Pilates & Improv

We started class of today by doing pilates. I have a love/hate relationship with pilates. I love the feeling afterward--the satisfaction of having worked really hard. But I really kind of hate doing it...it's definitely not something I would do for fun. In fact, there are some things in pilates that really bother my hip. Which means I have to modify. And I really hate having to modify. It makes me feel wimpy. But, I do what I have to do.

I really loved the rest of class, though! The first thing we did after pilates was do an improv to my favorite song to improv to! Again! :) Sister Wadsworth told us to do our improv based on whatever our current emotion was at the time. For me, it started off as just tired, but then grew into sort of a mixture of emotions....tired.....anxious.....scared.....excited......the cool thing about doing improv about my emotions is that sometimes I can't even define what they are, but I can definitely feel them very strongly. Then after that, we did an improv to another song where we were supposed to improv according to the opposite of what our current emotion is. Mine ended up being thrashy and sort of angry. It was kind of hard...especially after how much I loved doing the previous improv. But contrast is always a good way to wake me up in the morning.

Then we did a pretty cool partner improv exercise. We chose a partner, and then we just did partner improv, but one person had their eyes closed. My first partner was Justene. We work pretty well together, since we've done contact improv together quite a bit, so it was pretty easy to read what she was going to do next, and what I could kind of expect. I felt pretty unstable when I had my eyes closed...but I still completely trusted her. I actually felt kind of bad, because I was giving her all of my unstable weight. She did pretty good, though! Then we switched partners, and I went with Bianca. It was a pretty interesting improv...I could tell that she hasn't done very much partner improv, but sometimes that made for some interesting moments. It was fun when I was the one with my eyes closed though...she lifted me up a lot! I loved it! I don't get lifted very often, but I love it when I do!

The next thing we did was something I absolutely love. We did a group improv session. I was with Justene, Kamrie, Daniel, and Bianca. We had so many really cool moments! I really wish I could remember them all....I do remember one in particular, when I was sort of draped across someone's back, and then everyone else grabbed my arms and one of my legs and pulled me up to standing....it doesn't sound as cool as it was. But it was fantastic! It was just really cool...there were times when everyone else would be improv-ing together, and I would break away and sort of just dance around the group.

All in all....pretty fantastic class. Probably my favorite so far this semester :)