Thread: Breathing Into a Movement

I notice at various workshops over the years, some instructors ask you to breathe into a movement, while others encourage only muscle/skeleton to achieve the full movement. What are your thoughts on this teachers? I am from the school of yes breathing takes place, but muscle/skeleton is king and you should be able to talk/breathe normally and do any move.

Discuss amongst yourselves...

it depends on the move and the moment in the music - some moves seem incomplete with out the breath - some would seem silly connected to a breath, sooooo both

The simple mechanics of most moves can be separated from breathing, but teachers emphasize breath for two main reasons.

1. Beginners sometimes concentrate so hard on what they are learning that they forget to breathe and get lightheaded or cramp up and give themselves a side stitch. This seems to be a particular problem with long shimmy and hip drills.

2. Breathing can make the difference between flailing about and dancing. Many students come into this dance without previous experience, and often have never had the importance of breathing technique formally explained to them. How breathing affects movement may be unconscious to the truly great, intuitive dancers, but the rest of us clodhoppers need a little help figuring it out. (I had been studying over a year before I heard anything about breathing technique, and that was at a workshop with Mesmera.) If you have ever been in a mixed-level class and looked around the room at a group of dancers who are all doing the same slow arm raise, yet some of them are simply lifting their arms while others are making magic, breathing technique is part of what the first group is missing. (Muscle tension is the other part.) Dancers who don't have a lot of formal dance experience and/or aren't especially intuitive need to train themselves to be aware of their breathing, particularly when dancing to slow music or taqsims, because this is what makes the performance look alive and emotional instead of flat and mechanical. Once you master the technique of marrying breathe to movement, it should become less cognitive and more a natural part of how you move to music.

Originally Posted by s1dur1_sab1tu

I notice at various workshops over the years, some instructors ask you to breathe into a movement, while others encourage only muscle/skeleton to achieve the full movement. What are your thoughts on this teachers? I am from the school of yes breathing takes place, but muscle/skeleton is king and you should be able to talk/breathe normally and do any move.

Discuss amongst yourselves...

Technical explanation helps people understand what is happening physically to create the movement. Contract this, twist that, turn here, etc. etc. But you need to be very aware of your breath in every move or it just can't be executed properly.

If you hold your breath, it doesn't matter what move you do, no matter how simple, it looks stiff and affected. Breathing is as much a part of movement as anything and when dancers are learning a new move, they always hold their breath. Myself included. Good instructors remind students to breathe, and great instructors teach how to breathe in any given movement. I find myself shouting "breathe! breathe! Exhale!" both to myself and my students very frequently. So...I would actually disagree, muscle/skeleton is not King, its the basics. Breathing is what makes the difference.

Rania is not only the Queen of Baladi, she is also the Queen of breathing. If you ever get a chance to take her "Sharing the Air" workshop (if she is still doing them) you must. It will change your dancing forever.

I can't remember who it was, but I took a workshop once where the instructor just went over the basic mechanics of the move and then spent most of the time yelling "I want to smell the garlic on your breath!!" LOL! ..l;,

another breath person here. I actually teach a workshop on how becoming conscious of your breath and using it deliberately will improve your dancing, both for yourself and for your audience. it helps your lyricism, grace, flow, depth and strength of movement, and will keep you fully inhabited within the dance and the music.

not much to add to the excellent posts above, technique-wise. the body wants to breath in concert with movement. just slowly raise your arms over your head and notice how the breath wants to come in. lower your arms and the breath wants to come out.

Interesting stuff, thanks for sharing! I think I do actually breath into some of my movements, but I will have to pay closer attention to my breathing and see what it is I'm doing exactly.

Elisa, let me know if you're going to be in the mid west teaching anywhere, your workshop sounds fascinating.

Thanks,

KS