Awareness Through Movement #542

Hopping over the left leg - aka THE ART OF STANDING??

There is a lot of words in this lesson, Moshe talks as people explore applying what he says to the movements he guides us through. Some of what he says might make sense at the time, and some of it could probably be better digested with eyes on the words, like this particular piece:

“Now, this is just to tell you,
(and it is the last time I mention it because I already said it).
Many, in particular one of my assistants said
that we did movements in standing and they were okay.
I say that movements like this as they are,
which he thinks are okay, are, for me, nothing.

It is below any type of criticism
and this is without the work that we are doing.
Without this, up to now only one or two people in the world
have achieved this in some other way.
I know there are people like this.
There are a few who have achieved this.
Even with them, it is not clean.
This means there are movements that they do well
and there are movements that they just do like others do.
And, like this, it is impossible to improve the entire standing
because while the person is dealing with so many things,
he is not free to make the correction.

It takes years of work through attention,
through knowledge,
through distinctions.

It is a thing that is adjusted to each person,
while the other way is just for a special few.
There are just two or three in the world that have succeeded,
so that is not the way.

Here, we will all do as we do everything that we do.
Everyone will succeed.
And now, try a moment... pay attention.
.. place the (right) leg backward.
Place the left leg in front.
Jump on it and observe how is the left leg behind when you want to return?
This is what I said — to place the left leg behind.
You see?
It needs to go a bit to the right from behind
so it will be possible to hop and return.
You see?
This is inhibition.

This is the basis of learning.
You need to be able to learn to inhibit the leg that goes by itself,
doing things that you do not want from it.

It just like in good swimming.
Swimming - you need to inhibit the strong movements in front,
the strong movements are just backward.
In front- quiet and slow.
It is impossible to swim without this.
The movement in front is slow, weak
and the movement backward is fast and powerful.

Anyone who has not learned to inhibit the movement forward
will never be achieve his full ability
because he is pushing himself forward and backward.
Therefore, his speed is not the maximum.”

When I first started preparing this lesson I was confused with the ‘steps’ so I contacted Marianne to find out her interpretation…. which she gave, along with a video clip.

Apparently, in Ballerina-ese, there is a term for this move, it’s called a ‘Tour Jeté’, and it looks like this:

I’m posting the video with the thinking that once there is a visual, then perhaps, maybe, the words for this movement will make more sense.