard to listen to him talk. That being said there are a lot of takeaways from his methodologies that are very applicable to dance and perhaps neglected. I think that Kinstretch, which is one of the methods springing from FRC could be a particularly effective strength and conditioning practice for dancers and I would like to do a course and learn more about it.
Some particular exercises I learned from there methods are Controlled Articular Rotations (CARs) and PAILs (progressive angular isometric loading) and RAILs (regressive angular isometric loading). CARs is a mobility exercise for the joints in which a joint is isolated under tension and taken through its maximum rotational range. In doing this one will strengthen the joint and increase the range over time, as well as increasing blood flow to the joint which could assist in the natural healing processe of the body. PAILs and RAILs are a stretching exercise aimed at stretching in a way that maintains control over the muscles while in a stretch. This technique is supposed to be a particularly good form of active stretching, which is generally preferred at the moment as active stretching usually allows the body to have more control at the end ranges in which one is stretching, PAILs and RAILs also apparently allow the body to keep the range that one have achieved from stretching rather than losing it over time or not having access to it. Put simply, PAILs and RAILs is the contraction of aggressor muscles against weight applied towards the direction of the aggressor for a period of time and then the contraction of the opposite regressor muscles, bringing one further into the stretch. This is similar to PNF stretching but not the same and it seems to be more effective according to the literature, probably due to the dualistic nature of the actions involved. During this stretch you do not move much because the exercise is supposed to be done at the end range of a persons flexibility.
A lot of the exercises, or maybe all of the exercises in FRC and other modalities of FRC like Kinstretch use high amounts of control and muscular tension, which is good for mobility, but not necessarily good for dance. I think it will be interesting to take the concepts I have learned from FRC and put them in a dance context. Most simply this will involve playing with the amounts of repetitions, the amounts of body parts being utilised and the different states of tension that can be accessed in the movements.
I have found Instagram to be a great resource for free information about physical practice and as long as one has a discerning eye to separate good advice and exercises from bad, then it can be a good free learning tool. Some of what I learn from physical practitioners isn't great or applicable to my project and some is good but also not applicable. I follow some Kinstretch practitioners who show a lot of the exercises which I can copy. One good Kinstretch practitioner I follow is Kinstretch with Beard. I also follow someone called Knees Over Toes Guy, who has quite a few good exercises that aim at strengthening muscle groups that he believes have been neglected in sports. The exercises are usually aimed at being used in the gym, however I can adapt the information into a dance context in order to strengthen the same muscles in a different way and without equipment.
Whereas Kinstretch with Beard gives multiple good examples of conditioning exercises along the line of FRC's methodology and offers insightful glimpses into the philosophy behind his movement practice, Knees over Toes Guy offers suggestions about how to train certain muscle groups, which can be trained in a particular way to improve high level sports performance and recover from injury. Other than the focus on particular muscle groups, he talks about training muscles at the end ranges of motion, training the concentric as well as the eccentric part of a movement and training the body in the opposite direction that it is often trained. An example of this opposition is the reverse squat. The muscle groups that he talks a lot about training in particular are the tibialis, hip-flexors and hamstrings. I will go into more detail about this later and will also include links to his Instagram etc.
On YouTube I continued to follow some fitness and physicality professionals and saved lots and lots of videos that talk about different movement practices. I also watched a lot of fighting videos. From this I have learned in general about the ideas in the fitness industry and physical culture. Because the content and sources is quite a lot I will simply state the subjects and then link a folder with all the videos. The subjects were MMA, Jiu-Jutsu, Wrestling, various martial arts, Human Movement, fitness rehab and anatomy, FRC, Kinstretch and functional fitness. I think on thing of note I noticed between some fitness and rehabilitation coaches and FRC practice is the idea that muscular imbalance, as in the strength and flexibility of muscles being in disharmony can cause postural and structural imbalance which leads to injury. I may have been listening incorrectly, however founder of FRC Andreo Spina pointed out articles which apparently disproved this theory. What is funny is that other fitness and rehabilitation coaches seem to use this theory and achieve good results for their clients. Furthermore, unlike in the dance industry, the fitness industry does not have any interest (or so it seems) in Somatics, which is considered quite a fundamental and useful part of movement practice in the dance world. As well as this, I have not as of yet heard talk in the fitness industry or anywhere in FRC about how tension in the body and bodily imbalances can also be caused by emotions, mental state, physical and mental sickness or trauma. As a Body-Worker who works with clients, the son of healers and a dancer of many years, I find it strange that this isn't considered something of importance in relation to how we are moving. It is also not unknown in the literature and I have been reading a book called The Body Keeps the Score, which talks about this subject a lot.
During this month I also took part in Jiu-Jutsu and Muay Thai classes. Jiu-Jutsu comprise a lot of their warming up on the floor, whereas in Muay Thai it is all standing. The warming up routines of martial arts are strictly based on warming the body and training movement patterns which are used in their respective techniques. Both the warm ups and the actual training can be transferred over to a contemporary warm up class and some of the exercises are effective for training muscles groups also associated with dance, however in terms of it's applicability to the movement forms I want to create for this project I am not entirely sure that much needs to be taken from martial arts. What is relevant, is the way that martial artists often use explosive movement. This is an aspect of training I want to integrate into my class. I also think that certain Jiu-Jutsu floor warm ups are great for floor work. Furthermore the way that the hips are used in Muay Thai to generate force while punching and kicking is similar to the way that dancers use the force of the hips to perform many complicated aerial movements that require lots of force. This is interesting and certainly applicable to my class.
Lastly, I took Breakdance classes and contemporary technique classes. Some of the contemporary technique classes were actually quite good and did offered a practice that would facilitate some of the aims I am also reaching for. Breakdance was definitely interesting and I learned a lot of new movement patterns that were unfamiliar to me. The way that they squat in Breakdance uses the Tibialis quite a lot and I think this particular way of squatting could be a way to strengthen this under trained muscle and also open up a greater ease for contemporary dancers on the floor.
After this month I feel much clearer about what I want to focus on and what kind of a class I want to create. During the next month I would like to further explore my ideas about exercises, outcomes and makeup of the class. As well as this I will continue my physical and theoretical research.