Ideokinesis

This is something that I picked up at l'école nationale de cirque in Montreal. (a great school which is not the property of the cirque du soleil, even if Guy Caron, the first artistic director of CDS was also a founding member of the school.)

The basic idea of ideokinesis, taught by Valerie Dean is dealing with mind body connectivity. If you can create physical stress with certain thoughts, how about reducing physical tension and increasing mobility and efficiency with it?

You can find a teacher for ideokinosis IF you are lucky.

However, I am going to put out some notes Valerie gave me over 10 years ago that I still use. You can try it yourself. It seems odd, but it works.

First, lie on the floor in the creative rest position you see on the page of http://www.ideokinesis.com/

Do these visualizations seriously, and take time to really visualize them. See if you notice a difference afterwards.

The work on the 9 lines of direction -

1. To lengthen spine downward.

a- imagine your buttocks as unbaked loaves of bread. Imagine them sliding downward towards your heels.
b- Imagine your trunk as a sandwich with 3 layers. Watch back layer sliding downward.

2. To widen across back of pelvis.
a- imagine your pelvis as an accodian with handles on the side of the pelvis. Watch accordion being opened wide in back to remove pleats.
b- Watch buttocks as separate loaves of soft unbaked dough flatten on floor from their own weight, flowing sideways away from each other to widen the space between them.

3. Center of knee to Center of femoral joint.
Imagine a broomstick rod. It starts at the center of the knee, and goes into the center of the socket. Sink it into the deep center of the socket.
- Imagine an uncomplete and uncooked doughnut. It is unattached to the broomstick but goes around it.
- Complete the doughnut, locking it on, but free to move.
- Carefully move the doughnut, sliding it slowly and carefully down to the bottom of the rod without destroying its form.

4. To narrow the rib cage.
-Visualise the rib cage inside shoulders as large fat prune, extending from base of neck to level of lowest ribs.
-Watch it wrinkle all over to shrink away from shoulder towards the center, that that it is reduced to a broomstick shape. (morph it.)

5. to narrow across front of pelvis
-like in number 2, use the accordeon. This time watch the front pleats closing together.

6. From the big toe to the heel.
-watch a small turtle crawling back slowly from inside big toe to inside of heel.

7. To shorten distance between mid-front of the pelvis and 12th thorasic vertebrae
-imagine lumbar vertabrae as caterpiller stretched out. See the caterpiller in preparation for movement, but leave the belly parallel to floor. In this way it integrates itself for movements.

Spine goes like this: - - - - - to _---_

8. From top of sternum to the top of spine.
-visualise a skull cap in back of head. Watch it moving over top of head to reach level of eyebrows.

9. To lengthen the central axis of body upward.

a. imagine neck growing like an alice in wonderland neck to raise the head higher and higher.

b. imagine the head is a helium filled balloon - lighter than air. It naturally slowly rises, thus slowly take yourself to standing via the floating of the helium. Walk sit and continue floating around the office, home, and notice the difference it makes.
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I am NOT a teacher, but had the luck of working with a very good one, and this exercise has helped me improve my movement tremendously in circus school. It might sound kooky, but if you put in your 10 minutes a day, bet you notice a difference at the end of the week. Compare feelings before and after, and you will be pleased. I recommend the studies if you can find a teacher.