Dance -- Subtle Movements

It is great to get off a plateau, as I have written. For about three weeks, I have been taking modern dance classes at Martha Graham Contemporary Dance School in Manhattan. It has been fun. She was a wizard. look her up online.

I love connecting my body to my emotions, which is raw and refined at the same time. You get a newfound respect for your body, and connect the spirit, mind and body once more. you also respect and love your fellow classmates. they are so beautiful. You get how discipline can lead to freedom, which is what she said in a tape of her that I saw at the Tisch School of Arts floor of the Elmer Bobst Library of New York University.

With subtle movements, you work muscle fibers you never worked before and get off plateaus. You equally work the right and left side of your body, which strengthens and elongates the spine and works on your core and balance. You of course also work out your extremities.

Here are some moves for this balance:

Sit on the floor. Place your left heal in front of the middle of your hips. Bend the right knee the other way so that your right ankle is next to your right buttock to the side behind you. Keep your arms out on either side at shoulder height. Turn starting from your pelvis and then waist about an inch or two only to the right. Let your shoulders and then head follow until you are looking over your right shoulder. Those subtle slow inches do wonders for pelvis, oblique and back muscles. Try it and then do the same on the reverse.

Stand with legs shoulder width apart and feet parallel. Keep your arms at your side with palms facing your hips. Do not let your arms dangle. Turn your waist, then ribs, then shoulders, then head one or two inches to the right. Repeat for the left side. Now repeat both sides with your feet turned out so that your heels touch.

My third book, Pocket Guide to Fitness, is available on http://www.authorhouse.com and http://www.amazon.com. If you look up my name on those Web sites, you will find my other books The Boy in a Wheelchair and Life, Work and Play: Poems and Short Stories. These two books are on my Web site http://www.louizapatsis.com.