Try Moving Series – Contrast in Movement
Life is not one static, middle-of-the-road, compromising experience. It is full of movement in opposite directions, often times simultaneously. You will aim for the moon, but if the smallest screw is misplaced the vessel, that you were relying on, could fall apart. Or perhaps you find yourself in the pits of despair and a beam of sunshine-looking-smile motivates you to get up and achieve something incredible. These contrasts work together with no particular aim, they just happen at random. It is through these contrasting experiences and emotions that we are able to identify what is meaningful. When we are able to identify what is meaningful, we can search with purpose amongst the random and contrasting events, which ones have the potential to better our physical and emotional health.
Physical
What does it mean to move in contrast? It means you can do a big movement whilst controlling the intricate details that give direction, depth and beauty to that movement. The body needs to be able to move in contrasting ways. It needs to be able to expand and stretch beyond what we could previously do, whilst mastering the subtleties of motions we already learned. It needs to be able to move both in strong sharp movements and soft flowy movements. The way your body moves is a physical manifestation of how you feel; the more movement vocabulary you have, the easier it is for us to express how you feel. The more your body is in tune with and capable of expressing your emotions the more confident you will feel to move in the space available, or use up space despite being stationary. You must be strong and agile so that you CHOOSE how and when you move, how and when you express your emotions, how and when you interact with other people.
Emotions
Contrasting emotions are emotions that differ in energy, low energy is opposite of high energy. How do you measure the amount of energy attached to an emotion? Consider how they make you move. Often times anger is associated with strong, sharp and heavy movements; happiness would be associated with light, sometimes jumpy movements full of strength. Calmness, on the other hand is associated with flowy soft movements. Indifference would be associated with drained stillness. Despite common misconceptions, happiness and anger are not actually opposites, as both are high energy emotions. Calmness is the opposite of anger; indifference is the opposite of happiness; and serenity is the opposite of sadness. When you are aware of how you move then you can adopt the physicality of your movement to guide you to how you want to feel.
Social
Our contrasting movements and contrasting emotions affect how we interact in social interactions. Consider, when do you prefer to be a leader and when do you prefer to be a follower? Why is that? How do you like to move, and how much of your emotions are you comfortable revealing, when you are in a big group as opposed to a small group of people? How do you respond to a group embracing you into their clique and how do you respond to a social rejection? When you can define these in terms of emotions and physical movement, then you are able to control and adjust so that, through your movements, you bring yourself to a confident emotional state.
Increasing your movement vocabularies and expanding on your contrasting extremes makes you stronger and more confident to face unexpected situation. This means practicing movements that are in contrast to your familiar movement, that means allowing yourself to go through uncomfortable emotions that are far outside your comfort zone, even if only so that you can practice to get yourself back to a confident state of mind. These contrasts keep life from becoming mundane, and keep challenging us to recognise what is meaningful to us. If nothing else, practice going through contrasting movements, emotions and social interactions, if only to give life some spark, some depth, and random beauty.