A good day at the office!

Firstly thank you Helen for your response to my 11th September post.... it is a big step from being used to doing what you do to challenging everything that you do and doing things differently as a consequence.  

However; today was a real leap of faith and so positive on so many levels - I had to deal with a ballet class of partied out students who had their Fresher's party last night... I was pleasantly surprised by how focussed they were, but I was challenged by a very slippery floor and no live music.  I took the decision to focus on the legs and feet, as I am aware that I correct lots of different things in a lesson and sometimes the students find it hard to work on everything at once.  One thing led to another and we got to the point where I felt it appropriate to discuss imagery with them in more depth than ever before - actually to stop the class and discuss and experiment.

I had been re-reading and Psychology of Dance on Wednesday night, documenting what jumped out at me and their suggestion of attaining imagery ability seemed appropriate to where we were in the class, along with ascertaining external and internal imaging as a subconscious preference.

So I asked all the students to lie down, close their eyes and visualise an orange, as suggested, recognising everything about it and asked them how easy or difficult they found it.  Responses varied from feeling they could taste it, to realising they were imaging the actual orange they had eaten 2 weeks ago to not seeing an orange at all.

Next I asked them to imagine themselves doing a pirouette and we talked after this - some realised that they were internal imagers, others external imagers and a few a mix of both - with the student who saw the 2 week old orange seeing herself in the mirror in a past class. Interestingly this student struggles to retain new work so we pondered that perhaps she needs to 'reframe' her imaging to new and current events and what is happening at the time rather than in the past in order to improve her capacity to learn new work.  She went on to explain that she sees photographs of things in her mind and can then recall everything she saw in the photograph - a true photographic memory.  Useful for many things I am sure, but evidently not so powerful within immediate retention.

The student who had trouble seeing an orange of any sort also reported that she just went through the names of the steps in her head without seeing herself at all.  Another explained that she saw someone else, always the same person, executing the step perfectly.  We discussed whether or not it might be valuable to aim to replace the perfect other being with herself.

Two students voiced that imaging a pirouette led to fear – which manifested in tension in one and a funny feeling in her tummy in another.  We discussed how that can lead into actual pirouetting and becomes a learned reflex or reaction to the step and how to replace the ‘negative self-talk’ with more positive thoughts.  One said she cannot imagine turning to the left at all – some sort of block about it.  Another said that she has a positive outlook when imaging yet can be very hard on herself and negative when something goes wrong in practice.  I mentioned setting themselves up for class by making positive statements before they start and checking back in with themselves at the end of class to see if anything was different.  I also reassured them all that they would need to practice imaging and not to expect overnight change. 

Finally I asked them to imagine themselves performing a role they would love to perform.  My orange deprived student saw the person who plays the role playing the role and not herself, whilst some students found it easier – one in particular who found it easier than the others as she said she loves performing.  I suggested that she might aim to realise the connection between technical achievements to that love of performance in order to reach her full potential. 

I gently suggested to the student who clearly has poor imaging skills that it might improve with practice outside the studio, and explained the notion of 2/3 physical doing, 1/3 mental rehearsal being seen as a good balance.

It was fascinating to hear their responses and I think they started to realise (they are in the first term of their second year of training) how different they are and how learning to dance is so much more than being in a studio and doing steps.  The class concluded with more discussion about positivity, the power of the mind and some of the other elements involved in becoming a dancer such as focus, concentration and drive which I explained we would be looking at next week when I ask them to fill out profiles for me.  

They all felt that imagery was important, and some of them voiced just how fascinating they found it all, thinking in new ways.  They were grateful for being considered as individuals, and some went on to tell me about CBT they had undertaken as we had touched on how close to CBT positive thinking is.  I found them open, honest, mature, engaged and interesting.  I appreciated their sharing with me and hope that they may be able to progress in a productive manner.  I also learned about them as learners and hope that this may assist me within helping them attain their goals.  I cannot claim to have all the answers but today seemed to trigger lots of thought within the students which can only be a good thing.

All in all – a good day at the office!