Week 4 - Monday 11th February 2013

This week we worked mostly on the idea of our bodies moving in a circular motion, this included looking at all the joints in the body which are shaped like a ball and designed to move spherically. We began the session by lying on the floor, moving the legs to start off with, and towards the end of the warm up we had completed circles using our legs, feet, arms, wrists, head and shoulders. Some of my joints were stiffer than others and were not able to move as freely. We worked in pairs to warm up some of the joints, particularly the shoulders, we moved these in relation to our legs, as one leg bent and circled across the other, we were asked to extend our arm in the opposite direction, our partners guided our arms so that we were in a safe position and to have more of an awareness of what our bodies were doing. As well as this, we massaged each others shoulders and the flesh around the shoulder blade, trying to locate different features of the shoulder. This was good at releasing a lot of the tension that naturally builds up in this area.

We then worked as a class to look at a model of a human skeleton.

We looked at some of the major bones within the body which we use everyday, and those which are focused on within movement. We named the bones as a group and located these within our own bodies, becoming familiar with where they are located and their size in relation to other parts of the body.

I found the position of the spine especially confusing, it was hard for me to visualise my own spine being so centred within my body! No wonder so much importance is placed on finding your centre, that's where everything is.

We looked at the design within the ribs, and how a lot of it is connected by cartilage because of the importance of breathing and how much change this causes within our bodies. We focused on our breathing and how much the shape of our rib cage changes.



Another thing to note is the shape of the pelvis, it is almost like a bowl, this was interesting as we all stood up and worked with the pelvis which we had never done before. We imagined the bowl (pelvis) was full of water, it was fascinating to see how mobile the pelvis is, something which I once thought was very ... stuck?

I was even more surprised when we looked in detail at the foot. The lack of bones in such a delicate part of the body astounds me. Some people thought that the whole foot would be made from one big bone, I imagined it to be made up of dozens of little bones. The fact that each toe, even the little one, extends right into the centre of the foot was unbelievable. We massaged our feet a great deal, trying to work the space between the bones and to find the bones of the toes and create circles with these.

This was mildly related to the exercise done previously where we warmed up our feet and toes by jumping and stretching, I now understand just how much of my body was being warmed up even though I didn't know or realise it at the time. I wonder if my hand and fingers are the same inside as the feet? I can't imagine they are because they are even more mobile than the feet.



Peggy Hackney's book Making Connections states that "Your hand contains 27 bones with innumerable articular surfaces" (Page 157). I found this a few weeks after the workshop where we looked at the human body and found it interesting how different the hands and feet are, even though I imagined them to be the same at one point in my life. 



Hancock Museum - 12th February 2013

As part of the idea looking at skeletons, we were asked to visit the Hancock Museum in Newcastle to look at different types of skeletons and how they differ or mirror those of a human. Whilst in the museum, I found the skeletons of a very large deer and a tyrannosaurus rex.

Deer

One of the most interesting things about the skeleton of the deer was the spine. It consists mainly of one curve just above the rib cage which allows the head to be held upright. As well as this, in comparison to the human spine, the greatest vertebrae are located at the bottom of the neck, this is in order to provide support for such a great weight from the antlers. Other notable features are the elongated toe bones which we possess, only those of the deer are bent at the bottom. The deer too has a bowl like pelvis only is it the opposite way to that of a human skeleton! Both of the skeletons include a shoulder blade which is very triangular and pointed.

T-Rex

The skeleton of the t-rex was incredible! Firstly, the sheer size of the bones, one vertebrae was almost the same size as my head, if not bigger. Similarities between the skeleton of the t-rex and a human were the number of curves in the spine, at different points the spine begins to curve inward and outward. Also, the biggest vertebrae were located in the centre, where most of the weight was.  The hip bones of the t-rex were very unusual, from what I remember they weren't connected immediately through a pelvis, instead they would have been capable of moving independently from one another! Again, the t-rex had a triangular shaped shoulder blade which was pointed.

 Overall I found that the skeletons of all three were relatively similar, the major difference was the size of the bones, and considering how different all of the creatures are, that is very remarkable. This reassures me that our bones are designed in a way that is best for us and I should trust my bodies abilities a lot more in future.