The role of abstract models

The role of abstract models is the third a posteriori theme found to be associated with constructive activity. It refers to the way unique concepts were used by participants when clarifying their conceptualization of what happens during their movement. It emerged that the function of abstract models or concepts when studying movement shapes participants’ ability to promote the conceptualization of what happens during that movement. Abstract models on the body were used by all participants in this study, although the aerobics instructors had a very different way of making use of them compared with the contemporary and Middle-eastern dancers.

Contemporary dancers used a range of concepts through which to understand their movement. Abstract models enable the performer to conceptualize what happens, when it happens. Ursula cultivated a particular kind of knowledge about the body through her way of thinking about balance…

Some movements are grounded. Ballet works against groundedness…and some people are too grounded… Grounded isn’t good or bad. It’s about being in balance. It depends where you are. It can be good, if you tend to be losing a sense of reality…you want to come down to stabilize…but if someone’s depressed or too grounded or inert, you would want to get them up off the ground (Ursula).

Ursula used the idea of balance to conceptualize a relationship between psychological affect and aspects of physical posture. This is achieved by using the concept of ‘balance’ metaphorically. The relationship between affect and posture she described here provides an integrated perspective on the psychophysical by bringing body and mind into the same phenomenological order. This model enabled Ursula to understand her own experience and contextualize it within very broad and (human) species specific parameters about the nature of mind.

Stella suggested that being in touch with the body represented a basic spiritual condition of being human. Maintaining that spiritual condition was central to the way she understood her movement. Thyra described a similar idea when suggesting that her dance enabled her to bring her experience of body and mind into a closer relationship…

[In ballet training] you learn to hold the spine very erect and use it more or less as one piece […] In modern dance and post-modern [it’s] about being able to experience every millimetre in succession, so there’s no place for rigidity, you need to have fluidity in your body [and…] I suppose in a general way it tells me about the depth of myself the inner depth of my experiencing, and it tells me that all my experience is grounded in my body, so I’m not a body that I train for a certain goal. My ‘self’ is an integrated body-mind experience…[and] I am physically adept, graceful, strong, flexible, reflexive, responsive, alive, present, expressive […and] probably in terms of ordinary social experience I feel a lot more expressive than other people (Thyra).

Thyra used an abstract concept to formulate the relationship between the body and experience that described how that relationship occurs. Her model is premised by the proposition that mind and body can be brought closer together. She then facilitates closeness through greater attention to every millimetre in succession during movement. This activity of thought provides a point of view that is felt by her to be more authentic, more awake and potentially the best place from which to dance…

What is it that you know that makes your body more ‘awake’ than mine?

Well intention is always central…my intention over many years is to awaken the experience of my body…[so] there are places I’ve been to that you haven’t because no- one’s probably given you permission or set that intention for you…it’s like someone has to shine a torch for you down a certain path before you’ll walk it…(Thyra).

The body for Thyra is like an unknown resource until we are given an opportunity to experience every millimetre. This ideas pre-empts what has been brought together under the second metacode referred to as ‘The body reservoir’. However, here it clarifies the ideas that guide awareness of that reservoir. All the contemporary dancers used abstract models of some kind to think about the relationship between body and mind.

Not all Middle-eastern dancers had a clear understanding of the abstract models they used to understand their movement, but they created abstract concepts about their body from their movement experience. For example, Noni understood her dance in the context of its rhythm and how that compares with nature and art. Through such metaphors she was able to apprehend what her kinaesthetic experience revealed to her about her body image…

The thing that moves me most about the dance is actually the flow through the whole body. The change in flow and the shapes you get. I like drawing arabesques along the ground and in the air, and there are also fast percussive movements, when the music indicates, that are a shaking of the hips […] and they wobble and flutter […] like grain shaking on stems […] It’s like painting…

It’s physical enjoyment the way a kid enjoys being swung on a swing […] It’s like you’re being swung on a swing or you’re in your mother’s arms rocked. You’re actually getting that rocking sensation (Noni)

Kinaesthetic experience provides the sensory experience through which Noni understands what she does. She did not use the term kinesthetic perception, but was able to focus upon it through metaphoric ideas that provided resemblance.

Tina was very much more interested in the visual metaphors to conceptualize her movement. These metaphors had a relationship to the languid quality in Arabic rhythms that she translated into visual concepts…

I like to use the Uzbecki proverb that says, ‘the willow bends and the oak explodes’ […] the Arabic thing is the willow, it just flows out […] And when I’m preparing for a performance […] I always say ‘body like toffee on a hot day’ or ‘arms falling like rose petals through water’. And those images are soft and long […] when I’m teaching I say ‘imagine that your arms are resting on incense that is coming up from the floor’ and so the arms are resting on that smoke and they float on that smoke, so it’s a response to something else (Tina)

This participant’s visual imagery changed her ideas about her movement. Her images translate the kinesthetic quality of the dance into thoughts that can assist practice. Three Middle-eastern dancers characterized their movement through terminology derived from their study of the Alexander technique. The Alexander technique is bodywork system that aims to improve insight into the relationship between body parts, and into the relation of the whole body to gravity and its physical alignment. On the basis of this discourse, Eileen gave centrality to the importance of “spinal alignment”, which gave her a physical and conceptual focus for improving her movement proficiency. Faith put greater emphasis on “feeling grounded”. This was demonstrated by the attention she gave to her centre of gravity, which she located from the waist down to the hips.

Fiona understood her movement as work with “weight”, “gravity” and “momentum” toward “minimum effort”.

All aerobic instructors used the cardiovascular system as the primary abstract concept through which to understand their movement. Stephanie was the only aerobics instructor who made use of other abstract ideas such as “body comfort”, “symmetry” and “an efficiency of movement”…

I think my movements indicate a certain neatness or efficiency of movement […] As far as body comfort is concerned you don’t want to be going from one movement that suddenly changes direction, or suddenly use a new plane, unless you gradually move into it through a more simple move […] I try to emphasize [neatness] in aerobics [...] There’s also the feel of going in one direction and then flowing back and having a smooth transition in the middle so you feel like you’re evening out (Stephanie)

Stephanie’s use of abstract ideas like body comfort refers directly to proprioception and the study of human biomechanics. Her knowledge of these ideas had been established in a prior profession in which knowledge about human biomechanics played a central part. Her abstract concepts thereby indicate that she has a very specific way of thinking about the anticipatory plans giving structure to her routines. The other aerobics instructors were able to describe how they conducted their routines, the qualities that gave their routines a professional edge while being enjoyable for their clients, but they did not have abstract concepts like comfort to think through their routines.