Free and Bound

On Tuesday, February 14 I taught a lesson about free and bound flow to Ms. Rossiter's second graders. This lesson went over very well with these students. The image of water rushing out of a faucet or down a river bed worked well for free flow. I didn't have a particularly good image for bound flow but we talked about it being controlled or having a stop in the movement like if you turned off the water faucet. An action word that worked particularly well for bound movement was dodge. I talked about the tense muscles and the controlled changing of weight that they needed to dodge. It appeared that they really understood this form of bound flow and they were committed to the movement. Also, I did the boundland/freeland activity with them and I was impressed by the clarity with which they moved between free and bound.

One of the main purposes of this lesson was to help the students understand how to control their bodies. Ms. Rossiter mentioned that she would like them to understand that they have the power to control what their bodies do. Sometimes students will act out or mess around because they feel an impulse to do so, but we believe it will be helpful for them to understand that they can choose to act on that impulse or choose not to. I see that dance is powerful in helping people to learn to move in different ways and therefore they have better control over their bodies, but I think I need to make it more explicit to these students that they have the power to decide when to move and how to move. At the end of class we did talk about times when it is appropriate to move bound and times when it is appropriate to move free. One student said it was appropriate to have bound flow while driving. I thought that was an interesting and insightful answer and I commented on the fact that in situations like driving if we do not move appropriately we can hurt other people and ourselves.

I was pleased with how class went on this day and I hope that they are retaining some of the valuable life skills that I'm trying to teach through dance.