‘Going up’
From all the sessions so far of contact improvisation I have to say this is the lesson that I have been most looking forward to. In the majority of the lessons Kirsty has someway or another referred to the ‘going up’ lesson by saying statements like in the lifting lesson we will do this or I will teach how to get into these positions/shapes later on in the module. So the thought of learning new challenging lifts and being in the air really made me excited and nervous for the lesson. I have always been the taller and larger girl throughout my training so I always had the role of a lifter so I was excited to see if in this session the roles could be switched and I experienced what it was like to be lifted. For the first time in my life I believed that It could be possible for the roles to be switched mainly because throughout the module I have learnt that I can give my weight to people and they will be able to take it.
At the start of this session we had to find a partner and jam with them. I was with Claire and at first it was hard to find connection and get back into it. After having reading week off it thrown me a little as I had to get back into the mind set of contact improvising with someone. However as the contact progressed the movements flowed better. As a pair we got complemented by Kirsty for our movements so that gave me a boost of confidence at the start of the lesson which helped my mindset through out the session. After that we then started to lead up to lifting by doing some smaller balances which involved going in the air. The first lift involved Ellie in table top position and myself leaning my back on her back and using my core strength and momentum to lift my legs up and flip over her back. The first few times I tried it I wasn’t finding it easy to kick my legs upwards. After discussing about the situation with Ellie we came to the conclusion that my back was not in the right place on her back and after I changed the position of my back the flip was easier to complete. This situation then linked to ‘contact is about communication and sharing’ (Woodhull, 1997, 48) I think communication is vital for lifting work because by both being aware of what the others thinking both people will have more confidence and knowledge. The aim was to land smoothly and with ease, which was harder than I thought. I found it harder to control the landing at a start but however got better the more I practised. When it was Ellie’s turn to do the same on my back, I was surprised at how much I didn’t feel Ellie’s weight. The next lift was the superman lift which involved Ellie lying down with her two legs up at a ninety degree angle with flexed feet. She then put her soles of her feet near my hip bones and took the weight of my body with her leg strength which then made me balance in the air with the only support being her feet on my hipbones. I was apprehensive before starting this however surprised myself because I managed to do the balance without the support of Ellie’s hands. I think this relates to the quote ‘when there is more than one point of contact the centre of gravity no longer has to be over the point of contact’ (Woodhull, 1997, 47). I believe this is suggesting that if you don’t fully trust the person you are improvising with, you are not giving them your full weight, meaning your centre of gravity might not necessarily change. However in my situation I felt comfortable giving all my weight to ellie so I didn’t think about my own centre of gravity as Ellie took that responsibility. Which made me more confident and then enabled me to do the lift with ease.
Throughout this session it was important to release the muscular tension in my body. This is a difficult concept for me as this is what I have struggled with in the previous sessions. In this session it was my first real experience of being lifted, as the session went along the more I started to release muscular and emotional tension (to have willingness to try new things) and because of that the lifts kept getting better the more I practised.
We then moved on to more weight bearing travelling exercises. Throughout the session the lifts and balances have been very static. Before we started these I thought these would be particularly effective to actively demonstrate in our jams. Also would be an affective to way to travel with someone else as before I have only travelled across the space in jams on my own. One of the ways we got taught to use balance and the momentum was an exercise that involved the strength to pull each other across the space. This involved holding on to each other with one hand and the arm out stretched whilst in a bent squat position leaning backwards. Then one person would pull the other person around you so swapping places but with strength force from the other person. This was a fun exercise and would be a good way to travel or enter a jam.
We then moved on to doing group lifts. This involved three people standing with their arms out stretched ready to catch the person running and throwing them selves in a straight pencil shape. I found catching the other girls fun as it was good to work in a bigger group. However I think it would be harder to incorporate this lift in a jam because it would be hard to organise on the spot without talking to each other in a jam situation!
Throughout this session I have learnt different types of lifts and balances. As the session went on I got more confident into giving and receiving peoples weight. Some of these types of balances I can now incorporate in the jams when I am contacting with people. However I can now not only do the lifts that we have done this lesson but now experiment with the points of contact that we have been shown today. Meaning I can do different shapes and types of lifts with the basis of knowledge I now have. I have really enjoyed this lesson but am definitely feeling the pain all over body today!
Woodhull, A. (1997) Center of Gravity. Contact Quarterly/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook I, 4, 43-48.