“…Without losing stature” has become my new catch-phrase with students. While it’s just another way of saying “think not to pull down,” somehow the concept of stature – a spatial idea, and something that we could measure – seems particularly helpful. As Frank Pierce Jones observed in his studies of sit-to-stand, when a student is guided by a teacher, the student’s spine measurably lengthens during activity, so perhaps we should aim to gain stature, but that seems to veer dangerously close to endgaining, so for now I’ll stick to maintaining the length that is already there.
To illustrate what it might be like to be poised yet free without losing stature, I offer this video, brought to my attention by Linda Austin and Jeff Forbes from Performance Works Northwest. Good find!
