niki jp en
The most important is being able to stay on my inside, not being swayed so much by the outside. With various events happening, my emotions were originally intense, but being able to properly reflect on myself. Rather than reacting strongly to what someone says, the control of that has become most possible.
Physically, the most important is that menstrual pain disappeared, and hay fever was really bad but that’s also decreased to almost not feeling it.
Dance inevitably involves expression, so ultimately there’s mental motivation, but there are parts where I push myself a bit, and it’s not really adjustment. Baseworks is adjustment, or now this part of my body hurts, I can do it according to my state that day. So it’s a really good reset.
When I do it I feel refreshed, glad I came. And also coming to this studio, I like dance friends too, but people here are really open. Everyone is kind of open, not putting on airs. It’s not a competitive society, and it’s easy for me to enter.
Alignment - ribs on top of pelvis, shoulders, twisting from the chest - it’s not like seeing it and wanting to do it so doing it, and that was really good for me.
I’ve gotten injured so much, and with just dance my body was reaching its limit a bit. By doing Baseworks, the life of dance has extended, or it’s become easier to do. I definitely think that for sure.
Like what I’d been doing purely through athletic ability, youth, and muscle, by cultivating this through Baseworks, I became stronger and that’s helping.
Dance, both for ballet you do both sides evenly, but when it becomes jazz dance it’s choreography so you use one side a lot. Unbalanced, very unbalanced. Baseworks properly adjusts and does both, and the foundation is solid too. So in that sense the distortion unravels. That exists too.
Adjusting balance too, and like now this part, I can notice this part of the body isn’t moving now, or my right shoulder is weird now. A place where I can notice.
By taking Foundation I can feel Strategy somewhat, and by taking Strategy I can notice the importance of Foundation. It feels a bit like a spiral staircase.
And because I’m teaching, I can’t put it into words without experiencing it myself. Even if I get great words from teachers, if I can’t embody it myself I can’t convey it. So I come.
I don’t want to take from a teacher who became a teacher and stopped practicing. That kind of value system. My dance teachers too are mostly at studios where they take their own lessons. I can respect that, so I want to learn.
I often teach people who do dance, and flexible people are many, but with just that you get injured. So I think strength, inner intensity is strength. In that sense, building strength.
Dance ultimately doesn’t use the arms much, doesn’t really use around here as a foundation. So in that sense, many people have strong lower bodies and weak upper bodies. So in that sense Baseworks is really working on it.
If I want to go deeper today I can go deeper, or if today I can’t I can do it shallower - being allowed to do it at my own pace, thinking about what kind of practice to do because I’m tired today, there’s that choice.
No wavering in what they’re trying to convey. It’s different from just moving the body to be satisfied with style. It’s real, or gets to the essence.
Moving with consciousness and moving without consciousness just doing it by sight - I feel the reaction inside the body is different. The spine, many men are quite stiff, so it extends. And after that they sleep very deeply. When I hear things like that, I think ah, maybe it’s a necessary time for these people.
And really busy kids at work, when they continue, I feel them become a bit calmer. Ultimately sympathetic nerves are dominant, but by Baseworks the sympathetic nerves are properly created, or they relax. Body and heart relax.
I used to be very emotional. Like “why can’t you do it?” But by doing Baseworks, because I could feel the sympathetic nerves properly, rather than just getting angry, how can I convey it so these people understand, or even if they don’t understand today, someday they will - I became able to wait.
Students I’ve known for a long time say “teacher, you don’t get angry anymore.”