In Sensual Dance, we really want to connect deeply with our bodies. One of the most important images to help you do this, has to do with experiencing your own body weight.

I want you to consider gravity for a moment. There is a pushing up against us with a force equal to our body’s weight (pushing down), a considerable force that we usually ignore.

If we become aware of it, we can actually guide this force through the body.

We can actually create length and “lift” by thinking about our weight. When I say “thinking about your weight” I mean really feel it. I don’t mean let your body sag. I mean allow the balance of weight and “counterthrust” (gravity) to do it’s work most effectively without interference. Pulling you up into beautiful, statuesque poses!

Many movements in dance require “giving in to weight”. Tense muscles inhibit the experience of weight because tight muscles cannot feel.

Here are 2 exercises you can experiment with taken from the book “Dance Imagery for Technique and Performance” by Eric Franklin

1. While standing, imagine your muscles hanging on your bones. Think of this as enlivening the bones, making them more active in your upright alignment. The more your muscles hang, the more the bones thrust upwards.

2. Imagine your muscles to be fresh morning dewdrops resting on your bones Feel the weight of these drops. Imagine them slowly gliding downward and even dripping off the bones

~ Heidi Ann

sensualdanceart (at) gmail (dot) com

How would you define art? Personally, I don’t think its something that you can sum up in only a few words. I don’t even think it is something that words can describe.

But, for the sake of blogging and getting thoughts out, I would say that “art” is a very personal thing. It is how one experiences their inner world… and then how one brings THAT experience out into the physical world.

One person’s “art” may look like someone just standing there. In masterful stillness and silence. While another persons “art” may look like fast, rapid movements jutting around in a magnificent energetic furry.

What your art looks like on the outside is a direct reflection of what you experience on the inside. Not the other way around.

How deeply you are able to connect with it happens over time. The deeper you are able to go, the more profound your art will be. The more you can feel and connect with it, the more powerfully it will be communicated and seen by others.

Having good technique AND a natural ability draw on inner passion makes for a beautiful balance.

However, you can have someone with great technique, but no ability to cultivate intimate feeling, and the performance would be “nice”, but lacking in spirit.

If it’s Sensual Dance you are wanting to exhibit and embody… then you will definitely want to master improvisation.

In Sensual Dance, it is so very important to genuinely connect with your natural, most primal state of being.
Only from this state will you find the JUICY gifts that your unparalleled soul offers for the taking. Then, you can let your very own unique expression confidently shine forth in all its radiant glory, allowing your body to channel you wild spontaneous energy!

The key to tapping into this pool of wisdom is really quite simple. Yet it is perceived to be one of the most difficult tasks.

The Key is simply this…

“Melt ALL the blocks of tension within your body in order to 100% totally and completely RELAX into yourself, making your outward artistic expression easy and effortless”.

Allow your body to be a total open channel for creative energy to pulse through!

This applies to all forms of art whether you are a painter, dancer, singer, musician, actor, actress, poet,sculptor etc. etc… the same “key” is used.

There are many techniques and helpful practices that one can begin bringing into everyday life in order to embody this state of being. Which in turn allows your art to flow freely, naturally and gracefully bringing joy to both you, and those you choose to share it with.

There is so much that you can discover about yourself, and world in this process. It is a fascinating journey. One that can only be experienced by you, the artist…and expressed in your own unique way.

Let the journey begin…

~ Heidi Ann

sensualdanceart (at) gmail (dot) com

It is both esthetically and energetically pleasing to maintain beautiful posture during your Sensual Dance. This will help you to easily flow from sequence to sequence while moving in time with the music. Think of your body as a gorgeous piece of ART, an eloquent statue that can be sculpted and molded to your liking.

Using imagery in a dance class AND in every day life is extremely useful when one is learning how to re-align their body, putting it back into it’s natural eloquence.

Remember how easy it was to move about, and joyfully dance like a Butterfly, Fairy Princess or Gorilla when you where a child? THAT is your bodies natural state of being.

It’s only through emotional and physical stress that our bodies begin to tense up and constrict, creating unconscious muscle and structural patterns that get locked within our bodies and programming.

But you CAN change that… and return to that youthful stance that we see our children embodying so beautifully.

Try imagining some of these and see what shifts occur in your body.

1. Imagine air cushions between each vertebra
2. Create the longest possible length in your spine and the greatest mobility in your body.
3. See more space between heaven and earth, like clouds of spreading bones.
4. You can insert two fingers in the space at the joints of your wrist, your shoulder sockets, your hip sockets.
5. Imagine lots of toothless puppies gumming your every bone.

S – T – R – E – T – C – H

~ Heidi Ann

sensualdanceart (at) gmail (dot) com

Your posture is a direct reflection of what is going on internally (on an emotional level) and vice versa. Many of us are unaware of the fact that we are stuck, or at least we think we are, in old thought patterns and limiting perceptions. According to Indian Ayurdvedic medicine, if you want to know what thoughts you have had in your life so far, you should look at your body (Chopra 1990)

It is very easy to change your thoughts immediately by simply changing your posture.

Try this simple exercise.

Sit in a chair in a slumped/slouched position and say to yourself… “WOW! I feel GREAT! I am so ecstatically HAPPY right now!” Notice the discrepancy between your posture and your thoughts.

Now reposition your self in an vibrant upright position and say to yourself… “I’m so depressed, I feel just AWFUL.”
Again, your thoughts don’t match your posture.

We must acknowledge that our thoughts are part of a very powerful matrix that is constantly influencing our posture. Everyday we are inundated with images, words and energies that effect the way we sit, stand and walk!

To create powerful alignment, we can consciously choose constructive information and weed out the destructive thoughts.

It’s really quite simple.

In my Sensual Dance ARTistry workshops and classes I introduce powerful imagery techniques so that you can begin to replace old postural habits with new ones that will put you into direct alignment with your bodies natural eloquence and beauty, causing your emotional body to shift and change as well.

sensualdanceart (at) gmail (dot) com