Balance

I feel like a lot of the skills we have been working on in class focus on finding a balance. Whether it is finding an internal balance of your body weight to maintain a pose, or balancing a cup on our heads, or balancing two different rhthyms of a chant against each other, finding that balance takes a central role. I have been struggling with finding ways to keep an internal balance in order to correctly mimic the dance steps we have been doing. Having a cup on my head was a great physical reminder of needing to strive to find that balance. The cup made me constantly think about my posture, the flow of my movements, and whether I was staying composed. It has also made me start thinking about my posture outside of the class...this is something that I don't think about that much, but really makes such a difference in the way that people perceive you, as well as the airflow throughout your body. Sitting in front of computers all day, or hunched over books really does not help me have good posture. But now that I am thinking about it more, I am making an effort to always think about having a plastic cup on my head, and help out my body by keeping as good of posture as possible.

I think my favorite part of class this week was when we learned the song/chant. Truthfully, I don't really remember it at all right now, but I'm sure if I heard it I would pick it right back up again. I am a very visual learner, so when we work on it again I am going to write it down. Music from these kinds of cultures is one of the aspects that really captivated me and made me want to be in this class. I also think the language itself is beautiful and sounds very meditative and pensive to me. When we watched the recording of the Ramayana, I liked how there was a character who was a kind of mediator, looking down at all the characters and singing out the story of Rama. This character seemed very Godly to me, as if he was conducting the whole show with his unveiling of the action through song.