Port de Bras

Port de Bras is the passage/carriage of the arms in ballet.

As a dancer, I have worked bloody hard on my arms, because it is often the torso that the audience (un-knowingly) looks at.  The torso when well-trained, has fluidity, immense grace, a sense of expressive-ness that even a person not versed in dance, can relate to.  As I have terrible feet, I distract on stage, with the upper half of my body.

I'm really proud of my port de bras  God gave me flat feet, but He also gave me long, sinewy arms, a neck with length and broad shoulders.  I can convey heartbreak, hope, anger, fear with my arms.  I can twist, turn, bend, reach, lift.  On stage, every movement I make with my hands, my arms, no matter how insignificant, is done with purpose and thought.

So for the last ten years struggling with riding, it has been extremely frustrating to not know what to do with my arms and hands.

For ten years, I have been told- Lower your hands!  Lift your elbows!  Lower your elbows!  Lift your hands!  Pretend that you are carrying a tea tray and don't spill anything! Bend your elbows!

The one instruction I detest most?  Play with the bit!  Play with the bit!

When I teach dance, I tell my students to think of the arms beginning deep in the back, and then fanning out, like wings of a bird of prey.  I say, think of the energy reaching beyond your fingertips.  To make them laugh, because laughter is so needed in effective learning, I say, Birds of prey please, not a domestic bird!

And then I say as what one teacher once said to me- Hold your arms, and they will hold you.

***

Day 3 at Camp Nowhere, the World Renown Teacher sticks her fingers in my armpit, deep into my back.  She places her hands beneath both my elbows and tells me to press down against her.  Then the assistant teacher places her hands on the top of my fists that are wrapped around the reins.  I am asked to push up against her.  And lastly, to move my fists forward, to feel as if I am feeling the horse's mouth, and to resist against an imaginary wall.

I can feel my entire back engaged in the above instruction.  Everything is making more sense, because now, my arms, finally have a place to go.;'

Philosophically, I get it now.  It is not about riding light and bright.  It is about moving with an inner strength that can propel a more powerful animal forward from beneath you with the lightest of touch, as well as curtail its unexpected blast of energy.

The "bearing down" is like a Graham contraction.  It is about oppositional forces, isolating the muscles to work the body as a whole.


I am asked for feedback.  What strikes you most about yesterday, today?  What are you feeling?

I say I need more time, to practise, practise, practise. 

I say, I feel like a martial artist.

I say, I feel I am going off to battle.

In my mind, going around in circles with the little horse, I no longer think what I used to think- shoulders, hips, ankles in one line.  Instead, now I think of Bruce Lee, and try and hold my body, like his.

photo credit-  Googled.