Activation, Breath, & Efficiency To Create Technique, Skill and The Fine Art Of Play
I still very often hear the following goals: “I want a strong core,” “I need to stretch,” improve my balance, and improve my sport”.
All of these are valid and worthwhile, but my goal is longevity in doing what we love forever while creating a lifetime of building upon your technique, acquiring skill and challenging that skill. Turning on and off the challenge portion can lead to the freedom and sense of play that we crave, and often neglected as adults. I sometimes honestly think that the most important thing that I continue to train as a dancer for is to dance with my almost 7 year old daughter in our kitchen.
I am working with a professional ballet dancer and today she shared this question, “I wonder if when I am done dancing if I will still be this hyper focused on my body and all these things.”
My immediate response was you won’t ever be done dancing, and I hope you will still be as focused because it is fun 🙂 I went on later to explain that the hyper focus can shift from outward to inward as you get older and evolve in your sport, in her case ballet.
As dancers mature, both physically and mentally, we can bring less of our efforts to gaining outside validation on aesthetic, a better range, and perfection and give more of ourselves to the deeper, integrated, efficient analysis that toggles between building skill, technique and play. You reach a point where you understand the technique required of your sport; you continue honing that technique to become more skilled, and then you try to let that all go so you can soak up the element of play, or just make it feel good. The really lucky ones find this at the peak of their career, others have moments and I believe the really really lucky ones recognize that the real gift is ever finding something that you care as much about that you can be truly present in body and mind … .that gift is called passion.
You won’t take any accolades with you when your body leaves this earth, but a life lived with kindness, passion and play will fulfill your soul.
In this very non academic article I come to you with today, I hope to inspire you to shift your focus from the obvious to the less obvious. Rather than a set list of exercises to try at home or in the gym, here I choose 3 exercises on the apparatus that I feel free after years of hard work to capture my breath and power from my back driving me forward.
I encourage you all at whatever level to honor and cherish your body and its capabilities. Pilates is such a great way to tap into all that you have with a perfect balance of our BASI Pilates values: passion, compassion, and excellence.
Repertoire:
Breathing with push through bar from the BASI Pilates Comprehensive Global Program.
This all in one helps to feel full body breath and engagement working the shoulder muscles, abdominals, spinal articulation, and hip extensors.
Hanging Front from the BASI Pilates Legacy Program-Mentor Program.
So challenging, my daughter can do 7 pull-ups, I can barely do 3 of these.
Magician from the BASI Pilates Legacy Program- Mentor Program.
So much work in the hip extensors, but so fun to fly up and hold it all together.
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