Week 6

This week’s reading, I felt was very relatable to everything that we have been doing over the past few weeks in lesson. Centre of Gravity by Ann Woodhull, the reading was about wat it says, the centre of gravity. She talks about wherever the centre of gravity is the body will follow. She also talks about the body as if it’s different segments and each part of the body an almost its own centre of gravity. Although she states the ” centre of gravity tends to stay around the belly”(Ann Woodhull, 1978, 45) she also states “think of the body as a set segment, each of its own mass and position” (Ann Woodhull, 1978,44) it almost like one compensates for the other without you knowing. It’s important to share the weight of gravity and also when working with partners to share the weight of gravity between you both a well, this is clearly demonstrated in our tasks in this lesson.  

This week was going up week which was really difficult and specially for me as I’m still not lifting in contact properly yet due to injury. Although it was hard I had so much fun being the over dancer and see where movements could lead to from this. 

We did a sea sore lift which although me and Chloe work together a lot n contact really struggled with this and simply couldn’t figure this out with each other. Our sense of gravity wasn’t equally shared so it made us off balance. If we were the under dancer we would put our hand underneath the over dancer’s hand which made it work but then when we were asked to develop this I found it hard as I had to put my hand over the top. The development moving the move forward continuously we then couldn’t do as we were changing hands. Therefor we know we need to work on sharing the weight equally and practice this so we can do it in a jam purpose. 

When then did a pencil catch which previously I had done this but to work with somebody knew was a different experience. I worked with Hannah on this and it worked really well the weight of gravity from both the under and over dance was in the correct place and the lift worked really well. In this situation I was the under dancer therefore, catching Hannah. I didn’t want Hannah to be the under dancer.  

Why? 

I didn’t trust her to catch me? 

There was the sense of anxiety that she might from me therefore we just keep going with me being the under dancer. The more we did this the better and easier it got we got a great sensation off each other. We just had to remember to be careful of each other for me not to catch her round her knees but because her sense of gravity was in the correct place it made it easier for me to catch her which was just under the gluteal this relates to what Ann Woodhall mentions ” When the body changes shape and the centre of the body changes”(Anna Woodhull, 1978, pg number) we had to change the weight for me from pulling her up to the ground to then a neutral position when I caught her. I then tried this with Laura and allowed Laura to lift me so that I was the over dancer. The anxiety had eased off as I saw her catch other people. This was all about the stability of the under dancer which the weight of gravity helps with. 

Another big lift we did which was really going up a lot was the paper clip lift which I tried with Rayanee. I was always the over dancer due to injury I didn’t have the full strength in my ankle to lift somebody that high. We worked on this movement a lot and pretty much manage to get this movement straight away. We kept on trying this movement as much as we could but due to excitement I pushed my sense of gravity to far over Rayanee which sent my pelvis to much over shoulder sending me to much over her which then she collapsed to the floor. The sensations were great that we felt at the begging ad we were getting it really well. Although this little mishap happened it didn’t stop me and Rayanne it made us more determined to make the movement to the best of our ability. It felt great to be finally going up it felt like I was flying it was a great feeling. The main points were to try not to hold muscular tension in my body or I just wouldn’t get up and I had to hold my body and find my sense of gravity but my centre of gravity doesn’t have to be in my body it can be out of the body as long as both of out positions were stable which the majority of the time they were. 

Woodhull, A. (1978) Centre of Gravity. Contact Quartrly,4, 43-48. 

 

 

 

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