InnerMotion – The Guidebook – Embodiment
Embodiment is a crucial foundation of this practice. Being present in your body while dancing allows you to experience the music on a deeper level, fostering a profound connection with your physical sensations and emotions. This connection enhances your ability to move with grace and fluidity, enabling you to respond intuitively to your body's needs and limitations. Think of it as yoga nidra in motion, where the stillness of traditional meditation is replaced by the dynamic flow of dance.
In this practice, dance is treated as a form of meditation. By focusing on your body and its movements, you remain present and fully engaged in the dance experience. This heightened awareness transforms dance into a powerful meditative practice, helping you achieve a sense of mindfulness and tranquility. As you dance, you will find yourself more attuned to your body, allowing for a freer and more authentic expression of your emotions.
Awareness, in this context, refers to a heightened attentiveness to the subtle details of your physical presence. It’s about understanding how each part of your body moves and interacts with the music and the space around you. This enriched presence enables you to move more effectively and confidently, making your dance experience more enjoyable and fulfilling.
Exercise: Guided Meditation
- Feet: Begin by bringing your awareness to your feet. Notice how they make contact with the ground. Feel the weight distribution and the pressure points as you shift your weight. Allow yourself to move slowly, sensing each step and the connection between your feet and the floor. As the music plays, let your feet respond naturally to the rhythm and beat, guiding your movements with ease.
- Ankles and Calves: Gradually shift your awareness from your feet to your ankles and calves. Notice any tension or movement in these areas. Feel how your ankles flex and extend, and how your calves engage with each step. Observe the sensations as the music flows through you, supporting your movements and connecting these parts of your body to the dance.
- Knees and Thighs: Bring your awareness to your knees and thighs. Notice the bending and straightening of your knees, the strength in your thighs, and how they contribute to your overall movement. As you dance, feel the music influencing your knee bends, leg lifts, and the sway of your thighs. Let your movements become fluid, guided by the sensations in these areas.
- Hips and Pelvis: Shift your awareness to your hips and pelvis. Feel the rotation, tilting, and swaying of your hips as you move. Notice how your pelvis provides a foundation for your upper body and allows for expressive movements. Let the music inspire hip circles, sways, and other motions, deepening your connection to your core.
- Spine and Torso: Direct your awareness to your spine, the central column that connects your body. Feel its natural curves as it supports your movements, allowing flexibility and strength. Notice how each part of your spine, from the base to the neck, responds to the rhythm. Then expand your focus to include your entire torso, noticing how your abdomen, chest, and back move in harmony with your breath and the music.
- Arms and Hands: Gradually bring your awareness to your arms and hands. Feel the energy flowing from your shoulders down to your fingertips. Notice how your arms swing, reach, and gesture in response to the music. Let your hands guide you, tracing patterns in the air and adding depth to your dance expression.
- Head and Neck: Bring your awareness to your head and neck. Notice the position and movement of your head, the flexing and extending of your neck, and how these movements influence your posture and balance. Keep your jaw at least slightly open, allowing for relaxation and preventing unnecessary tension. Relax your face, releasing any stiffness, and let your head, neck, face, cheeks, eyebrows, and mouth respond naturally to the rhythm of the music, completing the connection.
- Whole Body: Now, bring your awareness to your entire body as a whole. Allow this expanded awareness to flow seamlessly from your feet to your head. Feel the sensation of your entire body moving as one, unified by the music and your inner rhythm. This moment of embodied awareness grounds you in the present and connects you deeply to yourself. Practice recalling this feeling to quickly reconnect with your body and sustain your embodiment throughout your dance.
Exercise: Experimentation
These exercises are designed to expand your embodiment skills, increasing your awareness of subtle sensations, deepening your connection to movement, and refining your ability to stay present in your body. Experiment with these techniques and observe how they affect your experience of dance.
- Micro-Focus: Choose a tiny, often overlooked part of your body - such as the tip of your nose, pinky finger, a single joint in your toe, or the left side of your tongue. Bring all of your awareness to that one point as you move, noticing the sensations, tensions, and micro-movements that occur. As you continue, gradually expand this awareness to the rest of your body while maintaining the same level of sensitivity and presence. This sharpens fine motor control and deepens somatic awareness, allowing for greater precision and a richer connection to movement.
