Touch
So week two of contact and I’m still not feeling that confident with touching people that are not my friends in the class. I thought I was comfortable with everyone in the class but I am starting to tell by my body language when someone comes up to me (that I don’t spend that much time with out of class) I have started to notice that I tense up which then makes our whole connection awkward and bumpy and not smooth a fluid like it is with others in the class.
I found in this class that we went over a lot of things that I have already done at college but in a lot more detail meaning that I was a lot safer and more confident on where to put my weight on people which then made me more confident towards the end of class to work with people smaller and lighter than me.
We started of the class by going though the reading. This took some time as we went though in groups of about five or six and discussed two or three different sections each this I found help me understand the reading and also helped me get in the right frame of mind from the rest of the class.
For our first exorcise in we were asked to partner up with on partner laying flat on their stomach. After you were comfortable the standing partner places their pelvis just above you bum to the center of the back. They could lay there for as long as they wanted to until they found that they were comfortable with what was happening. After this they were asked to roll themselves up and down the body watching out for areas like the backs of the knees. As the partner on my stomach at the start I found it a little uncomfortable but I think this was my partner thought that if she relaxed she might hurt me by putting weight on me. After she relaxed it was a lot smoother so was less uncomfortable to be the partner on the bottom and even started to feel like I was being massaged by my partner’s body. As being the partner on top I was aware of how it felt to be the under partner so I tried to relax straight away. When I started to roll I found that my pelvis kept taking me off the center of my partners back so I had to readjust a couple of times.
We were next asked to sit back to back and to move our spines together pushing and reacting to one another. I found this to be very relaxing and helped me loosen up my back, I also felt like I was more connected and had more trust in my partner. After doing this for some time we started to be waves and surfers. We started off in the back to back position. If you felt like you wear the leader you could lean down to the side until you were on your stomach and simply roll as your partner keeps laying back places their arms over their head and relaxes you rolling underneath them will move them over your body. This will then look like your partner is a surfer using you as a wave. Being the under dancer was nice and felt a little like a massage on the waist until you lost momentum and then you would get suck and have to use a lot of strength to get moving again but this rarely happened. Being the over dancer was fun and also a lot like getting a massage on your back. This was probably the first exorcise that I have enjoyed being the over dancer in more than the under dancer. After this we were asked to use different ways to get onto the wave, which is where it got harder. I found that if you didn’t get on the wave at the right time them it become uncomfortable and harder for the under dancer to roll.
Our last class was a play and stop task simply one partner would improvise as the other would say stop then find a place to put their weight them say play and repeat. This was a fun task but I found I was always asking my partner to stop when they were low to the floor because then I had the choice to put my weight onto her back which we had been working with the whole class.
My favorite quote from the reading this week is “touch is not something often used in other areas of study; it brings a closeness a sense of intimacy and community within the class.” This is my favorite quote because even though is it simple it is one of the most true even in the two weeks we have been doing contact I have already started to closer to all members of the class and I feel us coming together as a group or community. As you look around other classes in the university you see students sitting in their chairs having no connection with any other member of the class and at the end they leave with the two or three friends they have made with not even really knowing all of their classmates. But if you look at our class we sit together leaning on each other more than happy to roll around and be connected with others members and it is thought contact that this has happened.