Improvisation (Classical Acting)

This is the first dance-like class that I have taken since my hip surgeries. When we first started I was honestly really embarrassed and worried because I knew I couldn't move fully and Improvisation is a subject that begs you to go all out and all in.

In our text book, there is an author, Zaporah, and she claims that the mind and body are inseparable. She says, “The body knows itself through the mind as the mind knows itself through the body. Sometimes it’s convenient to talk about the body and the mind as separate entities. We can talk about taming or disciplining the body, quieting the mind, relaxing the body, focusing attention. But can you imagine doing any of these things without both body and mind? (21)”

And I just started to think about that quote and wonder what it means to me and whether or not I agree or disagree. Well, in respect to my personally experiences and journey that I have experienced in the last two months, I decided that I agreed with her statement. 

The body reacts and responds to what we think and how we feel. You simply can’t have one without the other. You can certainly try, but I feel the results would be less than desirable. For example: if you are laying in bed trying to relax your body,it won’t matter how calm you are if your mind is racing. This happens to me all the time and it keeps me awake for hours at times.

Even though I know they are both integral, I feel very segregated between mind and body. Especially when any sort of dance/movement is going on. I have never been a strong dancer and as a result I have never considered myself “a dancer”. In fact I didn’t even feel like I could call myself “a mover” until a year or so ago. I always get caught up in my head with personal judgements and insecurities. I am constantly telling myself that I must look ridiculous which then results in a lack of commitment to movement. Let me explain a little bit.

Over the last 6+ years, I’ve been dealing with hip problems. My joints would painfully pop and lock and sometimes lock up on me. It made it difficult to enjoy dancing or movement for extended periods of time. Eventually I compensated because I couldn’t trust my hips to fully hold my weight. Because of that my body and my mind started to compensate as well. I held my weight higher so that I was always prepared to catch myself if my hip locked. I altered dance moves in musicals I was a part of so that I wouldn’t pull anything the wrong way. It became second nature to me. But then I finally said ‘enough is enough’ and my husband and I started to search for answers last summer. We found a doctor that knew exactly what was wrong and how to fix it. So I had two hip surgeries within as many months.

Now I find myself longing to be “a dancer”. Longing to reshape my mindset and my own opinions of my body and how it looks and moves and responds to music but I have a lot of bad habits to break and years of self-doubt and insecurities to overcome.

Needless to say, I know how powerful our minds can be. I am starting to truly understand that I have to find a way to mentally trust my body again and trust my muscles to know what to do; trust that I don’t always look completely ridiculous. Which is honestly one reason why I am so glad to be taking a dance improv class. What better way to begin trusting my body again, than in a class where all we do is explore how our bodies move and react. The mind and the body are powerful tools and are even more powerful when they are working together.