Daily Movement Prompts, Friday, February 3, 2017 edition: Humor to Remember Things
Do you ever make up silly phrases or stories to try to memorize things? For example, I need to have some dance choreography memorized that was written by someone else. I started making silly stories around the various sections, sometimes based on the movements, sometimes based on the overall presentation. There’s the moves that beckon and then look away, beckon, look away. That turned into an imaginary story, “Chocolate for me? Oh no, I couldn’t. Wait, give me chocolate? Oh noes….” The next section continued the story, “I eat a chocolate with this hand! now the other hand! now both hands!” followed by, “I fall over from all the sugar, then spin in circles on a sugar high, now I stand still and fan myself from all the spinning.” That’s not really what we’re doing, but it got us laughing and it make the sequence easier to remember.
I look at long yoga sequences and I imagine I would like do the same thing. I’ve taken Tai Chi several times, and I want to try this technique when I come back to memorizing the Long Form (104 moves or so). I think that having a silly story that progresses will make the movement easier (and more fun!) to remember for me.
Do any of your movements and activities lend themselves to memorized sequences? Have you ever made exercise or movement easier by adding humor?
How are you moving today?