- Breath-Led Movement: Instead of focusing on the rhythm of the music, let your breath guide your movement. As you inhale, expand your body - reaching, rising, and opening. As you exhale, allow your body to contract - curling, folding, and sinking. In between breaths, pause your movement and notice how your awareness shifts. This exercise enhances fluidity, releases tension, and strengthens the connection between breath and motion, making movement feel more organic and effortless.
- Feeling Weight: Experiment with shifting between feeling heavy and grounded versus light and lifted. Move as if your bones are filled with lead, making each step deliberate, strong, and deeply rooted. Then, contrast this by moving as if you are floating, as if suspended in water or drifting in zero gravity. Transition fluidly between these states, blending heaviness and lightness in waves. This practice refines energy control, helps you play with dynamic contrast, and allows movement to carry a deeper sense of expression and intention.
- Sensory Isolation: Temporarily limit or enhance one of your senses while dancing to heighten your body awareness. Close your eyes to amplify proprioception and inner movement sensation. Muffle sound with earplugs to remove auditory input and focus entirely on how movement feels. Fix your gaze on one unmoving point to become more aware of shifts in balance and spatial orientation. Experiment with extreme peripheral awareness by sensing movement at the edges of your vision rather than focusing straight ahead. These exercises deepen sensorimotor adaptation, making you more responsive and attuned to your body beyond habitual movement patterns.
- Movement Origination Experiment: Initiate movement from different areas of your body to explore how shifts in movement initiation affect expression. Start by leading movement from your solar plexus or abdomen, feeling energy radiate outward from your core. Then, initiate from your feet, imagining movement rising from the ground up like an upward surge of energy. Explore movement led by the spine, allowing it to undulate and guide the rest of your body in waves. Finally, let your hands or fingertips lead, as if creating ripples in space that direct the rest of your form. Shifting movement initiation enhances coordination, flow, and variety in expression, allowing for a more diverse range of movement experiences.
- Internal vs. External Focus: Switch between internal and external awareness as you dance. Internal awareness involves focusing solely on inner sensations, ignoring external surroundings and fully immersing yourself in bodily perception. External awareness shifts your focus outward, dancing as if responding to the energy of the room, the people around you, or the space itself. Finally, experiment with blending the two - staying deeply connected to your body while simultaneously sensing the larger dance floor as an interactive environment. This practice refines spatial awareness, adaptability, and emotional presence, making your movement feel more fluid and connected.
These embodiment experiments encourage exploration, curiosity, and refinement in movement. By incorporating them into your practice, you strengthen your ability to remain fully present, tune into deeper sensations, and discover new dimensions of movement expression. Try them individually or in combination, and observe how each approach transforms your experience of dance.
Exercise: Quick Reconnection
Once you have established a solid foundation from the previous exercises, you can progress to an accelerated version of this technique. It will allow you to quickly ground yourself and reconnect with your body, making it particularly useful for moments when you find yourself distracted, thinking, or simply returning to the dance floor after a break.
It will take some practice to master this technique so start by practicing it slowly, taking a few seconds for each body part and then gradually reduce the time spent on each part until you can complete the entire scan in just a couple of seconds. Regular practice will make this technique second nature, allowing you to ground yourself quickly and effectively whenever needed. Here are a few approaches you can try:
- Sequential Naming: Move through the major body parts by naming them in your mind and putting your focus on each one (feet; legs; hips; abdomen; torso; arms; hands; neck; head; whole body).
- Visual Imagery: Imagine a wave of light or energy moving up or down your body, bringing awareness to each part as it passes until your whole body glows.
- Awareness Sight: Move your attention inward to various parts of your body (from your feet all the way to your head)
- Intuitive Order: You don't necessarily have to follow any specific order; do whatever feels natural to you at the moment
Experiment with these different exercises so you can find the most effective way for you to rapidly reconnect with your body, enhancing your presence and engagement in your dance practice. By integrating this into your practice, you enhance your ability to stay present and connected, ensuring a deeper and more continuous engagement with your dance experience.
